Akron's Superintendant Drama: $200k Goodbye?

Speaker A
00:00:00.480 - 00:14:12.662
It's the Akron Podcast. The superintendent is gone. There's a band on gender affirming Care, Vicious dogs. Is crime really down in Akron?

Use sports and the events calendar@akronpodcast.com. hey, welcome to the show. Mark Robinson, who was the superintendent of Akron Public Schools, we talked about how he had, you know, been put on leave.

Well, yeah, the. He's leaving for good now. And Mary Outley will be the permanent superintendent of the district.

But on his way out the door, we're giving him a $200,000, you know, get out of here and don't sue us payment, which is like, what did we pay him in the first place? But the board voted 4 to 3, basically saying, hey, get out of here and don't sue us for breach of contract.

Barbara Sykes and Renee Molinar and the Reverend Greg Harrison voted against the agreement, saying, like, paying this guy $200,000. Let's say that again, shall we? $200,000 was too high for him to like. He just needed to leave because, well, he was awful. Basically. It was.

What was interesting is when he came here, he kind of said, look, I was bullied as a child. To which I want to point out. Yeah. Who wasn't bullied as a child? You know, I mean, kids are mean, especially to each other.

And, you know, you deal with it, you grow up. It's called, you know, sticks and stones. Remember that phrase? But anyway, he said, I was bullied as a young child and wanted better for the students.

So this guy was really anti bullying. Unless, of course, it was him.

He had frequently bullied his own staff, threatening them to fire them regularly, berate them both publicly and privately, you know, and used some demeaning language. In one case, Robinson denied having retaliated against an employee, stating he could have fired the employee but chose not to.

The investigators noted retaliation was not limited to termination, but Robinson failed to comprehend that he also admitted to speaking in a threatening way about a board member's children. Oh, that's nice. Because if you're going to, you know, demean somebody, why just limit it to the person?

Let's talk about their family, you know, and apparently, these kids are elementary students. Good. Now let's just pick on kids. Let's pick on little kids. And defended it by saying she had spoken to him in a demeaning manner.

So if you say something I don't like, I'm going after you and your kids. What an awesome guy. Yeah.

The findings of the report aligned with allegations raised in a Beacon Journal story, and the board voted 4 to 1, with two members abstaining two weeks ago to put Robinson on paid leave after the investigation was completed. So the good news is this guy is bad. And if this was the person they put in place, Mary, I forget her name. That's now the new one.

I know a teacher and she said she's really good. Yeah, Mary Outley said she should have been the superintendent in the first place.

This guy was from Louisiana and brought a lot of people here from Louisiana, you know, his friends and stuff. But yeah, he sounds like a real sounds like a guy you want around your kids. She's good riddance.

The oh, you know well Ohio can continue to ban gender affirming care for transgender minors while legal fight plays out, the Ohio supreme court ruled on April 29. The court granted a request from the Attorney General Dave Yost, to pause an appellate court decision that determined the ban is unconstitutional.

The law, known as House Bill 68, has ping ponged throughout the court system since the GOP controlled legislature enacted it in early 2024. Two Republican justices, Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy and and Justice Pat Fisher, joined Democratic Justice Jennifer Bruner in opposing the decision.

House Bill 68 prevents doctors from prescribing hormones, puberty blockers or gender reassignment surgery before patients turn 18.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of two transgender girls and their families, contending it violates the rights of transgender Ohioans to to choose their health care. The law also bans transgender girls and women from playing on female school sports teams. The ACLU isn't suing over that piece of it.

It's a terrible shame that the Supreme Court of Ohio is permitting the state to evade compliance with the Ohio Constitution, said Freda Levinson, legal director for the ACLU of Ohio.

Our clients have suffered tangible and irreparable harm during the eight months and at HB 68 has been in place, including being denied essential health care in their home state. Do you own a big dog? Well, you might want to listen up.

After a nine month investigation into dog attacks and how state laws fail the victims, multiple Ohio lawmakers are pushing for changes, including making sure a dog that seriously injures or or kills a person is euthanized.

State Representative Kevin Miller, who's a Republican, introduced a 97 page overhaul on April 28 that seeks to clarify the definitions, rules and penalties for dogs that growl, bite or kill. Current Ohio laws give judges the discretion to put a dog down after the first kill, only requires euthanasia after the second person is killed.

