CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Shortly after Gov. Mike DeWine took office in January 2019, a former DeWine campaign staffer called the new governor to express concern about appointing Sam Randazzo to chair the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
We’re asking why DeWine ignored the red flags on Today in Ohio.
Listen online here. See the automated transcript at the bottom of the post.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editor Leila Atassi, editorial board member Lisa Garvin and content director Laura Johnston.
You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up for free by sending a text to 216-868-4802.
Here are the questions we’re answering today:
How is Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s selection of Sam Randazzo at the state’s utility chief looking more and more suspicious, especially now that FirstEnergy has admitted bribing Randazzo with millions of dollars?
With the Ohio Supreme Court considering contempt citations for Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and other Republican leaders, what might that look like, based on Ohio history and what has happened in other states?
How is Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish’s nomination of union chief Dave Wondolowski playing out with community organizations with sharp memories of Wondolowski’s role in trying to torpedo the candidacy of Justin Bibb for Cleveland mayor?
What did Black judges tell us the long-term ramifications might be for children growing up today from the confirmation of the nation’s first Black woman U.S. Supreme Court justice?
How did the death rate in Ohio compare to the rest of the nation during the pandemic, and where does Cuyahoga County stand?
What did people who filled out a survey about a year ago say about what our priorities should be in Cuyahoga County in building a new jail?
Laura is chronicling her thoughts as she endures a pretty substantial renovation to her Rocky River house, and she charmed readers with the tale of its history this weekend. Who was the original owner, Laura, and why do so many people remember her? And what was up with the green carpet?
It’s still two years away, but how rare will the coming celestial phenomenon be when it occurs in 2044? When was the last one, and when will the next one be?
We reported more than a week ago about the theft of a $20,000 guitar owned by a prominent musician. So we wondered, what makes a guitar worth $20,000? Courtesy of a story be freelancer Zachary Lewis, now we know. What’s the answer?
What is going on in the Rock Hall’s big Beatles weekend that kicked off Thursday night?
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris: [00:00:00] Tragic story on Sunday of Isaiah Andrews, who spent 45 years in prison for killing his wife, protesting all the time, finally proved his innocence. And just a month ago was declared completely innocent and ability to get his reparations from the state. And he died before it could do so. It’s very, very sad.
This guy lost his entire life and spent most of it blamed for the death of his wife, which was not on him. It’s today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the plain dealer. I’m Chris Quinn on a Monday with Layla Tasi, Laura Johnston, and Lisa Garvin is called yesterday to get outside
Lisa: only, only enough to go back in.
I
Laura: got warm playing tennis in the afternoon, but I had lacrosse games in the morning and I was like, I’m wearing two coats and it’s April 10th. This seems
Chris: wrong. You weren’t you weren’t playing lacrosse.
Laura: I was watching my son’s [00:01:00] lacrosse game. It’s not hockey season anymore.
Chris: Okay. Let us begin. How is Ohio governor Mike DeWine selection of Sam Randazzo is the state’s utility chief looking more and more suspicious, especially now that first energy has admitted bribing rim Daza with millions of dollars.
Laura, this, this circle keeps tightening around our
Laura: gut. It does. I mean, he was warned before he appointed Rendazo he was given an entire dossier on him and DeWine spokesman has as corroborated this, but a former Dwan campaign staffer named JB had, and he’s an attorney. He called DeWine to express his concern about appointing Randazzo to chair.
The public utilities commission of Ohio then had met with the chief of staff and three other DeWine staffers on January 28th, 2019. This is days after he called to lay out those concerns and. He still appointed him about a week later. Anyway,
Chris: what’s [00:02:00] amazing about this they’ll hire capital journal did a story that talked about a part of this.
And what we published over the weekend was a fairly big expansion of it. He had strong advice. Don’t do this. Put him in, he has too many ties. There’s something wrong with this guy. And he put him in any way, despite knowing all of that. And they’re giving these feeble excuses now, like, well, you know, that wasn’t very credible.
Obviously it was more than credible. The guy ended up being a crook, even though he’s not charged with a crime yet. Uh, and, and the wine looks terrible here. He, he knew not to do it. He did it anyway. What does that say for Mike Dwayne’s relationship with first name?
