What is a mic?

Mike Mike.

What is the number for that again?

Because I'm gonna announce and tell everybody that it won't be until like later this afternoon.

These five ones that have six.

These two are component pieces.

I guess from the same developer, but they're only the comments.

Okay.

You know what the number is?

I gotta call you back, buddy.

One more.

What's the browns one?

On what the browns one?

What's the number for the browns one?

Thirteen twenty-five.

Okay, all right.

That's why I'm gonna make sure that's compared.

This committee of finance diversity, equity, and inclusion is called to order.

Madam Clerk, please call the role.

And uh read the amendment.

The amendment is there is no legal objection to this legislation if amended as follows in section three.

One in section three in the first paragraph at line nine strike and previously reported to council and are now on file in the offices of the clerk of council and the director of finance set forth in the project petition to adopt it is adopted and confirmed, and that this maximum special assessments are levied and assessed on the property.

And in the second paragraph, at line six strike, the semi-annual installment of the special assessment shall be collected in each calendar year equal to a maximum semi-annual amount of special assessments as shown in the project petition.

In the third paragraph, in lines two and six, strike aggregate and insert maximum in both places.

In line eight, strike, certify a final and insert provided and amended.

In line nine, strike which final and insert and the amended, and in the fifth paragraph, line three, strike list and insert schedule.

This was dated 1114 25 by Mary Comley Cornley, assistant director of law.

Director.

Thank you, Council President.

Um good morning, everyone.

Happy Monday.

Um I am here uh with Rich Morehouse of KJK and Andy Wolschlinger from Turndev.

Um I'm also joined by um Bobby Bruno, who has been the project manager on this project.

Bobby will be able to speak to our um participation and um the project team can answer any questions around the project.

Um good morning.

Uh so this is a pace deal.

Do we have slides by chance?

Yeah, on the tablets on the show.

Thank you.

Uh so this is for the hotel part of the redevelopment of the Erie View Tower here downtown in the Erie View District.

Uh, and so this is for pace financing.

So property assessed clean energy financing, uh, which is sort of a creative financing tool that allows property owners to uh get uh bank or other lender financing uh on their property for uh clean energy improvements, and kind of what makes this special is that they will be paid back on an as a special assessment over and above their property taxes.

Um so this is for clean energy things like solar panels, uh energy efficient, uh lighting, um, low flow water systems and things of that nature.

Uh so the project again, this is for the hotel piece of the Erie View Hotel or the Erie View Tower redevelopment.

Uh there's also a residential and a commercial office component to this project, but this financing will just be on the hotel.

Thank you.

Uh and finally, um, so the financing itself, it will be provided by uh Greenworks lending up to 43 million eight eighty-one eight sixty-four, uh financed over a period of twenty-eight years.

Um it will be those sort of uh HVAC controls, building envelope, water heating, and lighting uh upgrades that exceed energy standards, uh, and the special assessment uh will be in semi-annual payments up to about 1.9 million dollars.

And with that, um happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Did you guess want to make any comments before we move forward?

Fine.

Okay.

All right.

Uh this uh was in DPS, Councilman Harrison.

Uh thank you, Mr.

President, uh, members of the committee.

Uh we heard this in DPS uh fully uh supportive.

Uh we are not strangers to this particular project.

We've heard this project, it has been before us on several different occasions.

Umancing costs us nothing uh to complete.

Uh more so um uh discussing the project and ensuring that you know um that that it meets you know some of our thoughts and goals um that we've had over the over the few years of discussing this project and uh ask the committee for uh full support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman Welch.

Uh did you want to close out on this or did you want to make comments now?

Chairman Okay, Councilman Brian Casey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, Mr.

Chairman.

To I don't know your title.

Bobby Bruno, he's the project manager.

All right, to to Bobby.

Part of this agreement when we did this was the community benefits agreement was going to be that Cleveland Public Power could be used where accessible.

And over the course of the last couple of months, depending on who I talk to, that's not happening.

So, Mr.

Chairman to Bobby, can you tell us where we are with this project being converted to Cleveland Public Power?

Uh through the chair, uh I can confirm that was part of the CBA.

I will defer to uh the project team here on the status of the power company.

To the chair, um councilman Casey, that conversion is in progress.

Well, Mr.

Chairman or Mr.

Chairman, to I'm sorry, I forget your name.

Um we've been hearing that since we passed this, right?

So instead of just telling us it's a progress, can you tell us what the progress has been, where we are, where we expect to be and what the time frame is?

Uh sure.

Um to be sure the building is mostly vacant at this point, and what's been happening over the past year is demolition and pre-construction activities to be able to commence construction of the hotel.

So as far as the demand for electricity, there's not much demand for electricity right now, or not nearly as much as if would be occupied.

And so considering that, and the hotel is probably a year and a half away from being completed and you know being put into service.

Um we're just trying to the development group is just trying to prioritize those activities that have the most meaning to the project right now.

And uh the project entered into the community benefits agreement and intends to honor the CPPs.

Well, Mr.

Chairman, to our project team, um you're a year and a half away, and you're not using much electricity now, but obviously after the demo, it's all gonna happen, right?

And then what what my fear is is that you guys are gonna be ready to use electricity, and we've had almost two years to get this done, and nothing's nothing's been done.

And I don't know if it's a Cleveland public power thing or if it's a project team, depending on who I talk to, you're blaming each other.

But all I know is part of the community benefits agreement.

Now you're coming back to the city wanting something else from us, right?

And we have not, and that was a big sticking point was the use of Cleveland Public Power for this project as part of the community benefits agreement, and now here we are stuck and we have not moved one iota on on that community benefits agreement.

So, Mr.

Chairman, to our project development team, please tell us why we should be supportive of this when you haven't lived up to the community benefits agreement.

And if I have to bring Cleveland Public Power in here through in the hallway to figure this out or to settle this, we should, but I shouldn't be getting calls once a month from each side saying we can't connect um to the chair to the councilman uh to be sure we uh we have a little bit of runway, well, I guess a long bit runway to complete the community benefits agreement.

We just asked for your patience with us, and we know that we can reach out to you, we can reach out to CPP, and you know, we feel we have a a good base to do, you know, enter into the negotiations and finalize the CPP power agreement.

Um we just haven't reached that point yet.

Um just rest assured that it's in the CBA and we've committed to it, it will be done.

Um Mr.

Mr.

Chairman or to Councilman Harrison, when we when we do a community benefits agreement like this, how long do we have to in a project like this for them to complete any any portion?

And this isn't just this project, but any portion of a community benefits agreement because if this is a 30-year deal or whatever it is, does that mean that they have 30 years to to complete the community benefits agreement on on any project?

