Public Comment

The planned Wards 7 and 11 as drawn specifically break up an existing Block Club area. The Edgewater Hill Block Club has a long history of advocacy for the neighborhood from W 70th to W 78th from Detroit to the railroad tracks. This group was instrumental in keeping the pedestrian tunnel to Edgewater open and worked with Council, City Planning and other groups to ensure the successful development of Battery Park. With the addition of Battery Park this block club re-aligned to ensure cooperation and representation from the existing (legacy) residents and new residents in Battery Park (and more recent developments in the community). This new map literally breaks the legacy neighborhood off from Battery Park and and other parts of this active community. This plan did not take into account the decades long history of this group - or it did, with the goal to silence a group that speaks out and organizes to advocate for our community. Breaking up this neighborhood from north to south ignores how the residents have formed their own bonds through decades of change. We are strongly aligned as a community north of Detroit Avenue. Splitting us in two serves no purpose other than to reduce our interrelationship and silence our collective voice. We ask that the planned split of Wards 7 and 11 be reviewed and our community remain intact. Thank you. Abbe DeMaio Co-chair, Edgewater Hill Block Club

Not sure why Edgewater Park has been separated from the Edgewater Neighborhood. Use the Shoreway as a boundary and keep the park with the neighborhood in the new Ward 12. This in no way will alter the population numbers, not even by one single resident. As it stands now, the new Ward 11 will have both Edgewater Park on the north and the Zoo on the south. Let Ward 11 have the Zoo. Let Ward 12…and the Edgewater Neighborhood…have Edgewater Park. Also, the new Ward 7: Detroit-Shoreway, Ohio City, Tremont, the Flats East & West Bank, the Warehouse District and the entirety of the lakefront from Edgewater Yacht Club to the east end of Burke Lakefront Airport. That’s quite a ward. What happened here?? WOW!!!

The way Ward 7 is drawn it combines all of Detroit Shoreway, Ohio City, Tremont and the lakefront downtown. That seems to be an awful lot for one councilperson to serve as opposed to the other wards. As a resident of DS, it will be hard to get access to a councilperson that has so much to manage. The way Ward 11 is drawn is the opposite of Ward 7. There are no cohesive neighborhoods in this area as they relate more to the existing and established neighborhoods that are adjacent. There is little community and it is spread North to South, instead of East to West which is how most of the neighborhoods are oriented.

I just wrote to the maps@citycouncil.org voicing my opinion about breaking up Hyacinth's area, why is it being broken down into two WARDS 3 & 5. I have been doing the Hyacinth's Block Club around here for over 25 years and I have residents come from North Broadway and surrounding areas, the way this is set up, you are breaking up the strong involvement that I have with the residents. By looking at the map division, you have just a couple of streets outside of Ward 3, but the little area is going to be in Ward 5. This whole area needs to be in the same Ward. I am asking for you to consider this in making up an adjustment. Either make it all in Ward 5 or Ward 3, this division is CRAZY. What about the Police districts, how is this going to have Officers'response for service, we are not going to know which District we are going to be in.

Where is the proposed new ward map? Something with street names for identification?

When does this madness of taxpayers subsidizing billionaire owned sports franchises stop? Gateway just sucked another 40 million out of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County coffers, money that will cause the county and city to increase debt and reduce basic services to residents, and that’s just for recent repairs and luxury niceties they did without taxpayer approval. The lease agreements between Gateway and the teams are basically an open check book, and the checkbook belongs to taxpayers. After decades of “trickle down” economic development lies and stupidly lavish taxpayer funded subsidies to billionaire-owned sports franchises, private equity owned investors and rapacious real estate developers, Cleveland remains one of the poorest big cities in the United States with underfunded public schools, unsafe streets, kids still being poisoned by lead and a lack of affordable housing. And where exactly are the living wage jobs with good benefits easily accessible to residents in Cleveland’s neighborhoods? Not here, because the big money corporate donor class and philanthro-capitalists that tell the city what to do extract the value from the community and fill their pockets while the middle class here stagnates and poor people suffer. The city invests in glitzy things like a stupidly expensive and unnecessary land bridge, and its ever taxpayer subsidy needy yet highly profitable sports teams, rather than investing in its people and the quality of their urban lives. Cleveland is all about marketing hype and silly slogans, never about aggressively and consistently attacking its endemic social problems, made worse every year by the greed of regional elites. It's high time for taxpayers to say "no" to this madness and elect officials in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County who put their interests ahead of regional oligarchs.

