Episode Notes

Gov. Mike DeWine tried offering an explanation this week for why he allowed federal investigators access to Ohio driver license photos for facial recognition software, but what he said raises more questions than it answers.

Those questions are where we begin the conversation on This Week in the CLE, the cleveland.com podcast discussion of Northeast Ohio news. Politics Editor Jane Kahoun also discusses how Attorney General Dave Yost has been mum on this driver license photos, and issue that has outraged privacy advocates including U.S. Rep Jim Jordan.

Jane also looks at why Republicans set the 2020 presidential primary in Ohio for St. Patrick’s Day, a move that Democrats argue will reduce the vote in urban areas like Cleveland. St. Patrick’s Day is an unofficial holiday in Democratic Cleveland, with throngs downtown for the parade.

Also out of Columbus, we discuss the continuing budget stalemate and the latest milestone in Ohio’s drive to be a center of development for self-driving vehicles.

In Cuyahoga County, our discussion with reporter Courtney Astolfi centers on the County Council’s recent oversight vigor, with council members asking hard questions of the Armond Budish administration about tech contracts.

Rich Exner, cleveland.com’s data reporter, analyzes how gamblers lost more than $1 billion in the state’s seven racinos in the just-closed fiscal year. He also takes a look at why the racino in Northfield accounts for such an outsized portion of that cash haul.

Reporter Pete Krouse talks about our latest installment of Cleveland Connects, the civic dialogue series sponsored by PNC Bank, in which he takes a deep dive in the regionalism experience of Indianapolis. People there merged their governments 50 years ago, and Pete finds lessons for Cleveland in the Indiana experience.

Reporter Emily Bamforth explains Lakewood Together, an innovative experiment in local journalism that begins next week. She will use Project Text text messages to build a community, reporting on items of interest in a vibrant and proud Cleveland suburb.

Special projects coordinator Laura Johnston reviews Cleveland’s latest starring week on the national stage, its much-heralded hosting of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game and all of the associated hoopla. She also previews the first visit to Cleveland of the Tall Ships since 2013.

Jamie Turner, who spends his days and nights as a sports editor, is passionate about the moon landing and has prepared a series about it for the 50th anniversary, and he stops by to talk about the highlights.

And columnist Mark Naymik offers his coda as he prepares for his next chapter, as a broadcast journalist at WKYC TV-3. Mark talks about some highlights from his 19 years at The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com, including his well-known revelations about former Beachwood Mayor Merle Gorden and Cleveland City Councilman Ken Johnson. Mark has been an innovator, and we wish him well as he tackles the latest big step in his evolution as a storyteller.

New episodes are generally published Thursday evenings.

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