I'm not sure if we have time for that, but I mean you want to answer that question, sir, because I mean I think what he's looking for is some finality.

When I mean I think if you gave some metrics to say once the building is X, Y field, then maybe that will be satisfactory, but give some kind of metric as opposed to an open-ended.

Oh, we'll get to it when we get to it.

Oh, sure.

Um, what I meant to say um to the chair to Mr.

Um Councilman Casey.

It will be completed by the time the project is operational.

All right.

So, Mr.

Chairman, to our our project team.

That portion of the community benefits agreement before you get your certificate of occupancy will have will have occurred, correct?

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

Appreciate it.

Councilman uh Michael Pelissa.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr.

Chairman of my honorable colleagues, just to follow up.

Um, and I would concur with Councilman Casey.

This is important that we get um Cleveland public power uh activated in that building.

This is an exciting project.

I've stated at the table before that when you look at the downtown area and you look at what ear review gallery used to be and what it became and what it has become.

I I think this is critical for that whole area to create jobs and opportunity.

So um there was a place that that many of us would walk over during the day uh for lunch or uh there was meetings and it was all kinds of activity, and you walk over there now and there's nothing.

So that's why this is a critical project.

So I, you know, that's why I believe uh the council um have been has been so supportive of this because we see the opportunity to create energy once again to the west, excuse me, to the east of 9th Street, where there hasn't been any.

So again, I would hope you would listen to what has been said at the table.

We're here to support, I'm supportive of it.

I've been over there, I've walked through the whole complex, and I think it's very important for downtown.

So I hope what you hear today, you take bath and back and make sure you do everything you can with the Cleveland public power.

So I'm here to be supportive, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

Are any more questions regarding 1440 dash 2025?

Saying no other questions, ordinance number 1440-2025 stand approved, please sign on.

Remember, please sign on because this is committee of the whole.

When something passes out, sign on all of the committees that you represent.

Thank you.

All right.

Next is uh do they have the companion pieces or do they have which one?

Not this project, I don't believe.

Okay, all right, okay.

All right.

Next is ordinance number fifty 1454 dash 2025 by Council Members Harrison and Griffin by departmental request, an emergency ordinance authorizing the director of economic development to enter into a grant agreement with the Greater Cleveland Media Development Corporation, DBAid, Greater Cleveland Film Commission, or its designee to assist with the general operating expenses of the organization.

And while they're coming to the table, I want to make sure that I let everybody know that um 1325, i.e.

the Browns piece will probably not be held until this afternoon.

Uh so just want to make sure that everyone knows that that would not be heard until this afternoon.

So anybody associated with 1325, which is uh whether or not council will accept the uh cooperation agreement that has been put forth by the administration, uh, that will be heard later this afternoon.

Thank you.

All right, director.

Thank you.

Um I believe this one has a PowerPoint as well.

Yes.

Oops.

I have it on the computer if you want to computer on a password.

It might not be necessary.

You could be fine, just we'll go off of this.

We should be good.

All right.

Um well thank you.

Um I'm here today with Bill Garvey, president um of the film commission, and Grace Harrison, who's the neighborhood investment manager for the near um oh, sorry, far west side.

Um today um we're here on uh to contribute towards um the film commission.

Um they have they're an entity that has been around um and founded in 1998 and have been attracting economic investment and job creation through film and media production um for over two decades.

And I will allow for Grace and uh Mr.

Harvey to present on um this project.

Good morning.

So I'm sure most, if not all of you are familiar with the Film Commission and their work in not only Cleveland, but the Northeast Ohio region overall.

Um Bill will discuss more of the details of what has been accomplished in the last few years.

Um but the piece today is slightly different um to the grants provided in past years in that we are um asking for an increase of fifty thousand dollars in the operating grant just due to um competition in the arena of media production.

They want to do as much as they can in the area and attract more investment and just general increases in costs over the years that the entire economy has seen.

So they operate in three main areas.

One being advocacy for tax incentive policies at a state level for media production.

They attract productions to Cleveland and Northeast Ohio as we're familiar with.

Thank you, Ms.

Harrison.

Thank you, uh say council.

Really appreciate uh your support over the longstanding support over the last 25 years of our existence uh to bring more economic development to Northeast Ohio and Cleveland in in particular.

Um, this year has been a pretty great year.

You'll see a snapshot of that uh in that one sheet that I I uh distributed.

Uh over the last uh 2000 complete year, 2024, uh we produced 1.15 million dollars in city income tax revenue, uh 1.

uh 6 million dollars in sales tax revenue and brought 77.8 million dollars of direct spend uh to the greater Cleveland area uh and also employed uh two uh 2,926 crew and another 2,570 background actors uh for a total of over $5,000, 5,000 people working in this industry locally.

Uh we we appreciate the the uh acknowledgement that costs have increased substantially over the last 10 years, and uh that's why uh we're asking for an additional uh $50,000 to uh match that in uh inflation cost that it's taken to uh do the work that we do.

All right, thank you.

So we've been advocating for a while uh to be more supportive of the film commission.

I think that they do uh great work.

Um just out of curiosity, what is the cap at the state level now?

I know that they've raised raised it.

Do we know what the uh cap amount is now and what was it raised from?

Thank you, uh Mr.

Chair.

Uh it was raised and then lowered.

Um so it was raised momentarily to 75 million, uh, but it's been brought back down to 50 million.

So we're at 50 million, which is higher than it was two years ago.

Um, and we get the bulk of the work.

Uh so over the last cycle, uh, we got 99 percent of the approved uh productions to come to Northeast Ohio.

Uh over the last three year cycle, we've gotten around 70 percent of those uh jobs to come here.

All right.

But we need to keep advocating.

I know that this council passed a resolution in order to try to raise the cap at the uh state level as well.

Uh it looks like we need to continue to advocate for that as well.

Okay.

All right.

Uh I have uh councilman Harrison.

This was in DPS.

Uh yes, Mr.

Chair, it was relieved for uh time and uh purposes, so I was not aware of the increase uh request amount on the piece, no one told me that.

Uh so is the first time hearing uh about it today.

So I'll turn over the committee to ask the questions.

Thank you.

All right.

Um and once again, let me state I know we're going through a lot of transition, so um if you need to have uh another conversation with them, let them know.

I just uh thought that that conversation that took place, but thank you for letting me know.

Okay.

All right.

Uh any other questions regarding Councilman Mike Finis.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, my honorable colleagues, and to um to the director and to Bill.

Um I can remember when we weren't doing any filming in Cleveland, so I I see the benefits of it.

