Public Comment

Good Evening, Councilmembers. My name is Brian Siggers and I am proud to serve as the Cleveland Metro Advocacy Director for the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund—the sibling organization of the Ohio Environmental Council which works statewide to advance important policy securing healthy air, clean water, vibrant public lands, as well as a strong democracy for all who call Ohio home. Here in Cleveland, we are pleased to work with community partners to ensure a healthier environment for all Cleveland residents. There are many ordinances you will be voting on this evening that do just that. I am here tonight to specifically urge you to vote in favor of Complete and Green Streets Ordinance (Ordinance 370-2022), sponsored by Council Member McCormack and Mayor Bibb. The Complete and Green Streets Ordinance will improve coordination on road projects among city departments, require street designs to prioritize vulnerable road users, invest in green infrastructure measures, and create an oversight committee to review road projects to ensure the designs meet the needs of all road users. At the OEC Action Fund, we are constantly examining different ways that we can tackle climate change and help cities reduce carbon emissions. Walking and bicycling are zero-emissions modes of transportation—and a solo commuter who switches to transit could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20 pounds per day, or more than 4,800 pounds in a year. A National Household Transportation Survey indicated that approximately half of all trips in metropolitan areas are 3 miles or less and 28% of all metropolitan trips are one mile or less—distances that could easily be traversed by foot or bicycle; yet, 72% of trips under one mile are now made by automobile. We know that transportation is not just a minor issue of convenience; it shapes the community members’ access to jobs, education, healthy foods, and health care. According to our partners at Bike Cleveland, nearly 25% of Cleveland households do not have access to a vehicle—and in some neighborhoods, that rate is over 70%. Biking and walking are the most affordable forms of transportation; however, we have not built our city to make biking and walking safe or easy options. Many surveys have found that a lack of sidewalks and safe places to bike are the primary barriers that prevent people from walking or cycling more. With streets designed for 1+ million people, we have to rethink usage of transportation systems, and build towards more equitable, integrated and inter-modal ways to move people to and from their destinations. The updated Complete and Green Streets Ordinance also integrates important green infrastructure elements that help Cleveland ensure better air quality and stormwater management as well. Implementing this equitable transportation policy centered on people, will help to overcome some of the structural challenges that perpetuate disparity and environmental injustice in our city. It is imperative for the health of our environment and the health of our community, that we build our roads for multi-modal use and reduce our carbon emissions. We humbly ask that you vote to pass this ordinance so that the City of Cleveland will help mitigate climate change and support our city’s economic growth. Ultimately, passage of the Complete and Green Streets Ordinance will be a significant step in moving the city towards increased sustainability. Thank you. https://bit.ly/oecaf-cgs-publiccomment

Good evening, My name is Gwen Stembridge and I'm a 11 year resident of Cleveland and proud homeowner in Ward 11. I come to you tonight as a taxpayer, a voter, a white queer woman, and a self described "CLE-vangelist." I believe our government and democracy are working best when those with the most at stake have their needs met. Tonight you have the opportunity to create a commission on Black women and girls in the city of Cleveland. Some people might wonder why we need to create a commission for a specific population within the city. Isn't equality about just treating everyone equally? And sure that language sounds so pretty! But there's one adjustment we need to make. We need to not just treat people with equality but we need to ensure equality of outcomes for our residents and neighbors. There are plenty of studies to show how we are failing our Black Women neighbors when it comes to education, healthcare, and economic opportunity, from outside and inside the City of Cleveland. This is not just a problem for Black Women in Cleveland but it's a problem for us all. Dexter Edgar Converse is quoted as saying that the well being of any country is dependent on the culture of it's women. I would add that the wellbeing of a city like a Cleveland is entirely dependent on the culture of it's Black Women. If Black Women and Girls are not thriving in Cleveland, none of us are thriving. Cleveland cannot fulfill it's purpose until Black Women in Cleveland are THRIVING! This commission will ensure our government is prioritizing and investing in Black Women and Girls so that our city can truly thrive!