A provision that, again, Kevin Miller says, is garbage. I would tend to agree if you kill somebody.

State Senator Bill Blessing, who's a Republican, will sponsor a companion bill in the Ohio Senate that mirrors Miller's bill. The bills would eliminate the two free kills provision currently in state law.

An investigation published in March by the Columbus Dispatch that the Cincinnati Inquirer, the Akron Beacon Journal and the Canton Repository found victims of dog attacks suffered devastating injuries, severe psychological trauma and crushing medical bills. At the same time, Ohio laws failed to impose serious penalties for dog owners even when their pet maims or disfigures someone.

Aggressive dogs can be designated three ways because this is what I wanted to see nuance for those that chase, growl or snarl at someone, dangerous for those that bite a human or kill another dog, and vicious for those that cause serious injuries or kill a human. And Miller's proposing stiffer penalties for dog owners who basically neglect to prevent unprovoked attacks.

Owners of dogs previously designated dangerous or vicious could face a third degree felony if they later failed to prevent their dog from seriously injuring or killing someone. We're talking about people who have these dangerous or vicious dogs.

They know they're a liability and they shirk the responsibility and fail to keep them penned up. Owners could face a fourth degree misdemeanor the first time their dog bites someone and a third degree misdemeanor after subsequent bites.

Owners whose dogs commit a nuisance offense could receive a ticket on the first offense and face a fourth degree misdemeanor for subsequent offenses. Now, Miller, a former patrol trooper, worked with the Ohio County Dog Wardens association on this bill.

It calls for clarifying that dog wardens have the authority to make arrests and enforce all of Ohio dog laws, giving wardens the discretion to impound a dog after an attack rather than leave it with the owner and requiring owners of dangerous or vicious dogs register them with the warden, not the county auditor. So the bill makes other changes, including dangerous or vicious dogs would be banned from hunting activities.

Any fencing used by owners to confine their dangerous or vicious dogs must be escape proof. Duh. Owners who let their dogs run loose will also face higher penalties even if the dogs don't cause injury or death. That's not a bad idea.

I used to own a little dog. It was a Shih Tzu, weighed all of nine pounds, and anytime a dog was unleashed, I just picked up my dog and was like, all right, you come with it.

If my foot can hit your face, I'm kicking your dog in the face because you forgot to put it On a leash.

The bill also requires a dog warden who suspects animal cruelty to report that to the humane society or law enforcement rather than applying to the court for an order to seize the dog. That makes sense. So the part that kind of gets me here is again, what is a vicious dog? Like, what's defines that?

They say a nuisance for those that chase. That's okay. Growl or snarl at someone. Well, well, don't all dogs kind of bark and, you know, I guess maybe that's the difference.

Barking is one thing. Growling or snarling is a little different. And I, you know, maybe you can train that out of the dog. Not really sure.

Dangerous for those that bite a human or kill another dog. Yeah, I have some, I have some big dogs on my street and I saw one get out and do some pretty big damage to a little dog.

And that's, you know, so just keep that in mind that you might have to really be responsible with your dog. And look, I'm not saying, you know, pit bulls and Doberman pinschers and German shepherds and all the big dogs, they're mean and bad.

No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying realize that there's a potential there because they're bigger. You know, poodle bites me, I'm not going to the hospital.

A pit bull, you know, breaks my wrist or, you know, whatever, that's a different story. So just keep that in mind. That might be coming your way. Well, how is Akron doing in terms of crime?

So a report came out and it said for the first quarter of the year, crime is down generally in some areas.

They said this reported basically talking about fatal and non fatal shootings, robberies, felony assaults, breaking and entering and auto thefts are all down. This according to the Akron police chief, Brian Harding.

He said at a May 1 news conference, he said, I think it's also important to note that we also saw a decrease in 2024 and 2023. So that's good. That's the good news. The bad news is reported rapes are up 46% compared to last year, more in line with these statistics from 2023.

And one area we see kind of attributed to this uptake is we've seen an increase in juvenile on juvenile related sexual assaults. And so the police are working with the Summit County Children's Services, the Akron Public Schools, Akron Children's Hospital's care counter.