I've been on the sets.

I see the number of employees that have been um hired and the people who are working and how it impacts our local economy.

Um so I wholeheartedly support this effort.

But one of the things I wanted to say, um, I attended the um the um I don't want to even I don't know if you want to call it seminar, uh the um program that was held at the Collinwood Rec Center, and I was really impressed by the number of people who turn out that room was full of potential um individuals who are interested in getting involved in the um in the whole movie business, uh whether it be extras or just working on the sets, etc.

But one thing I didn't hear, and I need to say this at the table, and I'm gonna say it more often going into next year, is that I really didn't hear anybody thank Cleveland City Council for the support that we've given the Film Commission.

I didn't hear that.

And so I need to say that because so often um the administration is thanked, but the council is overlooked.

And I need to say that to you, Bill, and I need to say that the Film Commission.

Um we could be we could be allocating funds for other things.

But we believe this is important for the city.

I believe it's important for the city.

So I just need to say that.

I'm gonna not even belabor the point.

Council needs to be recognized when we go above and beyond the call of duty to support something that we believe in.

Council has believed in it.

So I'm gonna leave it at that.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

All right, thank you.

Councilwoman Spencer.

Thank you.

Um Mr.

Chair, just a brief comment.

I wanted to through you thank Mr.

Garvey for bringing one of the workforce development workshops to Gordon Square, which was highly successful.

So I think people know about the excitement of filming, but the workforce piece is really what motivates me to support this legislation today.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Seeing no other questions, ordinance number 1454-2025 stands approved.

Please sign on if we need uh further lobbying efforts at the state, we need to know.

So please keep us abreast, okay?

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Okay, next one is ordinance number 1512-2025 by Councilmembers Welsh, Bishop, Slife, Harrison and Griffin.

By departmental requests, an emergency ordinance authorizing the directors of parks and recreation and port control to enter into a seventh amendment to the Lakefront Parks lease with the Board of Park Commissioners of Cleveland Metropolitan Park District to add the North Coast Inner Harbor and Marina to the lease.

What's that number again?

1512-2025.

And I believe this was relieved by three committees.

I want to make sure Councilman Bishop, Councilman Harrison, and uh Councilman Slife.

Did all you all relieve this from your committees?

Yes.

Councilman Bishop, did you relieve it?

Councilman Harrison, did you relieve this?

Okay.

All right.

Directors, please uh proceed and tell us who we have at the table with us.

Good morning, Council President.

Thank you very much.

Um I am here with uh my colleagues and some guests.

Um I'm going to turn this over to uh Director Francis to talk about the um lease.

Good morning, dear.

Is that good?

Uh I'm sorry, I'm gonna turn it over to um uh Commissioner Di Janeiro.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director.

Good morning.

Um we I want to just point out that we have uh from Metro Parks Kyle Baker, who is the director of real estate and legal counsel uh with us as well.

Um so the ordinance would authorize a seventh amendment to the existing 99-year lease uh with Cleveland Metro Parks for the lakefront uh various lakefront properties.

Um back in 2013 under ordinance 504-13, uh the city entered into this lease with Cleveland Metro Parks, under which uh Cleveland Metro Parks takes over, has taken over all operations management, maintenance, and programming of various lakefront properties.

Um at this time, Metro Parks wishes to add to the lease the North Coast Harbor and Marina, which previously has been leased to a private company called OASIS, um, and they no longer wish to continue leasing the property, and so Metro Parks wishes to add this to the lease, and they will be responsible for all operations, uh maintenance and management of the North Coast Harbor and Marina.

Thank you.

Directors, anyone else want to make any comments?

Okay.

All right.

Uh so this is pretty much just renewing the lease for them for and just switching it to Metro Parks from the OASIS group.

That's pretty much for yes, correct.

Uh as with regard to North Coast Harbor.

Okay, all right.

Any questions regarding uh 1512, Mr.

Chairman?

Yes, Councilman Michael and thank you, Mr.

Chairman, my honorable colleagues to the uh Ms.

De Janeiro.

I'm not what what property, what building are we talking about?

Is it a specific building?

Is it a through the chair Councilman Polancy?

It's not a building, it's the it there's actually a map, should be a map in your packet showing the location of the marina.

It's uh it's the marina that is at North Coast Harbor, yeah.

Uh west of East Ninth Street.

So no no buildings, uh just the marina itself.

The mar that that floating marina, is that what you are talking about?

Yes, uh sometimes referred to as the part of the inner harbor.

Okay, okay, and that will what this is proposing now is that Metro Parks will take over that responsibility.

Correct.

Okay Yes, it was previously managed by OASIS and Metrox wishes to take over.

Mr.

Chairman, uh, to what period of time?

For what period of time?

So through the chair that councilman plants like the existing lease is 99 years.

This property will be added.

Um the original lease was 2013, so it will be, you know, approximately 99 minus 12.

Okay.

That's all.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

And and if I'm not mistaken, several it's been several people that have leased that up until now, because I remember it was other companies that were subleasing it for a while, too.

I'm not sure, Mr.

Chairman.

John Hoos from Port Control might be able to answer that question.

Press Chair.

Uh Chair to Council.

Um it was Oasis Marina and then GIT before.

GIT before.

That's what I thought.

So it was several.

Okay.

All right.

Uh Councilman Brian Casey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, to our presenters.

I mean, there's really nothing here but water and 24 boat docks, correct?

Uh through through the chair to councilman Casey, yes.

It's it's open water.

I mean, so what is it that somebody who leases it, like Metro Parks?

What is it that aside from just saying we're leasing it and letting boats dock, what else is there to do?

Uh a lot uh through the chair to councilman Casey, a lot of the property that we lease under the Lakefront Lease is open water, East Fifth Fifth Marina, as water marina.

Um so it's the same thing as those in the sense that we will have the right to operate the marina, expand, uh, improve, maintain it, um, and invite folks into the Northwest Harbor in Cleveland.

All right.

Thank you.

All right, Councilman uh Anthony Hairston.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Just a question to uh Commissioner in uh both either director, whoever can answer.

Uh does this restart the 99 years from this point, or is just uh the 99 that we enacted, you said 2012?

Is this is yes, is that still in place?

Yes, through the chair to councilman Harrison, it does not restart the 99 years.

So this lease will come in at you know in 2025-26.

The original lease was 2013, so it it will be for um whatever the math works out to be 99 years minus 12 years.

Okay.

Will be this this section of the lease.

The rest will remain the same.

The rest will be the balance of the lease, the terms and conditions of the lease.

Um nothing else will change except to add this property in in the year 2025 for the balance of the 99 or the balance of what's left on the lease.

