Will Ohioans blame Jon Husted for their big electricity bill hikes, caused partly by those big data centers he touts: Today in Ohio (2024)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- What could make Ohio’s electricity prices more expensive? It’s a capacity issue.

We’re talking about the PJM Interconnection and capacity auctions on Today in Ohio.

Listen online here.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, impact editor Leila Atassi 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 here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.

You can now join the conversation. Call 833-648-6329 (833-OHTODAY) if you’d like to leave a message we can play on the podcast.

Here’s what else we’re asking about today:

Seems like we’re replaying a tape from last year. Why might electric bills skyrocket again in Ohio?

What were people spending all this money on before marijuana became legal? How did recreational marijuana sales do in the second week they were legal in Ohio?

The Crankshaft comic strip, which was created in Northeast Ohio and runs in The Plain Dealer, is tackling a controversial subject. Where is it going?

What’s the problem with JD Vance’s statements about gas and oil drilling in the United States?

A Hulk Hogan appearance in Northeast Ohio ended up with a woman in need of stitches. Did Hulk Hogan cause that? And what JD Vance-like statement did he make about Kamala Harris?

After the smoke clears on the November election, we’ll have a mayor’s race on our hands for next year in Cleveland. Does it look like first-term Mayor Justin Bibb might have some competition?

We have some major restaurant news, all out of Cleveland Heights. What is up with Nighttown, the storied former jazz venue, as well as the Luna bakery and the Fairmount restaurant?

How did Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is running for re-election, help a bunch of former Plain Dealer drivers get their full pensions?

Based on 2023 attendance, where does Cedar Point rank in American theme parks?

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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.

Chris (00:00.812)

I can’t believe we’re going to have another big jump in electric bills. We just had one a year ago and now we’re back there. It’s first topic on today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland .com and the plane dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Laura Johnston and Courtney Astoffi. Lisa, let’s talk electric bills. Seems like we’re playing the tape from last year’s podcast. Why might they skyrocket again all over Ohio?

Lisa (00:29.387)

Yeah, and this is for actually slightly different reasons which we’ll explain. So, PGM Interconnection manages a 13 -state electric grid including Ohio. That’s 65 million people on this grid. So, PJM is paying more per kilowatt hour

to ensure that they meet demand at peak times or in emergencies. And they buy this in what’s called a capacity auction. So we talked to Matt Breakey with Breakey Energy of Chagrin Falls. He says the grid has to be ready to operate at peak times of the year. The auction clearing price for capacity auctions last year was $28 .92 per megawatt day. This year it’s 269 and.

and 92 cents, and this will go into effect June, 2025 through May of 2026. So that’s a nine fold jump. There are two reasons Breakey says probably, one of them is that coal and natural gas plants are being shut down. That means less available power. And you know, that’s critical for emergency use because coal and natural gas plants are what’s called dispatchable. They can be turned on and off quickly when they’re needed.

And he also says, another reason is that we’re getting more data centers built in Ohio and they’re sucking up a whole lot of power. So for residential customers, this will mean that their prices will go up as much as 25 % on the electric portion of their bill.

Chris (01:54.54)

So I can see this becoming an election issue in the governor’s race. And it would go like this. Say it’s Amy Acton, just for giggles, and she stands before people and says, look, John Husted is responsible for these gigantic energy depleters in these data centers. They had big press conferences every time we opened one. But these guys have stopped.

every kind of development for wind power and all the green energy we’ve talked about. And they’ve they’re the reason your bills are so high. Your bills would be lower if not for John Husted. That would resonate. That’s like for real. We have added these data centers and they created jobs for the construction. There’s not a lot of jobs in the centers. But because of their weirdness about energy.

We don’t have new plants. We should be talking about another nuclear plant. We should be talking about wind and solar energy. And I get it, you can’t turn it on and off to match demand, but we don’t have enough production while John Husted and company have brought in these giant vacuums for energy.

Lisa (03:02.484)

Right. And of course, know, PGM, as I said, is 13 states. So there are data centers in other states too. But yeah, we get sold these data centers as an economic opportunity and everything. But as you said, the permanent jobs at a data center are usually way less than a hundred people.

Chris (03:18.28)

I was talking a lot about this yesterday. I’ve never driven in a certain part of Ohio, the northwest part of the state. I drove there over the last weekend and I drove through this enormous wind farm. It’s the biggest wind farm in Ohio. I’d never really heard of it. And it stretches as far as the eye can see gigantic towers. They’re all turning and they go on and on and on. And I just thought, you know, every time this comes up.

