Mayors rally to support Springfield amid 'unprecedented' situation

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Former President Donald Trump’s false rumors about Haitian immigrants have upended everyday life in Springfield, Ohio.

It’s been nearly two weeks since the presidential debate where Trump amplified lies about the newcomers eating neighbors’ pets. An estimated 12,000 to 15,000 Haitians, most of whom are living in the U.S. legally and allowed to work, have come to Springfield in recent years, attracted by a boom in manufacturing and warehouse jobs in the city. The new labor force has boosted the local economy, but has also raised tensions in the area. 

Residents there have complained about housing shortages, officials have struggled to provide medical care and schools have had to ramp up services for English language learners. When a Haitian immigrant driving a minivan collided with a bus, injuring 20 students and killing an 11-year-old boy, frustrations grew.  

But Trump’s comments elevated those worries to a whole new level. Bomb threats and other warnings of violence have forced evacuations of schools, government buildings, a Walmart, a grocery store and a Planned Parenthood clinic.

Mayor Rob Rue, a Republican, declared a state of emergency Thursday to address the public safety threats there.

He also called for political leaders to stop using Springfield as political red meat. “If I knew that my words were hurting people consistently, I would want to change that and I would want to not do that,” Rue said. “I’m just asking them to move on and quit using us as a political tool. We want to get out of this political vortex that we’ve been caught up in.”

Trump, though, has doubled down on lies about immigrants eating cats and dogs in the city, rather than disavowing them after journalists debunked them. His running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, whose current constituents include Springfield residents, acknowledged spreading disinformation about the city, dismissing the false accusations as “memes.”

“The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes,” Vance said. “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

Trump, meanwhile, said if elected president, he would order “the largest deportation in the history of our country… and we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora [the Colorado city that Trump has spread false rumors about, alleging Venezuelan gangs are controlling apartment complexes].” He claimed that he would visit Springfield and Aurora in the next two weeks. But the former Republican president is well-known for promising things in “two weeks” that never materialize.

Rue discouraged the former president from visiting Springfield during a press conference this week. “It would be an extreme strain on our resources,” he said. “So, it’d be fine with me if they decided not to make that visit.”

Fellow city officials have rallied to support Rue. Several mayors traveled to Springfield to share ideas and offer support.

Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, led a contingent on Monday that included the mayors of Akron, Athens, Cincinnati, Dayton, Dublin and Toledo.  

“Mayors put our cities before politics, and I commend Mayor Rue for his sober, focused leadership,” Ginther said in a statement afterwards. “Cities like Springfield need cooperation at all levels of government, and we will continue to work with state and federal officials to keep all our residents safe, healthy, and housed. Mayors across America will continue to stand by Springfield and all cities working to responsibly address an increased number of migrants, which we can do without losing sight of our shared humanity.”

Keary McCarthy, the executive director of the Ohio Mayors Alliance, said other Ohio cities have sent police officers to Springfield through mutual aid agreements, and the Ohio State Highway Patrol has sent extra resources too. The Ohio mayors have also set up a relief fund to help the city of Springfield cover extra expenses related to the crisis, including emergency response, linguistic services and other infrastructure needs. They’ve raised $50,000 so far.

Local leaders have experience responding to other crises that attract national attention, from natural disasters to shootings, he said, but in many ways the situation in Springfield is “unprecedented,” especially when it comes to the number of bomb threats that have been received.

“This one is different in the sense that it has a much stronger strain of partisan politics underlying it, and that makes this more difficult, in some ways, to navigate,” McCarthy said.

“For anybody that's ever worked in local government, change is hard,” McCarthy said. “No matter if that change is traffic patterns or bike lanes, there’s always a point of contention. There’s always difficulty navigating your residents and your community through a period of change. Now, the change that Springfield was going through was also a cultural clash, so there were certainly tensions brewing in Springfield before it got thrust into the national spotlight.”

“But what has changed since then is the specter of fear and violence,” he added. “That really wasn’t the case before Springfield got put on the national stage in the presidential debate. There’s really this pervasive fear of violence brought on by fear mongering and false claims. That is a very different dynamic now than what it was before all the attention came to the community.”

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News to Use

Trends, Common Challenges, Cool Ideas, FYIs and Notable Events

Politics
New allegations add to the lieutenant governor’s troubles in North Carolina. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate in the governor’s race in North Carolina, is facing new scrutiny in the wake of CNN reporting that he called himself a “black Nazi,” said he wished he could own slaves and made dozens of other disturbing comments on a porn forum called “Nude Africa.” The posts by Robinson, a religious conservative who has called “transgenderism” and homosexuality “filth,” date from 2008 to 2012 and also include comments about abortion and enjoying porn featuring trans women. Shortly before CNN published the story, Robinson said in a video statement that its allegations were not true and that he would be staying in the race.

Public Safety
Chicago City Council votes to keep ShotSpotter, but the mayor pledges veto A group of aldermen voted 33-14 on an ordinance seeking to overturn Mayor Brandon Johnson's plan to eliminate the ShotSpotter gun detection program in Chicago. Johnson says he plans to veto the ordinance, which would override the mayor's decision to drop ShotSpotter and instead compel police Supt. Larry Snelling to renew the contract. Such opposition is rare. CBS News Chicago could not find a veto under mayors Lori Lightfoot or Rahm Emanuel—the last one was during Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration. ShotSpotter is set to be turned off this coming Sunday. Johnson wants to eliminate the controversial gunshot detection program, saying it's too expensive at a price of $100 million—and doesn't actually help fight crime. Recent research found that the technology slows down police response times to 911 calls.

