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Monday, Sept. 9, 2024
7:00 p.m. — 9:00 p.m. EDT

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601 Lakeside Ave E Cleveland, OH 44114 (Directions)

Cleveland City Hall, Council Chambers (or watch on YouTube)

Cleveland City Council is the legislative branch of the government of the City of Cleveland in Ohio. In this meeting, residents may address council with public comments, and council typically introduces legislation and votes on legislation. Council does not typically discuss legislation in detail at this meeting; that happens in council’s committee meetings.

There are 17 elected Cleveland City Council members representing the 17 wards of the City of Cleveland. Each ward has approximately 25,000 residents. Council Members are elected to serve a four-year term. Council members serve two roles in their duties: to draft and enact legislation for the city of Cleveland and act as ombudspersons for their constituents.

Council members:

Joe Jones
Kevin Bishop
Kerry McCormack
Deborah Gray
Richard Starr
Blaine Griffin, council president
Stephanie Howse-Jones
Michael Polensek
Kevin Conwell
Anthony Hairston
Danny Kelly
Rebecca Maurer
Kris Harsh
Jasmin Santana
Jenny Spencer
Brian Kazy
Charles Slife

Note: Sometimes, council is late to update its agenda for this meeting. If you hear the clerk read something interesting, but you don’t see it on the agenda, you may want to check for updated agendas for this meeting and other council meetings from earlier in the day. Check out this video for how to find those agendas.

Note: Confirming the spelling of public commenters’ names can be tricky. One place for a quick check is the commenter index on Public Comment CLE, a website created by Clevelander Angelo Trivisonno. The index has the names of all public commenters at Cleveland City Council meetings since October 2021, along with links to video of their comments. Check out the index to see if any commenters from the meeting you covered have been at the mic before: https://pubcomment.org/cle/commenter-index/. If not – and if a one-minute Google search doesn’t turn up a match – feel free to note that you’re unsure of the spelling in your coverage.

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Find past Documenters coverage of City Council meetings here: https://cleveland.documenters.org/reporting/?agency=181

For more information go to Cleveland City Council’s website: https://www.clevelandcitycouncil.org.

Check the source website for additional information

Reporting

Edited and summarized by the Cleveland - OH Documenters Team

Live reporting by Daniel McLaughlin

Residents voice support for New Era Cleveland leader

Danny Mc @dmcbillion

Hello - it's Monday, September 9 2024 and here's a thread covering this evening's @CleCityCouncil meeting for @cledocumenters & @signalcleveland #CLEdocumenters!

05:55 PM Sep 9, 2024 CDT

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 2/34

You can find the agenda on the @cledocumenters website here: Be advised that these agendas have a tendency to get updated, sometimes right up until the start of the meeting cleveland.documenters.org/assignments/ci…

cleveland.documenters.org/assignments/ci…

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 3/34

I believe this is the first regular (non-special) city council meeting of the fall -- last week there was a special meeting called and about a month earlier was another special meeting. This meeting will feature the return of public comments, which is special in my book

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 4/34

The meeting begins at 7 pm - you can stream it here: or watch live on TV-20 youtube.com/@ClevelandCity…

youtube.com/@ClevelandCity…

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 5/34

Council President Blaine Griffin opened the meeting with a statement about disruptions to the meeting and the process for stopping the meeting due to any disruptions - he said it was the first & only warning

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 6/34

The first public commenter on the list was someone named Dennis Kucinich from Washington, DC to talk about rezoning at Madison Ave & West Blvd Dennis Kucinich from Washington, DC was not present, however

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 7/34

The next commenter was Dallas Eckman, from Kamm's Corners. Eckman has given public comment at City Council 3 previous times. He spoke against charges & the arrest of Antoine Tolbert (who also uses the name/title Chairman Faheim) cleveland.com/court-justice/…

cleveland.com/court-justice/…

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 8/34

Next was Brenda Bickerstaff, who has spoken at Council 7 times previously. She shared her experience with groundhogs damaging her property and asked for help with the groundhogs (specifically from Councilmember Conwell)

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 9/34

Next was Daryl Houston (sp?) - he shared his concerns about lax maintenance of utility poles and tree trimming. He suggested that Councilmembers should have offices open daily in their wards

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 10/34

Next was Asia George Huff from the Buckeye neighborhood, who described herself as a victim of gun violence and spoke against what she described as the false charges against Fahiem. Several other attendees got up to support Asia in her comments

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 11/34

Next was Diab Dar-Issa, a ward 11 resident, who spoke at Council one previous time earlier this year. Diab spoke against a proposed gas station at Madison Ave and West Blvd