All right.

And lastly, uh through the chair, um, does this is this lease for all of the properties that they operate on our behalf?

Or is this just specifically for certain areas?

Because do they have one big master lease that covers all of the the uh the beach parks, the uh other areas that they operate for us?

We do.

Um through the chair, there's there's a one big lease.

Sure.

Um this will be part of that lease.

It's it's the lease has been amended over time to add various properties and change certain terms of the original lease, but it's basically one big lease and we just keep amending it to add additional properties or remove properties as the case may be.

Gotcha.

And I asked that because I know that the uh like Euclid Beach was done many, many, many, many years ago.

That was before 2012.

And um, and then we've added, like you said, additional properties along the way to the chair and didn't know whether that each time we add something, does 99 years uh they get the balance of what's left based on that?

Is it what was the renewal has happened or or how that how that operates?

It it's just as through the chair, as properties are added, the the term like that does not um extend uh additional years.

It's just we started uh 99 years in 2013.

Sure.

And as properties are added, those additional properties, the lease for those will terminate at the end of 99 years.

So everything terminates at the same time.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman Welch.

Uh through the chair, thank you so much.

Um I just had a quick question about whether uh Metro Parks had intentions of maintaining the lease or whether whether they were currently looking for new ownership.

Umly because I agree with Councilman Harrison that when Metro Parks takes over many properties, we see a drastic improvement in the quality of those um properties, and so it would be sad to see someone come over and take it.

Not saying that somebody else couldn't do a good job of it.

We just know that Metro Parks has a historical record of taking over properties and and beautifying it.

So just wondering if they were going to continue uh having this lease or looking for new ownership in the near future.

Through the chair to Councilwoman Welch, they will continue to maintain for the balance of the lease.

Yeah, they'll they'll be responsible for all operations maintenance programming.

And um Kyle, if you have any comments, yeah, uh through the chair to councilwoman Welch.

It is our intention to operate it, self-operated Metro Park staff, Metro Parks people.

Um, and so yeah, we intend to fully self-operate and have no concessionary.

All right.

All right, thank you.

Seeing no other questions, ordinance number 1512-2025 stands approved.

Remember, this is committee of the whole sign, all of the committees that you represent, sign on there.

Thank you.

Next up is okay.

Next is 1316-2025, 1316-2025 by Councilmember Starr, Bishop Harrison and Griffin.

An emergency ordinance authorizing the director of parks and recreation to execute a deed of easement granting to CEDAR redevelopment phase four LLC, certain easement rights in property located on East 26th Street between Central and Community College and declaring the easement rights no longer needed for public use.

To the chair, thank you very much.

Uh, this item is related to the redevelopment next tour to our central recreation um uh center, and I'm gonna turn this over to Commissioner Di Janeiro to talk to the case.

Commissioner Thank you, Director.

Um, and just wanted to recognize Matt Schmidt, who is the Chief of Modernization and Development from CMHA.

We have with us this morning.

Um so this legislation authorizes the city to grant a fire lane easement for um the new uh residential development um located adjacent to the city central rec center.

This is part of the uh Kayova County Central Surge Initiative, uh which was aimed at impacting an area between East 22nd and East 28 streets around the city's recenter.

The city, county, and CMHA partnered to um improve this area, and the improvements include a new roadway, new East 26th Street, um, a new city park, right next to the rec center, and a new 50-unit residential development known as CEDAR redevelopment phase four.

Um the residential development requires a fire lane easement, and so the city is going to grant this easement at the rear of um the city uh park.

So it's not it's really not visible from the street at all.

Um it's about three the easement area is about three thousand eight hundred and five square feet.

It's a strip that's about twenty-four feet by 150 feet, and it will allow uh for like I said, a fire lane, um, and will also allow for better pedestrian access from the residential development into the city park and to the city rec center.

Thank you.

Uh this was relieved out of DPS.

Councilman Harrison.

Uh yes, Mr.

Chair.

Uh Heard and DPS fully supportive.

Um the um the individuals, they will maintain the one lane uh that they're asking for the uh the easement rights for and the city be responsible for maintaining everything else around it, uh which is the normal uh way that we handle these types of um uh requests.

And so ask the committee for fully support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Councilman Richard Starr.

This is in uh ward five.

Yes, I do support this initiative.

This is a great opportunity for the central neighborhood, aka Cedar Heights, uh, for an opportunity for us finished uh phase four of San Coba develop development, also including within that neighborhood area on the improvements to our central bathhouse recreation center.

So I do support this.

Thank you.

Seeing no other questions, ordinance number 1316-2025 stands approved.

Please sign on.

Next are companion pieces, and we'll hear both of them simultaneously.

This is uh ordinance number 1397 and 1399-2025 by Councilmembers House Jones Hairston and Griffin.

An emergency ordinance authorizing the mayor and the commissioner of purchases and supplies to acquire and reconvey properties presently owned by RJL 2230 SALLC or its designee located at 2230 superior for the purpose of entering into the chain of title prior to the adoption of tax increment financing legislation authorizing under section 5709.41 of the revised code.

And then number two is ordinance number 1399-2025 by Council members House Jones, Harrison and Griffin by departmental request, an emergency ordinance authorizing the mayor and the commissioner of purchases and supplies to acquire and reconvey properties presently owned by 2202 Superior LLC or its designee located at 2202 Superior Avenue for the purpose of entering into the chain of title prior to the adoption of tax increment financing legislation authorized under Section 5709.41 of the revised code.

And before I go any further, I know that I got a call from uh Director uh Bordeaux that uh this was something that was urgent um and the chair um had some questions and did not have uh did not have an opportunity to really um go over this and then also I want to make sure that councilwoman Stephanie House Jones is in support of this because I wanted to make sure those two things um did were you able to have those good conversations.

My understanding is councilwoman um is in support and I was able to touch base with um Councilman Harrison.

Yes okay all right uh so please proceed tell us what we're uh looking at.

Thank you, um Chair.

And please speak directly into the microphone if you could so the listening audience can hear.

Has this?

That's better.

Thank you.

Um here with um Rich Morehouse of KJK and and Andy Wolschlager of Turndev.

Um and again my um reliable and um amazing project manager um Bobby Bruno.

Um today we're speaking on um 2022 oh two and 2230 superior AV.

Um excited about these projects.

Uh they um are looking for a TIFF um and that is how the city will be participating, and I will let Bobby speak to our participation and the project team speak to um any questions around the project Good morning again, uh Chair and Council.

Uh so this is a chain of title uh legislation request, uh which is that first uh TIFF piece.