Laura: I mean, his whole thing is, well, we thought that was in the past.
We, we understood that he was coming out of retirement and there was some concern that JB hadn’t was not completely genuine in his concern because he was doing work for AEP, which is a different utility that’s involved with dark [00:03:00] money groups. You know, has his own thing here, but it, you know, they had this 198 page dossier, two binders worth of documents, which claim to show evidence of Rendazzo’s opaque, undisclosed financial ties to first energy ahead, court cases, tax documents, other information that was collected by impoundments of Rendazo, including environmental groups.
They didn’t explicitly accuse Rendazo receiving the bribes, but said he was funneling money from a first energy subsidy through, or, sorry. Subsidiary through a secret company to buy real estate like that, to me, raises enough flags that you’re like, you know what? There are 11 million people in Ohio. I could probably find somebody better to head what is supposed to be keeping all of the residents of Ohio safe.
And fair from their utilities. And we now
Chris: know that at the very time he was thinking about this rent DASA was getting $4 million. That first energy says it was a bribe. In addition to what another 10 million, they were paying him for some kind of services [00:04:00] rendered in this you’re right. The red flags are everywhere.
Why not go with somebody with no red flags? But the fact that he stuck with him is very telling, I wish the federal prosecutors would finally. The additional indictments that are sure to come, because if there are any more revelations about Mike Duane’s relationship with first energy, the voters should know before November when he’s up for reelection.
I completely
Laura: agree. And it just another thing that you’re just like, why is Sam Randazzo not charged here? Why is Chuck Jones not charged? It is frustrating to wait this long. It’s going to be what, two years in July. And we’re waiting, still waiting for that other shoe to drop. I don’t know. I think the more we learn about this, the shadier, it seems, and, and, and, you know, we’ve never talked about like Dwayne specifically as being like overly loyal.
Like he seems to surround himself with people who generally know what they’re doing, but this one just, it makes no
Chris: sense. No, it makes no sense unless there’s some kind [00:05:00] of sinister relationship that we still have yet to see you’re listening to today in Ohio. With the Ohio Supreme court, considering contempt citations for Ohio, governor Mike DeWine and other Republican leaders.
What might that look like based on Ohio history and what has happened in other states? Lisa, it’s pretty clear that my dream of these guys sitting in orange jumpsuits in a jail cells not to be, but what are the potential results of a contempt site?
Lisa: Well, the bottom line is Chris is that Supreme court judges in the state level are pretty reluctant to hold anybody in contempt of court.
And that especially goes for other branches of government due to, you know, the separation of powers. They don’t want to look like they’re, you know, doing that. Uh, but when lawmakers are threatened with contempt, they often call it legislating from the bench or. Or that the Supreme court is overstepping its bounds, but if lawmakers are threatened with contempt and they [00:06:00] ignore it, it impacts the court’s authority.
So it’s kind of like a weird catch 22 there it’s like, you know, they. I don’t want to hold you in contempt. Lawmakers know that, so they behave badly. But, uh, here in Ohio, we have a local case, the long running and infamous Daroff versus the state of Ohio, that was a lawsuit against school funding that was filed way back in 1991.
There have been four rulings made by the Ohio Supreme court. Um, that made it. um, they considered sanctioning lawmakers at that time, which requires a ruling of contempt before you can sanction them. Uh, Andrew Tobias talked to three former Ohio Supreme court justices, uh, justice, Alice Resnick, uh, said.
Teachers’ union conference in April, 2001, that jail and fines are all part of the contempt process. Former justice, Paul Pfeiffer said he privately suggested other an order prohibiting the legislature from spending money until the [00:07:00] funding bill is paid.
Chris: Yeah, I guess fines or what the worst these guys could go in for.
And they don’t seem that worried about it. I mean, they made a hard argument that they shouldn’t be found in contempt, but they haven’t done what the court ordered. And so the court’s authority is at question it’s going to be, it’ll be fascinating to see whether they actually take action. Ha ha. Our story discussed some things that have happened in other states.