The anti people all say, people hate them. They’re bad for the environment. They’re bad for this. They’re bad for that. And yet we have this one and it seems like it’s thriving. It’s generating lots of energy. So we got to go out there and do a story on, is it a positive or a negative? Because I think that we’d have more wind farms if we just did more in this state to welcome it. But of course, our gerrymandered legislature is in the pocket of first energy, which doesn’t want any of that stuff.

They just want to burn natural gas and coal if they could get away with it. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. What were people spending all this money on before marijuana became legal? Courtney had it recreational marijuana sales doing the second week they were legal in Ohio. And we also saw pretty hefty sales in the medical marijuana sphere.

Courtney (04:30.79)

Yeah lots of products have been flying off the shelves since this opened up for recreational purchasing for Ohioans not that long ago so in the second week of legal Ohio recreational sales there was ten point nine million dollars worth sold and compare that to the five days before that kind of the first time this was available it was eleven point six million dollars worth of recreational marijuana products.

So all told, since this really kicked off on August 6th, the sale totals just under 22 and a half million, and that represents over 276 ‚000 separate transactions. So this stuff’s flying off the shelves. And like you said, medical sales continued, you know, with the dispensaries during the switch to recreational as well. And on that side, medical rang out to be about $7 .6 million in the second.

And that, you know, goes to folks who have the card and are able to buy it that way. What I found interesting here is kind of how prices are changing as we get just a little bit into this new system. Costs inched up in the second week, actually. So during those first five days, an ounce of flour averaged about $265 .90. It’s up almost a dollar to about $266 .70.

And we know that that’s way up from what it was selling when it was just medical sales, you know, back at the end of July before recreational started. Back then, the average cost of flour was about $222 an ounce.

Chris (06:10.286)

Does anybody know how the prices that are coming there compare to people who buy weed on the street or did before it became legal? Is it more expensive than people buying it on the black market? Is it?

Lisa (06:24.148)

It’s kind of about the same. mean, I’m going to admit here on the podcast that I bought illicit marijuana for years, but yeah, I was paying a hundred dollars for seven grams, which is a quarter of an ounce. So times that by four, that’s $400 an ounce.

Chris (06:37.313)

Okay.

Courtney (06:41.034)

But when you compare it to those Michigan prices, it’s just way more expensive than what you can get in Michigan.

Chris (06:41.112)

Alright, let’s

Lisa (06:44.06)

Or California, yeah. Mm -hmm.

Chris (06:48.952)

do get back to my original question. We said the same thing after sports betting and gambling became legal. We’re talking like the economy is crushing people. Grocery prices are up, gas prices are up. But this is a huge amount of money that people have spent on this. And maybe they were buying it illegally before, and so it’s no increase in their out -of -pocket costs. Or

they’re switching discretionary income from something else. Maybe they’re not going to restaurants or something, but you just wonder where was this money going before the last couple of weeks? it does seem there are a whole lot of people now that it’s legal in Ohio that are buying it for the first time. So sub -segment of those dollars, yes, you’re right. It’s for people who are getting their marijuana elsewhere.

Lisa (07:24.958)

to the black market.

Courtney (07:26.652)

and or Michigan, yeah, yeah.

Chris (07:41.378)

But for once, for another segment, they’re first timers and I wonder, maybe they were saving up, who knows? You’re listening.

Courtney (07:48.392)

And I wonder how that, well, I’m just curious how that compares to alcohol sales. You kind of get the sense that, you know, maybe broader parts of the population have moved into the marijuana category where he’s maybe in generations or years past, it was being spent on alcohol.

Chris (08:04.302)

Like I keep saying, we’re going to see a drop in alcohol sales. We haven’t, it’s gone up every year. It’s gone up by big numbers, but because of all the recent research and by recent, I mean over the last five, six, seven years that shows that it is in no way good for you and it’s very bad for you and the availability of marijuana in Michigan and here, I do think you’re right, Courtney. And we’ve seen surveys of people 40 and under that are very much walking away from alcohol. They see it as a danger. They see it as a...

a boomer thing and they don’t want anything to do with it. and they much more favor marijuana. So I, I suspect one of these years when the alcohol sales come out, we’re going to see a drop. just hasn’t happened yet. You’re listening to today in Ohio, the Crankshaft comic strip, which was created in Northeast Ohio and runs in the plane dealer and many, many other newspapers is tackling a controversial subject starting Monday and running through October.

