Emmy Award-winning Feagler & Friends is a lively, weekly half-hour television discussion of local and national issues impacting lives in Northeast Ohio. Hosted by award-winning journalist and former Plain Dealer columnist, Dick Feagler, Feagler & Friends explores the various issues behind today's news. With a changing ensemble of "friends" ranging from journalists to community and political leaders, Feagler & Friends takes on issues from many different perspectives. Always entertaining and never boring, Feagler & Friends is the program for people "in the know" in Northeast Ohio.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Topics: Environment, Politics, Economy, Other
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Roundtable: Mark Naymik, politics writer, The Plain Dealer; Connie Schultz, columnist, The Plain Dealer; Greg Saber, reporter, WTAM 1100.

Politics Roundup: A record number of Ohio voters cast their ballots in the 2008 presidential primary, including more than 400,000 in Cuyahoga County. It was a number spurred mainly by a near doubling of Democratic voters compared to the turnout for the 2004 primary. They helped to re-energize the campaign of Senator Hillary Clinton, who had to win Ohio and Texas to stay in the race, and did.

Both voters and local election officials had to weather a storm. Snow and ice blanketed northeast Ohio, but did little to dampen enthusiasm for the election. Election organizers in Cuyahoga and dozens of other counties weathered their first encounter with the paper ballots designed to be counted by optical scan devices. The system worked as designed, even though a handful of precincts ran out of ballots and nearly two dozen were ordered by a court to stay open 90 extra minutes to accommodate the crush of voters. The panel will discuss the election winners and losers.

Newsmaker: Kandace Jones, member-elect of Euclid City Council. Jones was elected to council in Euclid’s Ward 3 becoming the first black person ever elected to council in a city that’s one-third black.

Sales Tax Challenge: A citizens’ group headed by several local political figures will start a petition drive to bring a portion of Cuyahoga County’s sales tax to a public vote. Last October, the county raised its sales tax one-quarter cent to pay for construction of a new convention center seen as necessary for development of a proposed medical mart. A group called Put It on the Ballot calls on the county to repeal the sales tax and develop plans to reallocate the money already collected if the medical mart deal falls through. A public vote would force the matter if county officials don’t act.

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