Have there been some more severe repercussions there?
Lisa: Right. In 2015, uh, the Washington Supreme court was overlooked seeing the escape, another state school funding case. What they did was they impose, defines on the legislature of a hundred thousand dollars a day. That requires, you know, there there’s a law in their constitution and Washington.
Says schools are required to be fully funded. So they use that to impose these fines. And finally lawmakers finally increased school funding in 2018 [00:08:00] and then ended up paying a $105 million.
Chris: Well, we will know soon I suspect what the ramifications are here. Or if our elected leaders are held in contempt, it’ll be a conversation we’re sure to have later today in Ohio, how has Cuyahoga county executive Arman Buddhists has nomination of union.
Chief. Dave won the Lasky. Pork board playing out with community organizations, which have sharp memories of wanting to Alaska these role in trying to torpedo the candidacy of Justin bib for Cleveland mayor Layla, we talked about how offensive this seemed to be to Justin bed. It seems like we’re not the only ones that thought so, yeah.
And this
Leila: isn’t going, this isn’t going over well with a lot of people, a little backstory for listeners who might’ve missed last week’s podcast on this mayor bid. He doesn’t like. Labor leader, Dave wanted to Leschi and he shouldn’t because this guy was a part of that dark money campaign that tried to take him down with an ad that many people believe was [00:09:00] racist in nature.
And he made that really awful comment at the Kevin Kelly campaign event. When he said, we’re going to kick the S out of Justin bib in the election, and we’re going to kick the S out of the media. Before then pointing out a specific reporter. And the audience is saying, we’re talking about you in this very Trumpy and way.
So not surprisingly bib didn’t reappoint, Wanda Lau ski to the port authority board when his term came to an end this month, and then in a stroke of incredibly poor judgment in Cayuga county, executive and Buddhists uses one of his appointments to the board to recommend that one to SKB re-installed to the board last week.
And he says, Late that won’t allow skis, labor connections, and his experience make him a good choice for heaven sake. I mean, what the heck? So on Friday 21 community organizations come together to draft this open letter to Buddhists, just tearing him to pieces for this decision and the co-signers included the Cuyahoga county progressive caucus, the Cuyahoga county women’s [00:10:00] caucus, black lives matter.
Cleveland service employees, international union local one. Office employee, um, office and professional employees, international union, local 1794 other groups, we’re adding their names. As our story was going to print their message to Buddhists was really strong. They said, quote to call Mr. Wanda Lasky statements, destructive understates, the damage that such rhetoric causes when not addressed or worse yet rewarded it’s, especially confounding.
That you would appoint such a divisive figure to the board of the port of Cleveland after a mayor who received a massive mandate from Cleveland voters declined to do so.
Chris: Well, and let’s point out to Justin bib did appoint a different labor leader to the port authority. So labor is represented. Look, it does appear Armand Buddhists is going out the door.
He’s not running again. Just slapping people. I mean, he’s doing some venal things. He looks like he’s trying to spend every dollar that county has before the next administration [00:11:00] comes in to hamstring them. We’ve talked about that. This was the definition of v-neck. Because there is no reason to appoint one of the Lasky to the port authority except to slap Justin bib and his supporters, you know, clearly bill Mason Buddhists, his chief of staff was, was a Kevin Kelly supporter and it was close to Dave Wanda Laskey.
And they’re feeling chastened by how badly their candidate got beaten by Justin bib. But what is the point of doing this? You’re just being
Leila: divisive. And also this choice of has to be approved by county county. So now he’s putting Connie council between a rock and a hard place because you know, urban Buddha is going to be skating out the door to.
And then the county council has to work with Justin bib and has to, you know, they have to get along. They have to be partners on a lot of things and, and they have this bad blood between them. If they go ahead and approve this appointment
Chris: and. Uh, I [00:12:00] would argue they’re they’re between a rock and a marshmallow.
There is a really easy path here. Tell Armand Buddhists. No, we’re not going to play into your venal decisions. Remember this, remember there’s some members of council that learned from our story in December that he had created a revenge plan because he felt like they weren’t supporting him. And he was going to take money away from their wars for roads and bridges.