So this isn't uh authorizing the director to honor into the TIFF agreement, uh, but just to uh enter into the chain of title to demonstrate public purpose uh for the sake of RC.

Uh so the project uh it is 2202 and 2230 superior.

Uh those buildings are known as the Heller and the Keller Cone uh former textile buildings, uh turned up as the developer of this project, uh led by Mr.

John Penny.

Uh and they've done some other projects uh right in that vicinity, including the cross-country mortgage headquarters uh recently.

Okay.

So the uh the project itself will redevelop just under 100,000 square feet uh in the two structures that are right next to each other.

Uh this will generate um if I move forward here, uh hundred market rate apartment units, a hundred parking spaces, and a uh first floor commercial suite of just over two thousand square feet.

Uh you can see there it'll be 84 one-bedrooms and 16 two bedrooms, uh and it'll create uh seven and a half new full-time equivalent uh jobs in the city of Cleveland uh with an estimated payroll of 42,000.

Um the total project cost is going to be uh just over 45 million dollars.

Uh this is that first piece of TIFF legislation.

So the developer, the building owner, uh, and uh the Office of Equal Opportunity have been uh negotiating uh an expanded CBA for this project, being over 20 million dollars.

Uh draft CBA has been produced by OEO uh and is under review currently.

Uh it is not uh the Department of Economic Development's intent to bring that TIFF legislation forward until the CBA is fully executed.

Uh, in terms of uh the TIFF that would be uh the incentive uh that ends up coming from this legislation, uh that would be a 30-year 100 percent non-school uh tax increment financing.

Uh that would uh lead to an estimated increase uh in approximately 6.3 million dollars uh in uh additional income uh taxes and payments in lieu of tax to the school district over 30 years.

Um with that, uh happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Uh Councilman Harrison, um, did you get a chance to talk to Director Bordeaux?

Uh yes, Mr.

Uh uh Mr.

Chairman, uh, fully support this piece.

Uh again, this is something that is not new to many of us.

This is the first of two uh ordinances that will come before this body.

Uh first is the chain of title, then we'll come back to actual uh actually hear the uh TIFF uh ordinance itself.

This just allows for the process to uh to begin.

We have a team here who has a very proven track record of developing uh in adaptive reuse properties along the superior corridor.

We have a team here who has a very proven track record of developing uh in adaptive reuse properties along the Superior Corridor, uh who is very uh fluid um uh flu fluent in there um uh uh the work that they're doing, particularly with these properties, you know.

I I love to see these old brick buildings and these these uh buildings that line our streets come back to life, and this is the team who's making that happen all across the city, and so I ask the committee uh for their uh support.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Councilman Michael Palency.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, my honorable colleagues to the director and to the uh uh team that is here.

Um these are under construction right now, correct?

Uh through the chair, yes, sir.

Yeah, because I was went over there to see that um both of them are um being worked on.

But as a result of these two, how many buildings now are under your control or under the control of developer along the superior corridor now?

Uh through the chair to the councilman.

Um there are approximately four uh buildings that are in construction or complete uh with some additional properties across the street that are future development.

By the same development team?

Yes.

Okay.

And you have other scheduled or looking at in that quarter?

I'm sorry.

We are.

Okay.

So from basically the the old call the old now the board of elections to basically um the um 717 quarter.

So you'll control most of the buildings in that stretch, correct?

Um whether there are there are a handful, yes.

Okay, gotcha.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Uh Councilman Brian Casey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr.

Chairman to turn dev.

Who is the who's your power supply on this project?

Uh I believe and we're gonna be going with CPP as as I knew you were gonna ask.

All right.

We also believe or you do you who currently powers it now?

Uh do you know, Rich?

I don't know.

I'm sorry.

All right.

In the future, if it looks like you're gonna be doing a lot of development in the city.

If we're gonna be giving something, right?

If you could just let us know when you come to the table who the power supply is for that project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions regarding these companion pieces?

Ordinance number 1397 and 1399.

Seeing no other questions, ordinance number 1397 and 13 uh 99 2025 stands approved.

Please sign on.

Once again, this is committee of the whole.

Please sign on to all of the committees that you represent.

Thanks.

There you go.

Thank you.

All right.

Next up is ordinance number 1456-2025 by council members Welsh, Bishop, Harrison, and Griffin by departmental requests, an emergency ordinance authorizing the director of parks and recreation to enter into an amendment to the property operations and program and programming agreement effective June 30th, 2016, with downtown Cleveland Inc.

as assignee of the group plan commission to provide a restricted contribution to support the ongoing maintenance obligations at public square.

To the chair.

Thank you very much.

Um we are here today um to request sorry.

Uh we are here today to request a um uh eighth amendment to the existing uh property operations and management agreement um with downtown Cleveland Inc., also known as DCI, uh many years ago as a part of downtown improvements.

The City of Cleveland entered into an agreement uh with Group Clan, which was rolled into Downtown Cleveland Inc.

for maintenance and upkeep of public square.

Um and today I have with me um CEO Michael Demer of DCI um to share a little bit of information on the uh quality partnership that the two organizations have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Terrific.

Thank you, Madam Director, and thank you, Mr.

Chair, uh members of the committee.

I thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

Really, for the last uh two years that we've been responsible for managing public square.

Prior to that, the agreement existed between the city and the group plan commission.

City transferred responsibility to our organization in 2024.

2025 was the first full year that we had programming and management responsibility for public square.

And I hope that many of you had the opportunity to see the partnership on full display this uh this past weekend.

We welcome thousands of visitors uh to downtown with public square uh lit up uh the entire city uh in downtown uh activated and a great partnership on display, not just in uh operating and activating public square, uh, but in ensuring uh really safe, wonderful experience for families uh across the entire city.

Uh we're we use 2025 to really uh try to make improvements to the safety connectivity and activation of public square.

Uh we worked with the city to install uh safety improvements.

We uh increased programming uh on public square, we added a hospitality kiosk, uh increased safety presence through uh ambassadors, uh landscaping improvements, uh, and those are the kinds of things that we're looking to build upon in 2026 as we uh continue to try to make public square a a really welcoming place uh for the entire city uh for residents, visitors uh and workers as well.

I do want to note that uh we uh as an organization provide a greater than 100 percent match to the city's investment in public square.

Uh so we we make a contribution uh in excess of uh $500,000.

The historic agreement uh between the group plan commission, uh downtown Cleveland Inc.

and the city was that uh both the city and uh our organization would put in uh a half a million dollar uh match and we were able to exceed that uh match in 2025 and uh hope to build upon that going forward.

Uh thank you for the opportunity today.