I am Dr. T. Carter, founder of Black Women Coping in Community an organization birthed from the plight of the black women coping in Cleveland. Established to provide creative cathartic spaces for black women to engage, be empowered, and supported. As a black woman currently coping in the city of Cleveland of Ohio I am both saddened and excited by the possibilities of this conversation today. I am saddened that it has taken so long for black women to be seen, heard, and acknowledged for our contributions to society and the inequity we endure daily with regard to viability and livability. But also excited that we are no longer the invisible marginalized group. I have personally lived in Cleveland for decades and have experienced every aspect of the oppression and disregard expressed in the Citylab article. I appreciate Mayor Bibb and the new administration for addressing a problem that will not only impact this people group but will improve our community overall. Because when you address the plight of the black woman you address the most prevalent issues that address our society as a whole; race, and gender.

This is a statement by Molly Ryan, PharmD in support of the implementation of a Commission of Black Women and Girls, due to the emergent need to support Black women and girls in Cleveland. As a healthcare worker (pharmacy, Fulbright alumna in Public Health) who seeks to advocate for patients and has provided service in multiple Cleveland establishments and community organizations during the last several years, I am emphasizing the healthcare need and benefits of this ordinance. This Commission can benefit the health needs of Black women and girls not only through direct health-related advocacy, but also indirectly through positively influencing Social Determinants of Health (SDOH), such as matters of the family and community like employment, housing, access to transportation. This ordinance is of significant importance to the health benefits of Black women, since an individual's health outcomes are influenced by SDOH, potentially to a greater extent than the exact medical treatment received. Given the quantity and quality of advanced healthcare resources in Cleveland, it is within the city's responsibility and benefit to improve healthcare access and lower health risks for Black women, girls, and their communities. The Commission of Black Women and Girls (Ordinance No. 373-2022) is an important measure to achieve this goal.

As Chairwoman & Founder of the Women of Color Foundation (20 years ago), we are anxious and excited to bring our resources and network to bear for this amazing effort. I am delighted to be personally involved at whatever level Mayor Justin Bibb, his administration, members of the Cleveland City Council, and others may believe that my 20 years of experience of working in this space and advocating for, and training black women and girls, may be needed. By way of background information, we have a database of over 30,000 emails, 75% of which are women, and more specially, women of color. It is important to note, that for this effort to be successful we must collaborate with partners and allies from all aspects of the community. (No matter their race, gender, and their station in life) We are all in this together, but it is time for black women and girls to be valued and appreciated as a force for a change and equity in the City of Cleveland.

I implore each member of Cleveland City Council to pass emergency Ordinance No. 373-2022, relating to the creation of the Commission on Black Women and Girls. This morning and every morning Black and Brown women and girls wake up to a system that fails them. Racism and sexism against Black and Brown women is under-reported, under-investigated, and under-prosecuted. We must demand better from all of those involved in maintaining civil society. I am an educator. My girls deserve to live in a city and world where they have unbounded possibility. Black women and girls matter. Black women girls deserve better.