Laura, where is it going?

Laura (09:03.699)

on book banning. So the author of this comic, Bataik, is that how you pronounce his name? He’s covered subjects such as adult illiteracy, Alzheimer’s disease, school violence. So it’s not like just a funny thing. It really tackles real life issues. And 300 newspapers get this, so they’ll start running this next week. And book banning is a

Big issue, it’s become bigger in recent years as we’ve had more divisive school board meetings and conservatives and liberals arguing about the future of education for kids. According to the American Library Association, more than 4 ,200 books were targeted in 2023. And that was the most since they started tracking the efforts. So Bataillac, who lives in Medina, thought that back to school time, our kids went back this week.

was a good time to tackle this issue and he learned to read from comics. Think about how popular graphic novels are right now with kids. It’s different kind of format. They’re not reading them in the newspaper every day, but they’re pictures. There are short storylines. It’s really easy to comprehend. So he’s taking this on.

Chris (10:16.802)

Well, one, I didn’t put his name in the question because I don’t know how to pronounce it. And I left that in your hands. And two, what I like about it is they’re using what’s the book that they’re focusing on? Right. It’s. But right. And and that that’s a good way to go. What I’m always surprised at is how often Kurt Vonnegut is on these banned book lists. And, you know, he’s one of my all time favorite authors, maybe my favorite author, because he was a humanist.

Laura (10:19.996)

HA

Laura (10:27.667)

The thing is, it’s Fahrenheit 451, which is about book burning.

Chris (10:46.295)

I mean, he just was a gentle soul. He questioned authority, but he basically preached the gospel of we’re all in this to help each other get through this, whatever it is, why you would deprive people of that kind of human touch boggles my mind. It’s I guess because it has some bad words in it or something, but it’s it’s ridiculous how much this is moved. And again,

Laura (11:03.655)

Yeah.

Chris (11:10.23)

I say this all the time, but it’s a page from the authoritarian playbook. There are a of politicians in this country like Bernie Moreno want to create an authoritarian government and democracy. And this is part of what you do. You close down the books, you close down anything that might poison the minds of our young people. And in the internet age, that’s impossible.

Laura (11:13.245)

Yeah.

Laura (11:28.915)

Yeah, exactly. So Fahrenheit 451, which I’m not sure how long it’s been taught in schools or what year it was written, but it’s Ray Bradbury. And it’s a dystopian novel in which all books are banned. And there are these firemen who come and collect books if they found and they’re hidden. And then they burn them in giant public piers, piers. And I remember reading it sophom*ore year of high school. And did it wreck me? No. It’s an interesting idea.

That internet point is one of the ones that’s made in one of these comic strips that you’ll see coming up, was like, well, these kids have the internet, right? Like, how are we protect? Not only do they have the internet, they have it on their cell phones, in their pockets, at all times. Like, I don’t think they’re getting subversive ideas from classic literature. Like, who knows what they’re looking up on these phones every day? And so it’s funny, it’s wry.

Chris (12:07.693)

It’s...

Laura (12:26.695)

and it’ll hopefully make people think. The other comment was, these kids have active shooter drills. They’ve been having active shooter drills since kindergarten. Like, I think if they’re old enough to do that, then they’re old enough to think about the reason they’re having active shooter drills.

Chris (12:41.656)

But it is a first step in shutting down the free flow of information. And you can laugh and say, would never happen here. But look at Russia. People who live in Russia have no idea what the truth is about the war in Ukraine. They don’t, because it’s all been shut down. That’s what the authoritarians in this country are aiming for. Go ahead, Lisa.

Lisa (12:41.972)

I’m out.

Laura (12:48.851)

it happens everywhere.

Laura (12:54.802)

Mm -hmm.

Lisa (13:03.908)

I just going to say, I’ve pronounced it bad, but he wrote funky Winker bean, which is now gone. And he tackled some big subjects on funky Winker bean to like breast cancer and death and, other things. So he’s really kind of socially aware.

Laura (13:09.234)

Yes.

Laura (13:19.559)

And so those funky characters, some of them, because this is taking place in the high school and the library and like a store in their town, they are going to cross over into crankshaft and they’ve had some crossover before. So I think that’ll be really popular with people. And we’ve reported on book banding issues in Ohio before. I believe Menner had a big dispute last school year about taking some specific books out of the library.