Thank you for the partnership, and be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Councilman Bishop and Councilman Harrison.

Uh you've relieved these to committee of the whole.

Uh yes, Mr.

Chair.

Uh again, uh relieved it because this is a routine piece that we we often hear.

And um to leave it to my uh council colleagues to um uh vet the piece.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Bishop.

Uh yes, Mr.

Chairman.

Um we vetted this and we fully support this repos.

Thank you, Councilman Brian Casey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, Mr.

Chairman and Mr.

Deemer.

A week ago you sat here and told us, you know, a whole different story about what DCI believes should be the future of the City of Cleveland.

And then today you're gonna sit here and ask us for 500,000 to match a 500,000 uh that you guys have already raised.

And I understand, Mr.

Chairman and Mr.

Deemer, and to the director, that this is a this is a yearly thing.

But if I want something done in a park in my neighborhood, I have to come up with $300,000 just to put new playground equipment in.

And this City Council gives you $500,000 a year to program square.

And I understand the importance to public square.

But if the Mr.

Chairman and Mr.

Deemer, if you guys are able to raise $500,000, that should be plenty uh for programming uh for public square for a year.

So if there's over a million dollars a year going into just programming, and very, very, very little does the administration put into programming into parks into neighborhoods outside of downtown.

And this is no disrespect to you, but at some point, some council members are gonna draw a line uh a line in the sand.

And unfortunately, Mr.

Chairman and Mr.

Deemer, this one's gonna be for me.

Right.

So this piece of legislation, Mr.

Chairman, will not be without opposition.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Michael Palency.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

My honorable colleagues um to Mr.

Deemer to the administration.

Is the 500,000, is that an increase or is it the same as it was last year?

Uh Mr.

Chairman, uh the councilman, this is uh the same as last year.

It's the same as the several previous years.

Okay.

So this takes in uh just uh the public square.

What we know what it's more uh do we know I think when I think of public square, I think of the four quadrants.

Is there is it more than that?

Uh Mr.

Chairman to the councilman, uh no, this is for for public square itself.

Okay.

The um to the administration, where's the 500 coming from, the 500,000?

Through the chair to the council member, I believe this um money does come from the um economic development uh department funds.

And um this was a long-term agreement that the city had with group plan.

Um I would also add that a lot of the cost does include maintenance because they are responsible for the upkeep and the maintenance of all of that space, which doesn't include grass cutting, but brush trimming and a variety of other things.

So, Mr.

Chairman, to the director.

So right now, parks and recreation, you do no maintenance on the square.

Is that what you are telling us?

Through the chair to the councilman, that is correct.

Okay.

The um the downtown the businesses within the quadrant, um, is there any contribution from them to Mr.

Demer toward this?

Uh to the councilman through the chair, uh, yes.

Uh the our organization, as I mentioned, uh provides uh uh a 100 percent match and uh about 40 percent of that comes from the uh improvement district and the the surrounding property owners.

Okay, so does the does the casino contribute, conceal operator contribute?

Uh uh Mr.

Chair to the councilman, yes, the casino does.

Okay.

Um Mr.

Chairman and to the Mr.

Deemer to the administration.

I again I uh I all of us who grew up in Cleveland understand the importance of the square, public square.

That's a given.

Uh but I will say, based on Councilman Casey's uh comments as well.

I mean, we struggle, so the director needs to understand, and I appreciate um the way you have taken a very proactive approach, Director, and looking at our parks and recreational facility.

But as you make your tours, you can see what you are up against.

As you commented when you were out in my neighborhood about the conditions of the parks and playgrounds and city facilities.

So I want to be supportive of downtown, but I also want to be supportive of my neighborhood parks and playgrounds.

And when I look at the Collinwood Rec Center, which is approximately 15 years of age, and not due to any vandalism or anything, just due to wear and tear.

You know, I'm being asked repeatedly to replace equipment.

I just came up, you know, had to buy a new um a new refrigerator, had to replace the the the treadmills.

I have been asked now again to replace additional equipment with my ward allocation.

And I think at some point um we as a committee, we as a council are going to have to figure out um how we address these growing concerns on our neighborhoods, our neighborhood.

I want to continue to fund downtown uh because I believe it's important, but there's got to be some balancing here.

And I councilman Casey just expressed, I think, a growing concern of many of us have here about um trying to get the administration um to pay greater attention uh to what is happening in our neighborhood.

So I'll I'll leave it at that.

And I appreciate again the director that you're taking um a proactive approach and looking at some of our facilities, all of our facilities in the neighborhoods.

And I hope something comes up, comes uh uh comes about from it, you know.

I mean, I'm that's what I want to see.

I want to see some changes, so I'll leave it at that.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

I have Councilman Conwell and Councilwoman Welch.

Thank you very much.

When you mentioned to the Chair um programming, what kind of programming are you talking about?

I mean, like over the weekend, the programming over the weekend, which was great and beautiful, and uh people were talking about it.

They really, really had a good time there.

Are you talking about that kind of programming?

How many programs are you talking about?

Uh Councilman, through the chair, uh we've uh activated public square with uh over a hundred events and uh programs in 2025 alone.

That's everything ranging from uh that's everything ranging from major events uh like the the winter land kickoff uh over the weekend to uh concert series, food truck events, uh play events, family gathering events, uh community events uh during the day, in the evening, and on weekends.

So you need to um through the chair, you need to give us a list of the programming that you are doing so that I can let the residents know in the community that you'll get more people down there, which is very important.

Uh Mr.

Councilman, through through the chair, uh we would happily do that, and I do want to emphasize that the programming that uh we produce on public square and that we invite into public square is all you know free, family friendly and and open to the public, and we we very we very much welcome uh residents uh across the city and across the region to uh join our events at public square.

So we would happily provide that list.

You know, uh Mr.

President, he could afford it over to um put in our newsletters with Joe Mazaline, and I would love to put in a newsletter that way to residents.

No.

Okay.

And and and you know what else, do the chair?

Um, if you could reach out to the schools, they need to be a part of that.

The children, or you have more children activities and events right in the square.

With the arts, it would be great.

You know, we have orchestras, is at the schools, marching bands at the schools, and then when they play there, they'll bring more of their family members to the square.

Uh councilman through the chair, terrific ideas, and we we'd be happy to follow up with you on all of those.

And um, you gotta do it because I mean I'll call you, especially with the children.

That's important.

They have to be there.

Um the other thing, uh, Mr.

President, I do agree with my colleagues.

It gotta be seamless.

I mean, you can't walk in a Glenville Recreation Center.

I put money aside a few months ago.

Not matter of fact, beginning of the summer.