I bought an Historical property at 3234 W 43rd St Cleveland Oh 44109 in Jan 2012 and left Berea, Ohio to start my life and the property was a foreclosure from a Wells Fargo Bank. It needed lots of repairs which I’ve spent 85,000 bringing it to code. I fell in love with this old butcher shop from the late 1800s and it will be designated as a Cleveland Landmark in June 2022 or so. Since then I’m 2019 Inspector To y Baraisic had pursued me for minor violations during August of 2019 for painting and minor repairs. However none of my neighbors have been written up for their homes which are worse than mine. I have been singled out “Selective Code Enforcement” which is considered criminal and I feel this is a poor way of handling these situations with homeowners that are low income to moderate income instead of working with them. I have not neglected my property and I was cited during a time right before the weather got bad in 2019 and I was going to fix and paint the next spring which I did. I was placed in a SIP program and since then put heavily under a microscope while my neighbors and neighborhood is in great disrepair along with drug problems and gunfire and theft. Home values are low here. I have cooperated in with my attorney in the program but I am being still treated hostilely. I feel my Constitutional rights to due process are being violated and I have the right to speak at my hearings but I am silenced by Magistrate Embry and held in a continuous loop where my legal correspondence from me and my lawyers aren’t being reviewed and the progress that I’ve done not being recognized and I am being harassed by Tony Baraisic the City’s Inspector who refuses to cooperate and work along with me to help complete my program. I am not a criminal and I am not a thug. I am struggling financially and I feel that code enforcement is being abused and the authority of those overseeing it are overstepping their authority as well. My rights as a home owner are being ignored and the violations are selective and not equal for the neighborhood and others here have gone years without doing anything to their properties. I know I looked them all up. This is illegal and is code enforcement harassment. I want City Council to decriminalize code enforcement for homeowners. It’s ridiculous the way it’s being handled. Councilwoman Jasmine Santana has helped me and Community Housing Solutions has spent along with me over $45000.00 this past year alone on my home and it’s very nice. There is a couple issues I’m working on but the magistrate is not following the guidelines for the SIP docket and this is causing me to not be able to provide food on my table for me and my mother who lives with me. This isn’t supposed to be happening and there needs to be intervention with City Council. I have so much more to say and elaborate on regarding my case and all that I’ve done please allow me to tell you in person one on one. Please let me go before City Council and plead my case to you. You are the legislative body that controls and manages housing code enforcement. Please help me call me. I have been physically sick and I’ll and almost ready for hospitalization because of how I’m being mistreated. I love my home and this isn’t the way to welcome me to Cleveland.

I have been watching cleveland build parks for kids and young adults. Ball parks basket ball parks. Kids and young adults that have these dirt bikes have no place to ride or enjoy having fun on there bikes. An intercity dirt track that can be made from properties of vacant buildings and run by parks and recreation department. I'm an old dirt bike racer and rider and I had to travel a long ways to enjoy my dirt bike. Give the kids your adults a place to enjoy their bikes without having to brake the law. You have the tools too do this. Thanks