The author said, you when you ban books and don’t allow kids to see and experience what authors are saying, it shrinks their ability to think critically, and that’s a fundamentally important thing.

Chris (13:57.33)

One nice thing about this, it puts Ohio on a national stage in a good way. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Now let’s go in the other direction and talk about JD Vance. Lisa, what’s the problem with his statements about gas and oil drilling in the United States?

Lisa (14:12.158)

Well, our Senator invoked Sarah Palin and said, drill baby drill at a North Philadelphia gathering this week. He says, we have to stop buying energy from tin pot dictators who hate this country. He says, we need to start buying it from our own land and people on day one. But we talked to oil and gas experts who say that’s a pretty severe oversimplification of the issue that more drilling will lower gas prices. That’s certainly not true. And so they explained that most oil that’s

extracted from the US is called light sweet crude. But most refineries in this country handle heavier crude from Mexico, Canada, and Venezuela. 52 % of the crude that we get imported is from Canada. There’s also no infrastructure to move the light sweet crude that we extract to the proper refineries via pipeline. There’s just no infrastructure there. That’s why we import

the cheaper heavy crude that we can do in our refineries. And we export our light sweet crude mostly to Mexico, about 1 million barrels a day to Mexico. So the gas prices, as most people know, gas prices are out of the president’s control for many reasons, including global events, supply demand issues, and OPEC.

Chris (15:29.846)

Yeah, it’s just another one of those red meat issues trying to get the people in the crowd excited. as we often see with his statements, there’s not a lot of truth to them. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. A Hulk Hogan appearance in Northeast Ohio ended up with a woman in need of stitches. Did Hulk Hogan cause that? And what JD Vance -like statement did he make about Kamala Harris? Laura.

Laura (15:55.027)

This is one of those ones that you’re like, this is not a good Ohio story in the news. It’s almost like a Florida man story because around 5 .30 PM on Monday, a woman ran out of the Thirsty Cowboy Bar, which is like a country dance bar. Hulk Hogan was there promoting his new beer, which I kid you not is called Real American Beer. And the woman told police that her mom had been struck in the head by a beer thrown from the stage and was bleeding.

She’s 50 years old, she needed nine stitches at the hospital. They’re monitoring for a concussion. No one knows exactly who threw it, if it was Hulk Hogan or one of his crew, but the idea, the consensus is it was thrown from the stage when they were up there and they weren’t just tossing these beers, which I mean, beers are heavy, but they were like chucking them like a baseball pitch.

Chris (16:45.068)

Yeah, and then what did he say that people found so offensive?

Laura (16:46.661)

he joked about body slamming Kamala Harris and he questioned her ethnicity. what Trump said at that NABJ conference apparently has found some credence with some people. I don’t really understand. But he said, I’m going to get heat for that one, brother. That was not me. That was the beers talking.

Chris (17:07.904)

Yeah, yeah, welcome back. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. After the smoke clears on the November election, we will have a mayor’s race on our hands for next year in Cleveland. Courtney, does it look like first -termer Justin Bibb might have some real competition?

Courtney (17:24.892)

Maybe well it could turn out that way and we kind of got some new info on that yesterday. So at an Ohio delegation breakfast at the DNC in Chicago where our reporter Jeremy Pelzer is this week, Jeremy went and talked to Nina Turner, the one time state senator, city councilwoman. She made a play for the congressional seat that Chantel Brown ultimately won. And Turner told Jeremy that she was approached about challenging Mayor Bibb in the mayoral next year.

And Turner told us that she’ll decide one way or another later in 2024. All options are on the table, she said. So, you know, this kind of got the gears turned in and Jeremy’s brain. He’s like, well, sure. I want to go talk to city council president, Blaine Griffin, and see what he has to say at this point. We’ve all kind of been waiting to see if he’d throw his hat in the ring. He was at this breakfast as well yesterday. And Blaine, the council president told Jeremy.

that he too is keeping his options open. He said he’d probably need to make up his mind on a potential challenge by early next year. We did reach out to a bib spokeswoman for comment. We didn’t hear back, but in the meantime, his campaign sent out a fundraising email asking folks to contribute money because of a potential challenge from quote, two career politicians.

Chris (18:47.51)

Yeah, I just don’t see either of them beating him. He’s had a good run. He’s in the middle of a big fight over Brown Stadium, but I think he’s representing what his constituents want quite well. I just in a runoff. mean, Nina Turner would take some progressive votes. She’d be running from his left side and Blaine Griffin would be running from his right side. There are a lot of business people like Dee and Jimmy Haslam don’t really want Bibb to be mayor because he stands in their way.