He was going to punish taxpayers because. Did representative wasn’t saluting him and in lockstep with him. So the county council, there’s some members of county council that don’t owe him anything say, no.
Leila: I mean, they don’t owe him anything anyway. Right?
Chris: Right. They owe the taxpayers and the residents and the voters sound judgment and clearly putting Dave Wanda Laskey on there as these community groups.
Saying is not sound judgment. The story is sure to continue it’s today in Ohio, [00:13:00] what did black judges tell us? The longterm ramifications might be for children growing up today from the confirmation of the nation’s first black woman, us Supreme court justice. Laura, we took a couple of days to go out and talk to people about how much they think this would mean.
Children who might be imagining their careers. And it was a pretty emotional story that people felt so passionately about it. What did they tell us?
Laura: Yeah, absolutely. These are some incredibly moving thoughts that collected by Alexis Oatman and Corey Schaffer, who talked to a wide array of judges in Cleveland and, uh, and attorneys as well.
And I think Cayuga county, common pleas court, judge Cassandra, call your William. Really well, she said it doesn’t limit us so often we feel limited to just the trial court level or the court of appeals level. This gives us a lot more to aspire to, and they said Jackson’s variety of experience her background as a federal public defender and her cultural and professional diversity.
[00:14:00] They bring a lot to the bench. She’s earned bipartisan praise for the way that she handled herself during the questioning of her confirmation, through the senators. Really just impressed everyone. And this is a huge day because the court went from 1790 until 1967 without a black person on the court.
Thurgood Marshall was confirmed then and Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman justice in 1981. So I mean, huge, huge accomplishment. And about time.
Chris: Well, and what they really got across was the idea that a lot of people have grown up without anybody looking like them being on the Supreme court, which would be limiting if nobody ever had.
And when finally somebody does, who looks like you and get into that position, it means the doors are.
Laura: Absolutely. And it just says, you know, it shows th th you know, young, black girls, they can do anything they want to do. And obviously look at the [00:15:00] vice president. And we had a really nice picture that ran on Saturday’s plain dealer that had, um, judge Jackson and the vice president behind her.
And it’s like, look, look, this is the face of the United States, and that’s really nice.
Lisa: I think a really a great lesson it’s being conveyed to black women or anybody with the Jackson confirmation hearings is grace under pressure. You know, she, you know, and you know, it’s often said if you’re a black woman, you have to be so much better than anybody else just to begin with.
So, you know, I think that’s part of the lesson too. Yes, you can get there, but you’re going to have to have a tough skin. As we saw from the confirmation
Chris: hearings, she was subjected to the most. line of questioning largely from Republican men, just asking her, you know, almost I’ve seen questions and her facial expressions at times were priceless.
Like you could see in her face, you’ve got to be kidding me. I’m up to be on the highest court in the land. And these are [00:16:00] the idiotic questions you’re throwing at me. So you can get your soundbites for your campaigns. She, and she was the perfect example of grace. Underberg.
Lisa: Well, Kavanaugh cried like a baby.
I
Laura: just, I was thinking of that like, and got so angry, right? Like how dare you question me, like how dare you. And instead it, I mean, I don’t know that you could have expected line of questioning about like pedophilia, but like. You know, uh, she, she didn’t give into that kind of pressure and you’re right. I think in some of the judges that Alexis and Corey talked to, you said you have to be better, you know, way better than anyone.
And, and to rise above the partisanship, to get the votes from the Republicans that this shows how qualified judge Jackson is and how respected. Right.
Chris: Okay. Check out the story on cleveland.com. You’re listening to today in Ohio. How did the death rate in Ohio compared to the rest of the nation during the pandemic?
And where does Cuyahoga [00:17:00] county stand? Lisa? We were talking before the podcast that I was at the rock hall over the weekend, and it was packed like a cattle car and there were very few people wearing masks was makes you wonder how much this new Macron variants going to spread. But Ohio didn’t do that well in the previous incarnation.