TO: The Cleveland City Council FROM: Arthur Hargate, Ward 6 RE: Ordinance No. 482-2022 I am writing to provide public comment on the reauthorization of Cleveland’s Residential Tax Abatement program. The bottom line is the tax abatement proposed reauthorization before Council as amended by its Development, Planning and Sustainability Committee doesn’t go nearly far enough to encourage housing equity in Cleveland. The last several years of high end development in high end areas of the city has exacerbated the affordable housing crisis in Cleveland. The City of Cleveland’s (hereafter “City”) panicked efforts to increase its tax base due to population loss has functioned to increase inequity, racial segregation and income / wealth disparity. Meanwhile, developers and property managers of high end rental have gorged themselves on the largesse of the City’s taxpayers. Council should immediately end tax abatements for market rate and luxury apartments. 85% abatement in the “hot” market neighborhoods is ridiculous, entirely unnecessary and an abusive insult to those of us that pay ever increasing real estate taxes in this city. Investors and developers need no subsidies whatsoever to build high end apartments. Council should also reduce the 15 year abatement term for anything other than affordable housing. Council should provide robust incentives for home renovation and first time home ownership. Council should also end the giveaway to remote investor developers and property managers extracting the economic vibrancy from our neighborhoods in excess rents. This will serve to restore much needed cash flows to Cleveland schools, libraries and the Metroparks. Further, the Area Medium Income should be pegged to that which it is in the City itself, and the $20,000 fee to enable affordable units is absurdly low at $20,000. Tax abatements should be limited to one in a lifetime so that people cannot move from abated property to abated property and never pay property taxes in the City. This current legislation as amended isn’t transformative in terms of equity, and it can and should be. It doesn’t do enough for forgotten neighborhoods and their disenfranchised residents, and the legislation appears to still cater too much to the posh, the privileged and the powerful in our community. An unvarnished and common sense driven perspective on tax abatement is shared by many, many Cleveland residents who have witnessed the ugly, unfair and inequitable effects of this policy for decades, both at a macro and ground level. It’s time to stop catering to the well-to-do and finally do something bold with tax abatement policy to help address directly Cleveland’s two critically debilitating issues: affordable housing and poverty. Doing something bold with tax abatement policy now can create significant velocity in that direction. Conceptually the legislation of course makes sense and is long overdue, after almost twenty years of allowing the affordable housing crisis to proliferate, but even in committee Council seems to water down provisions that other major cities have had in place for years, so as to make the developers, banks and property investor elite happy. Many worthy organizations involved in making recommendations to the City appear to have also been especially tactful, seemingly to not alienate the powerful, influential and well-connected investor, developer and contractor community, as well as their ubiquitous power-broker attorneys. Are we that desperate to encourage population growth and tax revenues (other than property) that we must make the finance, investment and real estate community wealthier to an extreme while forgotten citizens in forgotten neighborhoods see their infrastructure crumble around them? The obsequious catering to profits before people was obvious in the 2020 Tax Abatement Report and the 2030 Equity Housing Plan. There were many good things in both but also monumental accommodation, as no one appears to be willing to be clear and call out the way the posh, privileged and powerful in our city have profited for decades by driving a civic agenda that has had the net effect of helping to keep poor people poor and living in costly, substandard housing. You’ve heard this from many smart people and its true: poverty is a policy choice, and it wasn’t a policy choice of our government officials here. It was a policy of the power elite in the greater Cleveland area, of which the finance, investment and real estate cabal is an integral part and driving force. It was their policy towards economic and property development that focused on the downtown playground for the well-to-do and a handful of Cleveland’s neighborhoods. It was their policy that refused to acknowledge and attack directly endemic poverty, overwhelming racism and housing discrimination in a truly effective way. It was their policy that to this day rewards rich people for catering to rich people. Every stratum of the real estate market here has been poached by investors, and as a result affordable housing is in crisis and poor people have only stayed poor. We remain the poorest big city in the United States, and every economic development decision in the City must now be viewed through the filter of this one question: what directly will this do for poor people in poorer neighborhoods in this city? That exact question must be asked of the reauthorized tax abatement policy. It is clear that our tax abatement policy and practices have contributed to both entrenched problems: lack of affordable housing and poverty, saying nothing of the money it has stripped from our schools. Increased urban density in certain “chosen” areas to get income tax revenue, other regressive taxes and retail activity never “trickles down” to actually address either problem in a meaningful way and largely just benefits the Cleveland power elite. Take a ride around Gates Mills, Hunting Valley, Chagrin Falls or Pepper Pike. Then take a ride around some of our forgotten Eastside neighborhoods and tell me this is not a fact. The income and wealth disparity in this community is as stark as anywhere in the United States, and tax abatement policy has only served to help keep it that way. The suburban elites investing in real estate and pulling the strings have done quite well in taking advantage of this tax abatement policy. Those living in Cleveland’s neglected neighborhoods have not. Yes, tax abatement is just one tool and we need to use a big tool kit to get on top of affordable housing and poverty, but tax abatement policy must be used boldly going forward in its next iteration to preferentially help Cleveland’s most vulnerable, and I ask that you focus on amending the legislation in ways that will directly do that. For too long developers, many with investment funding from outside the city, have profited handsomely building and acquiring, then becoming the property managers of high end rental. As well, we know that “vulture” investors have gobbled up tracts of cheap homes and rented them at exorbitant prices while letting them deteriorate. Developers claim they are meeting insatiable market demand for high end rental. Intuitively, this makes no sense. A far more likely scenario is that the finance, investment and real estate cabal has successfully manipulated the market by squeezing the supply side and profiting from the run up in pricing and demand. The tax abatement goodies have also been so lucrative that you have seen a proliferation of developers evolving to also become property managers of the high end rental they just built. The profitability must be staggering, and it would be wise to gain visibility to their economic model. Developers have pocketed the tax abatement, played the spread between low cost to acquire land and buildings and high rent and have extracted the economic vitality of neighborhoods in excess rent. That’s one way that poor people stay poor, and moderate income people never get ahead. Every dollar spent on excess rent flowing out of the community to remote landlords is a dollar not spent on local goods and services, so how is that wise economic development for the City of Cleveland? The market demand story is likely just another “big lie” created by crafty investor marketers. Who do you think funds the market studies that are promoting this lie of insatiable market demand for high end rental? Rentals are filled because there is little or no affordable housing that can be purchased. There is no “silver tsunami” not conjured up and mythologized by investors, and truly independent studies reveal millennials would much prefer to buy a house if they only could, rather than throw their money away on stupidly high rent. But Wall Street has invested in high end rental and made affordable housing impossible to find, so we’re stuck with paying way too much for way too little. People rent because they cannot afford to buy, because they rent and pay too much. And all the while tax abatement was a key to making that lush deal for investors, developers and property managers pay off like crazy in Cleveland. Other cities acted years ago to stem this kind of feeding frenzy by rapacious real estate investors. It also would be good to know exactly who is hiding behind those secretive LLC’s for high end rental projects or bulk acquisition of distressed homes? Investors from New York, Texas, Detroit, Hong Kong, Singapore, Moscow? We know the U.S. real estate market is a favorite for the international dark money laundering racquet. How much dark money is invested now in Cleveland’s high end rental real estate market? Would it be a good thing for the City to know that? It’s time to end the money grab by investors, developers and property managers and help average and poor people in this city. End abatements for market rate and luxury rental. Assure we know who the investors are behind each real estate development LLC. Clearly understand how their business model works. Know exactly who is benefitting, who is paying and how much for each. Assure robust public participation in the property development project planning and implementation. Provide ample protections against gentrification. Restore much needed cash flows to our schools, libraries and Metroparks. Provide highly scaled abatements that target forgotten neighborhoods and especially home renovation and first time home buyers. Give preference to owner occupied purchased homes and help lower income people get into them. Help keep seniors in their homes. Make homeownership the vehicle for wealth creation it should be in every Cleveland neighborhood. Help people first, not corporations. Cleveland can do this. One candidate for County Executive says we don’t think big enough; we don’t have enough big ideas. Here are a few. Provide plenty of living wage jobs for poor people in Cleveland. Revitalize the poorer neighborhoods, refurbished and rebuilt by minority contractors and filled with local business fed by local investors. Assure every Clevelander has housing that is affordable for them in their income bracket. Tax abatement policy can help. Please amend the legislation such that it preferentially helps our most vulnerable residents in every ward of the City. Thank you, Arthur Hargate, Ward 6