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 12/34

Next was Andrew Carpenter, age 15, from Buckeye Road. Carpenter spoke in support of Chairman Fahiem and shared his experience with New Era Cleveland. Said that "kids got power, got something to say about it"

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 13/34

Next up was Maryam Assar, the attorney for Antoine Tolbert/Chairman Fahiem. Said that the prosecution "works against the interests of the very community that it purports to protect" pattakoslaw.com/maryam-assar/

pattakoslaw.com/maryam-assar/

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 14/34

Cameron Demasca (sp?) of Kamm's Corners also spoke against the charges against Tolbert/Fahiem. He praised New Era Cleveland's work and drew some parallels between Tolbert and Huey Newton

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 15/34

Last up was Faouzi Baddour, a ward 11 resident, who spoke against the gas station at West Blvd & Madison Ave. He said 39/40 ppl at a meeting were opposed to the gas station. He's concerned about safety for all the students coming/going to Marion Seltzer & Cudell Park

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 16/34

@CleCityCouncil Clerk Pat Britt then read the roll - quite a bit here, here's a few appointments I thought were noteworthy:

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 17/34

There were also 11 liquor licenses awarded or transferred

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 18/34

Councilmember Polensek requested a moment of silence for John Frato, who was a leader in restoring and reopening the Euclid Beach Carousel (which you can still ride at the Western Reserve Historical Society). RIP John obits.fiorittofuneralservice.net/john-frato

obits.fiorittofuneralservice.net/john-frato

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 19/34

The agenda and the legislation for tonight's meeting is vast. Clerk Britt is an absolute reading machine, flying through all of the legislation here. So what follows is some of the things I found interesting/noteworthy:

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 20/34

Cleveland will send law enforcement officers to DC for the presidential inauguration in January

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 21/34

A very non-descript ordinance amending $343k in general fund appropriations

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 22/34

some objections to liquor licenses

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 23/34

adding a Key Bank ATM to the city hall in the vital statistics dept

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 24/34

extending the lease of the Community Police Commission's offices and meeting space

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 25/34

applying for a grant from the US Forest Service's Equitable Tree Canopy Growth & Preservation program

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 26/34

The City of Cleveland will partially finance the construction of a pavilion at the Refugee Response's Ohio City Farm.

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 27/34

all legislation was either passed or referred unanimously (15 votes)

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 28/34

Councilmember Polensek got up to thank the Cleveland Police for apprehending the suspect in the hit & run death of Amir Prewitt last month.

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 29/34

Councilmember Conwell spoke about city government's need to be more responsive to residents. He noted that he's been getting complaints about the rollout of speedtables in his ward - there's 3 by his house but not in other parts of his community.

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 30/34

And after that, the meeting adjourned after approximately an hour and 15 minutes

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 31/34

I also want to note that some of the public comments against the arrest of Antoine Tolbert/Chairman Fahiem also implicated a councilperson in their comments - without using anyone's name The arrest took place in Ward 1. Ward 1's Joe Jones was not present as far as I could see

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 32/34

Meeting adjourned around 8:15 pm. This concludes tonight's @CleCityCouncil meeting. The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, Sept 16. For more meeting coverage, check out . documenters.org

documenters.org

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 33/34

Don’t miss other work from Cleveland Documenters! Summaries of our threads and notes are featured in @signalcleveland’s daily newsletter, Signals 216. Subscribe here: #LocalNewsMatters go.signalcleveland.org/3YKBEPI

go.signalcleveland.org/3YKBEPI

Danny Mc @dmcbillion 34/34

This concludes my coverage of tonight's meeting. Thank you for reading along with me! Have questions? Think we got something wrong? Send any inquiries on the meeting or these tweets to @cledocumenters. Or email us at cledocumenters@gmail.com

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Agency Information

Cleveland City Council

See meeting notes for details

www.clevelandcitycouncil.org

(216) 664-2840

@CleCityCouncil

Facebook page

See Documenters reporting

Cleveland City Council is the legislative branch of the government of the City of Cleveland in Ohio. There are 17 elected Cleveland City Council members representing the 17 wards of the City of Cleveland. Each ward has approximately 25,000 residents. Council Members are elected to serve a four-year term. Council members serve two roles in their duties: to draft and enact legislation for the city of Cleveland and act as ombudsmen for their constituents.

Find meetings streamed at: *online on TV20 at: http://www.tv20cleveland.com/watch-now/

*The meetings are also streamed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ClevelandCityCouncil/