We’re
Lisa: number eight in mortalities, as far as states go. Yeah, we were the eighth highest and mortalities, uh, from 2019 to 2020, we had a little over 10 deaths per thousand people back in 2019 that rose to 12.25 in 2021. That’s a 21% increase. Now some counties like the Appalachian counties, uh, you know, Down in the Southeast part of the state, there were up to 16 mortalities per a thousand people there.
But if you take a look at Cuyahoga county, it’s even worse. I mean, Cuyahoga county, as far as counties go in the United States was number three. [00:18:00] We had 12.8, five deaths per thousand people. We’re behind only Pinellas county, Florida, which is Tampa and Allegheny county, which is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So yeah, not looking good in Cuyahoga.
Of course. Uh, we talked to Richie Pitt Parnin. I think I’m saying that, right. I don’t know. He’s the Cleveland state university director of urban theory and analytics, and this, these figures that I’m talking about came from a CA. Study of us states and counties. And he said COVID was actually an instigating event.
He says this kind of really highlighted that there’s been decades of growing health problems. And COVID just kind of brought it to a head. Yeah.
Chris: And we, we should be clear. We’re not talking about rough numbers here. We are talking about. And Ohio’s rate was really high. Correct. Do Yorker had a piece in its latest issue that also pointed out that the deaths are seriously under counted?
Because there are so many resulting deaths, people who couldn’t get medical treatment, people who didn’t get tested for things like cancer, that might’ve [00:19:00] been able to be saved earlier. That the true death toll will probably never be known because, because of all those other factors, the drug addiction, the drug overdoses and things like that, we’re just talking.
The the, I guess the overall death rate in Ohio.
Lisa: Yeah. And, and here’s the kind of a sobering statistic, and this is nationwide and these are counties 73% of counties in the U S had more deaths than births in 2021. And of course we’ve seen stories lately about the declining birthright here in the UK. Well,
Chris: and the, and the seriously reduced, uh, life expectancy rate, which is concerning for people like you and me, Lisa, you don’t want to see that rate going down, you know, listening to today.
What did people who filled out a survey about a year ago, say about what our priorities should be in Cuyahoga county for building a new jail. Layla.
Leila: Well, Katelyn Durbin stumbled upon this trove of [00:20:00] community survey results. When she was reviewing all the jail steering committee information. Produced from antiquity.
And this was survey. This survey was circulated about a year ago, and the committee collected responses from 375 participants. 200 of them went on to provide more detailed written responses, which she found very interesting. Generally the responses show. The wider community is about as divided as the steering committee is when it comes to where to put this jail.
Some say, keep the jail downtown where it can be close to bus slides and transportation. Others say, well, you know, a downtown jail is bad for attracting businesses and residents. So, you know, some say, put it in a struggling suburb, give it, give the suburb a tax boost, you know, that sort of thing. The only thing they seem to agree upon.
They want free parking, wherever it ends up. But when it comes to the overall guiding light for the new jail, the survey respondents did strongly aligned behind a couple of priorities. You know, [00:21:00] 63% of the respondents said that creating a facility that provides safer and more humane living conditions for inmates and working conditions for staff was of the highest importance.
And we all know. What transpired at the jail that gave rise to the con to this conversation in the first place, the inmate deaths and the reports of crowding and poor conditions inside the facility. So that is still, you know, that that was high, uh, high of mind for the people who responded to this survey.
And that is still the guiding light for the people who are. Leading this, this charge, you know, 61% of respondents of the survey ranked it most important to create and locate a facility in a place where it would have the least negative and most positive impact on the surrounding community. Currently, the leading site for the new jail is that shipping yard that was once the toxic standard oil refinery.
And the second place site was closer to a neighborhood where it would have been. Proximity to a boys and girls clubs. So how are we [00:22:00] doing in meeting that priority? I don’t know. They should
Chris: be out at the Garfield Heights site where they, should they be going? The lights wants it. It’s close in. It’s right off the interstate.
I don’t get these guys.
Leila: Yeah. Lots of other data from Katelyn. Sorry. But honestly, my favorite part of the story was the one respondent. Who’s only written comment was don’t screw this up. Yeah.
Chris: So I was actually heartened that they listed it in terms of priorities. And I was hearting that the highest numbers were for building a humane jail.