I want to first thank Danny Kelly for working a deal to stop the gas station from being built at the old CVS on Madison and West Blvd. We look forward to a new Fire station 23 being built in that location. Next I want to thank Jenny Spencer for all she has done in the past year and a half since I had met her. Jenny announced that she is not seeking re-election as Council person for Ward 15 . Jenny has helped me as well as others in our fight to save Cudell Park, creating a New Marion Seltzer school and guiding us while trying to stop the re-zoning of the public overlay and work in finding another use for the CVS other than a gas station. Jenny has worked tirelessly over the years to be the epitome of a public servant. I've seen her help and serve the community and attended events and wondered when she has had time for herself? Jenny is unselfish and caring. She even has extended her hand to help me when I was experiencing a PTSD moment and talked me through it. I will always remember that fond kindness which Jenny extended towards me. During public comments at City Council she listens attentively to everyone who speaks unlike some members who chose to look at their phones or laptops even though the speaker is only taking 3 minutes of their "precious" time. I pray the other council members will take a lesson from her in what Public Service represents and how to act. So in closing, I want to give a big shout out and THANK YOU to Jenny Spencer for being one of the most special and devoted council persons that has ever held the office. Thank You Jenny Spencer

Why is the story on Cleveland’s rat problem flying under the radar? Because we don’t like negative stories about Cleveland? Because it would annoy the region’s powerful, privileged and pampered elites? “Cleveland, Ohio, ranks as the 10th rattiest city in the U.S., according to the Top 50 Rattiest Cities List from Orkin, a national pest control company. Cleveland ranked 10th on Orkin’s list in 2023 and ninth in 2022.” (Link below.) Just another telling metric demonstrating the unwillingness and ineffectiveness of the city’s political and civic “leadership” to focus on quality of life effects on residents. Poverty remains endemic, urban public schools underperform, rapid transit is anemic, streets are patently unsafe, the protective tree canopy is decimated, code compliance and enforcement is abysmal, affordable housing to purchase is nonexistent, kids are still being poisoned by lead, living wage jobs with benefits are scant and disinvestment in forgotten neighborhoods continues. But we’ll have a stupidly expensive and completely unnecessary land bridge, now won’t we? And the wild-eyed breathless bloviating boosters will still effusively extol the region’s undeniable virtues and assets, while doggedly explaining away, obfuscating and otherwise turning a blind eye to the city’s decades old intractable problems and attendant human suffering that won’t be alleviated until the quality of life of its people becomes a priority on the same level as corporate profits, city tax revenues and nonprofits’ endowments. I wonder if Cleveland’s taxpayers really understand how much of their tax money ends up in the pockets of multi-millionaires and billionaires who don’t and would never live in the city proper? Lawyers, developers, construction companies, insurance brokerages, banks, consultants, sports franchise owners? All big political and philanthropic donors, so they get the grift, and the graft and the corrupted attention. I’ve been told it’s a very, very big number. Maybe Cleveland doesn’t have the inclination or money to fix its intractable problems because the City is just too busy making wealthy people that don’t live in the city wealthier. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2024/10/ohio-town-among-top-10-rat-infested-cities-in-us-report-says.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3vIHl4kUdIAPyQwc6JyObYJXLWxOEa_fqJMSyEmIi92Z5G_rEiZ8AOrs4_aem_4WfLlUM1lXwPwWnwnrLstg

Speaking about issues

Transparency and service to the residents – proclamations from the Mayor