Elections
Winner-take-all push in Nebraska gets new life. The national Republican push to help former President Donald Trump win all five of Nebraska’s Electoral College votes is ramping up again, and this time it might work. Nebraska is one of two states—Maine is the other—that splits its electoral votes. There is an eleventh-hour effort to make the state winner-take-all, which would give Trump an extra electoral vote in what is supposed to be an extraordinarily tight race. The Nebraska Examiner reports that Republican Gov. Jim Pillen on Wednesday hosted two dozen state senators at the Governor’s Mansion, along with Secretary of State Bob Evnen, the state’s chief election official. Several who attended the meeting said some senators who had wavered earlier showed more support now for making the change.

Law Enforcement
Florida will launch criminal probe into apparent assassination attempt of Trump. State law enforcement officials will launch their own criminal investigation into the apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump that will run parallel to the federal probe, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Tuesday. It’s not uncommon for state and federal law enforcement agencies to run simultaneous investigations into crimes, as states may be able to bring charges that are unavailable at the federal level—and vice versa. At a news conference, DeSantis said one of the reasons Florida will do its own investigation is because there were few answers after the probe into the earlier Trump assassination attempt.

Social Media
Meta launches Instagram for teens to address social media concerns. The company on Tuesday launched Instagram Teen Accounts, a more limited experience for younger users of the platform, in what is its latest effort to assuage concerns about the impact of social media on kids. Meta will automatically migrate all Instagram users under the age of 16 to the new service, which features built-in protections through settings controlled by their parents. But critics, including Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, have called the steps inadequate. Specifically, the governor and others say Meta’s new policy does not include a requirement to verify the ages of all users so it can better identify accounts belonging to minors.

Artificial intelligence
AI speeds cities’ lead pipe search with EPA deadline weeks away. Detroit is among a few cities using a new artificial intelligence-driven tool to find lead drinking water pipes, saving the city millions of dollars and helping it in its scramble to meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s Oct. 16 inventory deadline. BlueConduit, which was founded by University of Michigan researchers working to solve the Flint water crisis, is hoping the LeadOut Map will make drinking water systems better equipped to replace lead service lines more efficiently and at lower cost. The technology, which uses data from the EPA and other sources to identify properties likely to be connected to the water main with lead pipes, has saved Detroit $380 million because it prevented the city from having to dig up 300,000 yards, city spokesman Bryan Peckinpaugh said. State and local governments are also using the technology to identify water leaks.

Housing
California governor signs bills giving state more power to enforce housing laws. Cities in the state will soon face more state scrutiny—and new penalties—for pushing back on housing and homeless shelter construction, according to a package of laws signed Thursday by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Newsom has been cracking down on what he sees as local resistance and defiance of state laws in the face of California’s affordable housing crisis. It is a crisis that has prompted a surge in the homeless population in the nation’s most populous state. Cities and counties will be required to plan for housing for very low-income people, streamline permitting processes and expand some renters’ protection. The attorney general will be allowed to pursue civil penalties upward of $50,000 a month against cities or counties for offenses such as failing to adopt a housing plan as required by the state.

Corruption
Can New York’s mayor survive the corruption investigations plaguing his administration? Our colleagues at City & State New York, a sister publication of Route Fifty, delve into this question in an insightful piece that looks at the history of corruption investigations in New York politics, as well as the current situation confronting Mayor Eric Adams. He is in an increasingly precarious political position as his troubles have notably worsened in the past few weeks amid sprawling federal scrutiny. In addition to the federal probe into potential coordination between Adams’ 2021 campaign and Turkish officials to receive illegal foreign donations, several separate federal investigations into potential corruption have come to light following raids of some of Adams’ top officials; his first deputy mayor, schools chancellor, police commissioner, deputy mayor of public safety and a senior adviser.

Autonomous Vehicles
How AVs could dramatically change car insurance. If an autonomous vehicle hits another car or a pedestrian, who’s to blame? The manufacturer or software developer? Other parties like computer programmers, satellite mapping companies, or even state governments? With autonomous vehicles or AVs slowly gaining market share and the technology rapidly advancing, this is becoming an increasingly urgent question for insurance companies. One wrinkle emerging is differences in the way states regulate auto insurance. Some states are no-fault states, and others are at-fault. That critical difference could dramatically affect what insurance coverage for an AV looks like in one state versus another. States are actively trying to shape that brave new world. Nine bills out of 70 across 17 states have been enacted, many of which address insurance requirements.

Picture of the Week

The Biden administration late last week asked a federal appeals court to reinstate a rule passed under the Trump administration to remove Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the Lower 48 states which, if successful, would put the animals under state management like is currently the case in Montana and surrounding states. The filing asks the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to keep wolves in Minnesota listed as a threatened species, an endangered species in 44 states, and a delisted population in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington and north central Utah. Gray wolves have frequently been in the headlines this year as Colorado reintroduces them in the state. Late last week, Colorado announced it will release its second wave of wolves from Canada this winter. The reintroduction has been controversial, particularly with ranchers, but appears successful: The state’s resident wolf population, which started at five, now numbers 13. 

Government in Numbers

453,682

The number inactive or ineligible voter registrations that the state of Oklahoma removed from its voter rolls.

The removal of voter registrations has prompted concerns about citizen disillusionment and calls for state residents to make sure they can vote in nearing elections. State officials said the deletions have taken place since Jan. 1, 2021, and are part of routine maintenance that ensures voter rolls are up-to-date. Gov. Kevin Stitt announced the removals on Wednesday, saying they are part of a necessary process to ensure secure elections. Some community leaders, though, responded to the announcement by urging the state to do more to register new voters and to better support Oklahomans who feel left out of the political process. More than 2.38 million residents of the state are registered to vote, according to state Election Board data.