We did hear from a former public elected official who didn’t want his name used, who blasted away at the idea of building a new jail, because he says the county simply can’t afford it. And he’s arguing, there should be a much deeper examination. Of redoing the one we have and bringing in much more professional management.
The argument is that the reason we’re in crisis is because we have screwed it up badly and we should [00:23:00] figure out a way to be more professional, that a new building alone isn’t going to make us more humane. Interesting. But we do know that modern jail science does call for a more horizontal situation.
That’s
Leila: true. There are many ways that the jail can be reorganized to achieve. You know, better jailing overall. Um, I mean, if, if you’ve ever toured the facility, you can see it.
Chris: I do hear from a lot of people though, Layla who are fed up with the county’s profligate, spending the hotel and the medical Martin, all these things.
They’re tapped out tax wise and that nobody represents them. It’s what Lee Wineguard is running for county executive really is hoping to tap into. He’s trying to tap into the idea that all that waste needs to stop. And Armin Buddhists is not helping that image right now in the council because they want to plow $46 million into the med Mart.
They’re moving full steam ahead. It sounds. Spend $86 million on their slush funds. And for [00:24:00] that voter who’s out there thinking, man, when does it stop? That’s a terrible directions. You’re right. So the jail discussion is we need a better jail, but it is going to cost a fortune that we don’t have you always sending today.
Laura is chronicling her thoughts as she endures a pretty substantial renovation to her Rocky river house. And she absolutely charmed readers this weekend with the tale of its history, who was the original owner. Laura, why do so many people remember her and what was up with all that green.
Laura: I don’t know why the whole house was carpeted with this green shag or an all of the paneling of the, a lot of it was painted green.
I never saw the house in that state and a lovely couple who had bought the house from Mrs. Kaiser and owned it for a few years, had torn it all out, ripped down the dark drapes, redid the kitchen. So by the time I saw it, you know, it was like all hardwood and light gray and Chris white trim and like modern farmhouse.
But, um, the granddaughter of Mrs. Kaiser [00:25:00] recently sent me these photos and I. Kind of shocked to see, see the way it looked like this, but this was Mrs. Kaiser’s house for most of her 93 years. She lived here as a teenager and then came back as a bride and everybody knew the house so well because it was one of the only houses on the street for a long time.
And it owned greenhouses. It was a business where people bought their wedding flowers and their homecoming corsages, and had acres of greenhouses where they grew geraniums and snapdragons and all sorts of stuff. So when I moved to town, I mean, people would ask me where I lived. I’d start describing my house.
They’re like, oh, it’s Mrs. Kaiser’s house. And I’m like, who is, this is Kaiser. And she died five years ago. I ended up going to the funeral and meeting her family. And, um, they’ve just been so warm and welcoming. And I love the story of my house.
Chris: Yeah. And instead of the readers, I mean, I saw there was a lot of discussion about it on Facebook.
We’re trying to give people some diversion from all the bad news out there. They’ve people have made clear to us that they’d like to have some other things. That’s why we have a new gardening column and [00:26:00] we’re trying to roll out some other stuff. This is in that vein. We’re trying to come up with. A home renovation stories.
Maybe Layla will write her own story. She’s going through a pretty tough one too. I will not do it.
All right. Check out. Laura’s story. It’s on cleveland.com and will be appearing at intervals over the next few months. It’s today in Ohio. It is still two years away, but how rare will the coming celestial phenomenon be when it occurs in 2024? When was the last one? And when will the next one be? And Lisa, what am I talking.
Lisa: Total solar eclipse coming to Cleveland, Ohio, mark. Your calendars for April 8th, 2024. This is the first time the Cleveland area in Northeast Ohio has been in the path of totality since 1806. It won’t happen again until 2099 long after everyone listening to this podcast has gone. So you need to [00:27:00] mark your calendars and.
View this in your own backyard. Um, about 32 million Americans will be in the path of totality. Now that eclipse we had in 2017, only 12 million people were in that path. So here in, in the Cleveland area, it’s going to start it. Clock PM. We’ll have totality where it’s completely dark at 3:13 PM, and then it lasts about three minutes and 50 seconds.