He said, we also provide victims with the resources to community organizations that specialize in that kind of trauma.

The chief also said his hope for the department and its partners would be to continue collaborating and to keep the statistics down for the rest of the year. Use of force incidents declined by 27% and he said, and assaults on officers declined 56%.

I wonder if they have a stat on assault on like innocent people. Has that gone down? Hopefully. Fatal shootings involved adults decreased with one this year compared to six last year.

Yeah, there for a while was just every time I turned on this microphone somebody was dead. It says There have been 12 non fatal adult shootings this year compared to 22 last year.

Overdose deaths are down 58.6% according to the department statistics. Shootings and shots fired calls FOR service have decreased 9% and firearms related offenses are down an impressive 40%. So that's good to hear.

The Akron Street Team Pilot is a community outreach program that focuses on violence interruption outreach, prevention, mentoring and connecting individuals and families with existing community resources. So that's something that's new.

The initiative utilizes credible messengers in quotation marks there people with criminal histories who have radically transformed their lives after serving time in jail or in prison who work to proactively reduce violence in Akron by de escalating conflicts before tragedy strikes. That's interesting. So good to hear that things are going down as much as it seems. Like I I always say things are bad here, they could be a lot worse.

We could be Chicago, we could be Detroit. And I'm glad to hear that things are going in the right direction. We report a lot on what the mayor does. Why not just get it directly from the mayor?

Akron's doing some great things with youth.

Speaker B
00:14:12.726 - 00:17:16.430
Sports because we believe that sports and fitness can have a transformative effect on the lives of everyone, especially our youth.

That's why Akron is proud to announce that we are signing on to the Aspen Institute's Children's Bill of Rights and Sports, which focuses on creating a shared community understanding that all youth should have the opportunity to develop as people through sports. We know that sports participation is an amazing tool to address a range of larger challenges, including public safety.

Giving our youth an opportunity to work as team, learn new skills, develop coping strategies and see the impact of their hard work and determination can help as a springboard to safe, healthy lives. Public safety is our number one priority and that means investing in police and fire. It also means investing in our young people and their success.

And the benefits don't stop there.

Youth participation in sports can help with obesity prevention, cancer risk reduction, gender equity, inclusion of folks with disabilities, addressing racial bias, and working on civic trust across our community.

We already invest in youth sports in a lot of ways with our community centers, our fields and much more space as well as awesome programming with our City Rec and parks division. In 2021, Rec and Parks started the Youth Empowerment Scholarship Fund.

In the last few years this the YES Fund as we call it, has raised over $90,000 to provide nearly 1,000 young people in our community with scholarships to help pay for some of those fee based REC programs.

Today I'm excited to share that we intend to partner with Aspen Institute and their project play and make a commitment to get at least 64% of young people playing sports by the end of this decade. To reach this goal, we are making important, important additional investments in sports and wellness.

We have been a founding partner of Youth Success Summit, a new nonprofit designed to support all youth serving nonprofits, including those in the sports and wellness space.

And we are making that sports and wellness focus one of the three main pillars of Youth Success Summit, specifically as a violence prevention strategy.

In addition to that, we have budgeted $100,000 in this year's budget to fund sports and wellness grants to some of those youth serving nonprofits to help offset the costs of program fees, mental health services, coaches training and certification, safety and equipment, and more.

In this year's capital budget, we also committed $100,000 to designing several e esports gaming rooms in our community centers and you'll hear more about that all across Akron. We're creating opportunities for our youth to thrive on and off the field, on and off the court. You'll hear a lot more about this going forward.

Akron's already in the game and we're excited to take the next step. Move the ball down the field. Thanks so much.

Speaker A
00:17:17.450 - 00:17:49.590
Thank you Mr. Mayor. As we start to wrap things up, just a reminder what's going on in May around Akron. On May 14, the Gene Simmons Band will be at MGM Northfield.

On May 19, Breaking Benjamin and Stained will be at Blossom. On May 23, Jason Aldean the Full Throttle Tour will be at Blossom. May 25, Sassanta Primus and Pucifer and A Perfect Circle will be at blossom.

And May 30, the Dave Matthews Band at Blossom Music Center.