We never executed.

I put my residents' money, not my money, my residence money, I always say that.

Um for um workout equipment.

And no outcome measures whatsoever, Mr.

President.

Nothing at all.

They gotta execute it's my residence money.

And I got nothing from that.

So we gotta take care of the square, which is important, it needs to be seamless.

But if it's going to be seamless, you gotta take care of our rec centers.

And for our quality of life in Glenville Rec, Cori Rec, um, and then Court Playground.

Oh my God, you know.

So director and I will talk about that.

And we'll take a walk through that area so that we can look at Coit Playground.

I know I see you looking at me, but that's important, Director, for my residents.

Is their money?

And thank you very much.

And if director wants want to respond to that, that would be great.

Uh through the chair to the council member, I truly appreciate your comments regarding um the quality of our facilities and our parks.

Um, as I've been here for just over a year, I've visited a lot of different facilities, parks, and um, yes, certainly uh coit is one of them that needs a lot of uh attention.

Um I think it's important to recognize that for probably over the last 10 years, we haven't had a reporting mechanism so that we could more effectively and efficiently follow up on maintenance items.

Um or nor have we really had any kind of um useful life mechanism which we could um make sure that we replace things before they break.

Um this uh money for DCI does come from economic development.

It does not come out of the parks and recreation uh budget.

So from a parks and recreation perspective, we will ensure that we spend our money to the best of our ability to ensure the quality of our uh centers and our parks in the neighborhoods because that is very important um just as much as downtown.

Thank you.

You know what, Mr.

President, and and I know um in the director's strategic plan, you know, we should have preventive maintenance in there.

I mean, you some things you don't have to spend money on if you take care of it, and you do preventive maintenance on it on rules and capital um equipment, and that way the residents can save their dollars, and then we can have more money in there.

And um, we also need to have on another uh note, uh, make sure we put in people with disabilities as well as invite them to um public square.

They gotta be in there as well.

And and that's where I'm at.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Welch and then Councilman Harrison.

Thank you so much through the chair.

I just appreciate all of my um colleagues' comments.

I respect them immensely.

Um I wanted to just speak briefly, not um as the uh councilwoman over Ward 3, which represents downtown, but as a former CMSD student and an alumna who um was a black girl from Ohio City and went through downtown Cleveland to get to Jane Adams, and I took the 26 um or the 32 to go to downtown, and then I took the 14 and the 15.

Um and during the early 2000s, uh Mike Pope was affectionately calling us a Scooby-Doo ghost town.

And before we had DCI, I can't tell you what that meant for a young girl who's living in the city of Cleveland to think of downtown Cleveland as a ghost town, to think of the place that I'm from and the place that I'm commuting through as a space that isn't welcoming for individuals, including myself as a student.

And so I eventually went to LA.

But while I was there, I thought about the immense responsibility I have to pour back into a community that poured into me.

And just recently, I was at Fairview Park, which is next door to Kentucky Elementary, where I went to school, which is now near West.

Um, and I reminded those students of the importance of coming back home and the responsibility they have to pour into their communities.

And I believe we can walk in shoe gum at the same time.

I think that there's a lot of work that we have to do around this city to make sure that there's equity and there's inclusion in our work.

But I also think that when I'm going through downtown now, I have an immense amount of pride, and that's because of the work that you're doing.

Um when I was downtown this weekend, I saw so many families.

I saw so many students, I saw so many residents, business owners who were benefiting from winterland.

Um that didn't exist when I was growing up in the city of Cleveland.

I was had the the uh fortunate um opportunity to attend the kiosk opening.

We also didn't have that growing up.

Um and when I'm walking through in the middle of the night when I'm leaving meetings at nine o'clock at night, I know I can call on one of our ambassadors to walk me back either to my home or to my car to make sure that I'm safe.

And so these are the number of initiatives among many that benefit not just residents, but benefits all of us who occupy downtown Cleveland not just as residents, but occupy it as people who work in 601.

Right.

And so I know that that work didn't exist.

I know what it was like when it did not exist.

I know what it's like to benefit from the resources that you're providing.

Um, and I will tell you that when I'm doing work in the community in the Huff area, in the Kinsman area, when I'm working with our schools through Sayas, when I'm sitting here working on Fresh West Cleveland, I don't say to myself, oh well, I'm doing this theft downtown, so they shouldn't have it there.

I'm carrying all these ideas with me to those spaces and make sure that people have them in other spaces also, and I think that that's important for us to remember.

And we have to have, we always say Cleveland is a show me city.

Sometimes we have to have these things present so we can see what's possible in other parts of our community, and I think that's made possible not just by your work, President Deemer, but also by the work of your team.

Um and I'm glad that we've been able to partner with you all over the years and have a downtown Cleveland that we can all be proud of.

Uh Councilwoman through the chair, if if I may, I appreciate the the comments and the the great experiences that you've had.

But I I I really I really appreciate you calling out, taking out some of the the ideas of things that we're doing in downtown to other parts of the city because I think we see ourselves at the organization as city builders first and foremost.

Uh and we very much want to create uh models uh in downtown that can help lift up the entire city.

And I'm I'm glad to hear that uh council members are doing exactly that.

So thank you.

All right, thank you.

Uh Councilman Harrison.

Uh thank you, uh Mr.

President.

Uh I know this is off topic a little bit uh since my colleague, Councilman Conwell brought it up.

This is something I've been discussing with him for quite some time about Coit Row Park is a park that I've been bringing up for years since I've been here about the need uh for investment there.

The last time that the investment was made into Coit Row Park is when myself and the alumni group in Collinwood uh went and painted over the graffiti and the on on the walls, the retaining walls around the park, and we and we uh trimmed the overgrowth of the bushes that hung over the uh basketball, um basketball uh nets.

Um and that's the last time there's been investment in that particular park.

Right.

We'll cut it, we'll we'll make the grass look nice.

But the beyond that, you know, there's nothing happening at that park.

And so Coit Road uh is one of my last and final um requests uh through 2020 uh five is that we absolutely make sure that I'm putting it on my my colleagues' shoulders, Councilman Conwell, to ensure that this happens and it and it and it receives investment that it deserves and it has is or has needed for decades now.

Uh and there's no parking there.

And so that there's several city-owned lots that run um you know south on Coit Road that we can turn into parking lots.

That's an idea that I had proposed, you know, to the administration some time ago.

I've given it to Director Um uh DeRose in the past, I've given it to um uh Mr.

Director Williams in the past, and so now, director, um uh we're gonna give it to you uh and and and ask that you you work closely with Councilman Conwell uh move into 2026 to develop a plan to uh uh invest into Coit Row Park.