And the beauty is, is that the sun will be over lake Erie. So it’ll be wonderful viewing unobstructed view, but. The weather has to hold up. I mean, Betsy cleaning, my weather may even on WK, YC said last week and I don’t have the figures cause I didn’t write it down. But she says in April, there’s about a 52% chance of you getting sun on an April day.
So that’s pretty typical. So keep your fingers.
Chris: Yeah. I mean that that’s the scary thing is, is that we get all ready. We’ll all have those goofy glasses on and it’ll be as gray as it is right now. So [00:28:00] I hope it is. It is sunny. Cause like you said, we won’t be around for the next one. Cool story by Pete Krauss.
I know it’s two years away, but remember how hard it was to get those glasses. Last time we ordered them. Exactly. All right. You’re listening to today in Ohio, let’s do one more. We reported more than a week ago about the theft of a $20,000 guitar owned by a prominent musician. So we wondered what makes a guitar worth $20,000 courtesy of a story by freelancers, Zachary Lewis.
We now know Layla. What’s the. So
Leila: this guitar was owned by classical guitarist, Berta Rojas, who says she spent six hours a day for the past 14 hours playing that instrument, which she called . And that it was at the height of its sounding capability. When it was stolen. Recently, she was in town to play for the Cleveland classical guitar society.
She has earned three Latin Grammy award nominations for music featuring that guitar. And in fact, [00:29:00] Lonrho HiTA had been featured on a new recording just days before it was stolen. This guitar was made by world renowned, Irish guitar, craftsman, Michael O’Leary, but factored into that 20,000 valuation or a number of other variables related to.
The the way this instruments sounds it’s craftsmanship. It’s overall quality O’Leary guitars are known to be on the louder side at a quality that shaker Heights guitar dealer, Armand Kelly told Zach Louis is increasingly prized by performers today. Also you have to consider the taxes, the import fees, the costs associated with shipping the guitar from Ireland.
Basic economics also play a role because. O’Leary likely only makes a few instruments every year and he does it by hand. These instruments are really hard to come by the way. And also, you know, the very fact that Rojas chose and stuck with this particular guitar also contributes to its [00:30:00] value. There’s clearly something very special about it.
If an acclaimed artists chose it, it must be a responsive. Instrument with a really unique structure to it. Um, you know, on a F uh, an instrument right out of the factory, you can play it any way you want. Kelly said, and you get the same sound every time, but this one is very personal. She was playing it by choice, which means she counts on it.
But none of that means anything. Thief, which is kind of the silver lining here. If this, if this guitar turns up at a pawn shop, it will stand out to the police in a second. And anyone who’s prepared to spend $20,000 on a guitar will know that this is stolen and we’ll turn it into police. And. You know, there’s, there’s, uh, um, there’s really nowhere for this thief to turn well,
Chris: the smartest thing is to just turn it in for the reward 1000 bucks and no questions asked, but, but it’s a fascinating story about it.
And this maker is a rare one because there’s three prominent [00:31:00] musicians using his guitars and most makers are happy if they get one. I read in Zach’s
Leila: story, check it out while I was reading this story. About anything in my life that I value as much as this woman values her guitar. Do you guys have anything similar?
I was trying to imagine, like what could be stolen for me? Like what possession could be stolen for me that I would feel as for Lauren as this musician feels right now. Do you, can you guys think of anything? I would value her. I mean, that guitar to her must be worth so much more than $20,000. That’s her entire livelihood and she’s played it for, you know, nearly two decades.
I can think of nothing in my whole, you know, home that I value as much as.
Chris: I have some wood working tools. I made that I’d be pretty for Lauren. They have a long provenance and family history that I’d be upset about losing. I wouldn’t value them at $20,000, but I would hate to see them go. And I hope they [00:32:00] stay in the family for a long time.
It’s a good story. By Zachary Lewis, check it out on cleveland.com. You’re listening to today in Ohio and that wraps up a Monday. Thanks Layla. Thanks Laura. Thanks Lisa. Thank you for listening to this podcast.