But in the end, there’s a runoff election where it’s head to head. I don’t see either of them winning based on today. He could screw up royally in the next, what, 17 months or 15 months. But right now, I’m surprised Nina Turner’s putting her hat in the ring because she got pretty well shellacked in her run for Congress in much the same voting group.

Courtney (19:41.138)

You know, it is worth noting here. I don’t know how or if this is related, but all those weeks and months we saw of pro -Palestinian protests at city council meetings. And during a lot of that, the folks were directing some of their ire, or a lot of it, Mayor Justin Bibb. And when a ceasefire resolution ultimately got moved through city council under President Blaine Griffin, Justin Bibb refused to sign it.

And several of those demonstrators were talking about, you’d see us, you’d hear us in this next mayoral run. And I wonder if maybe that’s part of what’s at play and what maybe some of the discomfort with BIP is from that part of our community.

Chris (20:26.412)

Yeah, I just don’t know what the numbers are compared to where he gets his support. And I think with any of the people that are running there, think Bibb wins the West side. So, and he has a significant part of the East side. I don’t think he’s going to run for a third term. I think he’s got ambitions way beyond Cleveland, but I think he would be hard to beat knowing everything we know now. Be fun though. Give us a good race. I mean, you love to have

options. You love to have people discussing the record. In far too many mayor’s races, it’s been kind of a joke. And we love to have some meat to chew on and the voters have something to choose among. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We have some major restaurant news all out of Cleveland Heights, actually all out of the Cedar Fairmount neighborhood of Cleveland Heights.

Lisa, what’s up with night town, the storied former jazz venue, as well as the nearby Luna bakery and the Fairmount restaurant.

Lisa (21:27.604)

I’m so bummed about the Nighttown news because I was going to take my mom to a concert there on August 29th, but unfortunately, Nighttown is closing this Sunday, the 24th, after reopening only nine months ago. So chief operating officer, Sean Latona, confirmed the closure, but didn’t have a whole lot of details, but he did say construction delays and unforeseen circ*mstances caused him to close this restaurant. And he says it’s time to pass the baton. Now this building, know, Brendan Ring owned it.

It closed during the pandemic. He decided to sell during the pandemic. And this guy was going to come in and, you know, bring back the jazz and bring back the food. He says, know, Latona says they’re working with several interested parties to see what to do with Nighttown. And instead he’s going to focus on his Red Steakhouse restaurants in downtown Cleveland and Pinecrest. As we said, this building was completely redone down to the studs, only open nine months. It originally opened in 1965.

Chris (22:24.844)

Yeah, I look I never understood what they’re doing their night town was a beloved venue and it was the jazz venue we don’t have a giant number of jazz fans in the area but but there are enough to support a restaurant that becomes a jazz venue in the place with more sales would go to after shows in Cleveland and they didn’t do it in that you know to tear it all down and make it all new I didn’t understand it this was not a place you went to really for the food.

Lisa (22:32.178)

Mm -hmm.

Lisa (22:43.442)

Mm -hmm.

Lisa (22:54.652)

No, and we never went for the food.

Chris (22:54.734)

The ambience was kind of a little bit old school, but people liked it. But you went because they brought in significant music. The owners never got that. They kind of wrecked it and never brought it back. So they just became another of many restaurant options just with bad parking availability. So I’m not surprised that it’s not working out. It’s just odd they’re saying it’s time to pass the baton. You just got the baton.

Lisa (23:23.156)

Right, right. And you promised us you were going to like bring this back. And I was looking through my old journals in 2018 and my mom and brother and all our friends, we went almost every week to night town and we never went for the food. We would just go there to drink and listen to the jazz. And it was a very passionate fan base.

Chris (23:23.563)

What are you talking about?

Chris (23:41.428)

It was and then in addition to that right around the corner you’ve got the Luna Bakery and Fairmount Restaurant in a little bit of trouble, different kind of trouble.

Lisa (23:50.196)

Yeah. And as we reported, you know, last week, a cornice, you know, at the top of this 1911 building that holds Luna Bakery and the Fairmount co*cktail bar just collapsed. mean, and part of it was like a 70 foot piece of cornice just fell onto the ground. So, Luna Bakery owner, Bridget Tibbolt says she couldn’t open on Monday except for curbside takeout because there were workers that had to put up scaffolding, you know, to, get up there and try and secure the area. But she said.