The city's residential tax abatement program is unfair and inequitable. A lot of people think that only justification for it is to expand the supply of affordable housing. So I urge you to restrict tax abatement for only that purpose. But, short of that, I’d like to recommend some specific ways the current legislation should be strengthened. First, the proposed legislation to renew tax abatement divides the housing market into three tiers — strong market, middle market, and opportunity market — with the percent of allowed abated value in each being 85, 90 and 100%. This differential is so small it’s meaningless. To have an impact, it should be something like 0% in strong markets, 60% in middle markets, and 100% in the opportunity markets. Second, there’s an in lieu of payment of $20K/unit for the affordable housing set-aside requirement for multi-family developments. That seems way too low. Developers will just pay it to reap the larger windfall of the tax subsidy. It’s also too little to allow the city’s affordable housing fund to produce a unit of affordable housing. So the amount should be increased substantially. Third, why do tax abatements have to run for 15 years? What research shows that this is the appropriate length of time? You should not be afraid of reducing the term — perhaps testing 5 years. Finally, to quality for tax abatement projects must comply with the city’s green building standard. This is a really good requirement, but the standard should be strengthened, especially for new construction. The current options are for low levels of green building certification, such as LEED Silver, which is easy to achieve with modern building techniques. At a time of climate crisis, we should be requiring new buildings to have near net-zero for energy use. In conclusion, the proposed tax abatement legislation moves the city incrementally in the right direction, but it needs to be strengthened in a number of ways.