She’s more worried about a patio and they have a great patio area right there on Fairmount. It’s a great patio, but she’s worried that the patio area is going to be closed for a while, maybe as much as a month during the best patio season of the year. And she’s hoping that she can use the patios at the Fairmount or Barrio Tacos, you know, but they said if they do that, they’ll need extra staff because it’ll be a lot more running back and forth. Now the Fairmount, which is where the damage really was, because their sign came down right in front of their building.

The owner, Jake Oro says it was probably due to the building’s age. It’s over 110 years old, but he says he doesn’t think it’s directly caused by the intense weather that we’ve had recently.

Chris (24:59.176)

It’s just an odd one when you see just the size of what came down. I’m not sure about the barrio patio though. My wife and I were there about a week ago and we were just swarmed by bees. It was awful. mean, you could barely put food into your mouth without checking every morsel for bees. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. How did Sherrod Brown, our Senator who’s running for reelection, help a bunch of former plane dealer drivers get their full pensions, Laura?

Lisa (25:02.824)

Yeah!

Lisa (25:10.6)

No.

Laura (25:29.587)

Well, he championed this Butch Lewis Act that provides pension relief for troubled multi -employer pension funds. And that was adopted as part of the American Rescue Plan during the pandemic. So about 10 million Americans participate in these multi -employer plans. And about 1 .5 million of them are in plans that would have run out of money and be forced to cut benefits without aid from the federal government.

So this particular pension plan we’re talking about covers more than 800 Northeast Ohio newspaper drivers, and it’s getting $31 .6 million from the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. And that’s so it can pay full benefits to the retirees. This program, they had an application, they submitted it, it was approved. Otherwise, their benefits would have been cut by about 50 % below the amount payable under their terms of their plan.

And what happens, and it happens with a lot of different industries, is when you have more retirees than you have workers paying into the plan, and you’ve taken hits when your investments don’t perform the way you want them to, and a lot of people had problems with that during the pandemic, then you don’t have the money to pay out. And now there are only 38 active people in this union, and so that’s just not enough to support all the people that are depending on it for their retirement.

Chris (26:51.31)

Way to go, Sherrod Brown and helping them out. sure that makes them all feel more secure in their senior years. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Well, Laila’s not here, Courtney, so you get it. Based on 2023 attendance, where does Cedar Point rank in American theme parks?

Courtney (27:09.93)

Well, we all know Cedar Point is the best theme park in America. So let’s start there. But on the attendance front, Cedar Point welcomed more than 4 million visitors in 2023. That made it the 12th most visited amusem*nt park in the country. And this data comes from industry trade group themed entertainment association. A lot of the parks refuse to, you know, release their specific attendance numbers. So this rating is really what the public has to hang their hats on to know.

how many visitors go to the park. And really these figures show us that Cedar Point is the most popular park outside of Florida and California, which, you know, that includes the heavy hitter big ones like Universal and Disney. And Cedar Point with this ranking is also the most popular park that’s not open year round in America. You know, Kings Island had a pretty good showing according to these numbers, about three and a half million, but Cedar Point’s four million plus guests

puts it about 17 % over park visits in 2022. So definitely on an upswing, which I was really curious to see where visitation at the park went post pandemic. You know, it kind of got a bump is something close to do. You know, I just, you wanted to know kind of what the long -term trends would be after the pandemic, but it’s still on the upswing.

Chris (28:31.302)

It’s almost unfair to compare Cedar Point to the Disney parks because they’re not the same kind of thing at all. Cedar Point is more in line with the Six Flags parks and all of those and then it almost stands alone. There’s nothing that really compares to it. Comparing the SeaWorlds and the Epcot centers and things to it, it’s a very different...

a different animal and it’s kind of cool how well Cedar Point has continued to maintain its dominance through all these years.

Courtney (29:05.106)

Yeah, I would agree. It’s just in a tier like no other. may be a little biased there, but I’m really curious to see where it goes in the future, especially with this new ownership structure and it not being as much of a hometown park anymore. I’m curious if that changes attendance or how that affects things.

Chris (29:27.02)

Okay, you’re listening to Today in Ohio and that’s it for the Thursday episode. Tomorrow we’ll wrap up the week of news. Thanks Lisa. Thanks Laura. Thanks Courtney. Thanks for listening to our podcast.