It sits right in the middle of a very busy intersection there at Coyton St.

Clair.

Uh and I can tell you that when we uh painted a leg graffiti and cut down the um cut down the overgrowth of the of the limbs, yeah, young people uh poured into the park immediately afterwards, right?

And so unfortunately nothing's happened since then, so I'll leave it there and we just ask that you uh you the administration prioritize that park and invest um in into that neighborhood.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um follow up, Councilman.

No, um Councilmember Anthony Harrison.

I know we need to have the city seamless, and um when they see in the Collinwood area and the Glenville area, other parts of Cleveland, children have a right.

They have a right to go there with their parents and mothers and families together and fathers and families together when they take their children just to go to a park.

You need to be safe and clean.

And they gotta know that you care about or care about them.

They have to know that.

And then when they see as Councilmember Brian Casey was mentioning, we put 500,000.

We're not saying that's wrong, because it needs to be seamless, but you put money toward downtown.

And what about them?

What about them?

You know, many children in my community.

Uh they have a it's a it's a lot of poverty there.

But when they go to Coit Playground and other areas in the Glenville and Collinwood community, and they see glass there, and it's they turn around and say, people don't care.

They don't care.

And they pass Coit Playground to go to Collinwood High School, and um they see trash and debris there.

It affects them even with their learning.

That's very, very important, and somebody got to fight for them.

So I talked with council member Anthony Harrison about it, and as well through the chair, you director.

We'll look at it, we'll do timelines, we'll go out, go out and get a bond for it, and we'll push it because you gotta benefit the residents.

You have to.

And that's just where I'm at.

I feel like when you get a chance, please um, you know, go over them with the budget and make suggestions before the budget and have that conversation as well.

I I do want to ask council members, we have a pretty lengthy agenda regarding legislation, and I want to ask if everyone can really try to keep your comments under 10 uh so that we could try to burn through some of this legislation in a very uh expeditious way, okay.

Uh seeing no other questions.

Council President ordinance just very briefly, Councilman Slife.

I wanted to uh call out Nicole Carlton on her Irish exit from City Hall.

Thank her.

Thank her for her years of service to our our residents.

Thank you.

I told her she snuck out of here on you.

Well, she's over, she's assistant director at uh at uh DCI now.

So all right, thanks, appreciate it, and thank you for your years of service, Commissioner.

I know we didn't get a chance to greet you properly, but thank you for your years of service for the city.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

All right, hearing no other questions.

Ordinance number 1456-2025 stands approved.

Please sign on.

I like that I'm going to go out on the limb and try to bring port control to the table so that I could burn through a few more.

Mr.

Chair.

Yes.

You should have seen his face when you said when you said that.

The look on his face, he lit up like a tree.

But also was a little, he looked a little confused too, Mr.

Chair.

I'm trying to burn through some of the some of the stuff first.

They make him sit here all day.

All right.

Uh this ordinance is ordinance number 1460-2025 by council members well, Slife and Griffin by departmental request, an emergency ordinance authorizing the director of port control or other appropriate directors to terminate the city of Cleveland's lease with the Cleveland Cuyahoga County Port Authority for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's original site and approving the consolidation of the original site and adjacent expansion site into a single lease agreement directly between the city of Cleveland and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Inc.

Director.

Good morning, Mr.

Chair, members of the committee.

I hope everyone had a great holiday.

Uh this item this morning will be presented by Scott Carr, Assistant Director of Commercial Business and Revenue.

Thank you.

Good morning, as mentioned.

This is a request to terminate the city's existing lease with the Cleveland Cuyahoga County Port Authority for the original Rock and Roll Hall of Fame site and to consolidate the original site with the adjacent expansion parcel into a single lease agreement between the city and the rock and roll hall of fame museum.

Uh both leases have the same expiration date of May 11th of 2091.

The financing associated with the original site has now been fully repaid, eliminating the need for the port authority lease structure and allowing for direct consolidation of the lease agreements.

Thank you.

This was heard in your committee.

No issues with this moving forward.

Uh this is necessary.

We are prohibited by charter from selling lakefront lands.

Uh therefore uh the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame uh leases the land on which it sits from the city of Cleveland.

Thank you.

And that's the submerged land lease, right?

That's similar but separate.

Okay.

There is also a submerged land lease.

Okay, thank you.

Um Councilman Welsh, this is in Ward 3.

Through the chair, no comment at this time.

Thank you.

All right.

Seeing no other questions, ordinance number 1460-2025 stands approved.

Please sign on.

Thank you.

Next one is ordinance number 1514-2025 by Councilmember Slife and Griffin by Departmental Request and Emergency Ordinance authorizing the director of port control to enter into one or more contracts with Amadeus Airport IT, America's Inc.

to provide common use self-service kiosk for the common use airport operations program, including hardware, software, installation, and maintenance for the division of airports.

Good morning, Mr.

Chair, uh members of the committee.

This item is regarding an equipment improvement and enhancement of the guest experience, checking experience at Cleveland Hawkins, and it will be presented by Scott Carr, Assistant Director of Commercial Business and Revenue.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Carr?

So this is to provide six common use cell service kiosks.

The airport today has common use ticket counters.

However, none none of them today have uh self-service kiosks.

The kiosks will allow passengers who aren't checking bags to print boarding passes.

In addition, if an airline allows self-bag tagging, uh, as an example, the passenger will be able to self-bag tag or tag their bag and drop it off at the ticket counter.

Uh Amadeus is currently the only company uh that has interoperability between IATA standard uh cust standard 1.0 and 2.0 software, and so this will allow all of the airport's signatory airlines, regardless of what cust software that they're using utilizing today to utilize these kiosks.

Thank you.

Councilman's uh Slife, fully supportive.

All right, thank you.

Are there any questions regarding 1514 dash 2025?

Seeing no questions, ordinance number 1514-2025 stands approved, please sign on.

I believe that's all the port control.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

All right.

You want me to go to community relations?

Thank you.

All right, all right, thank you.

Uh next we'll go to ordinance number 1452-2025 by council members Polinsick, House Jones, Kelly, Santana, and Griffin by departmental request.

An emergency ordinance authorizing the executive director of the community relations board to enter into one or more contracts with Esperanza Inc.

for the public purpose of providing outreach services and programming for high-risk youth in hot spot areas in ward 7, 11, and 14 under the safe streets safe schools project program for youth for a period of one year with three one-year options to renew, exercisable by the executive director of the community relations board.

Good morning to the chair and to the body.

Uh, this is with the support of councilwoman Jasmine Santana and her resources.

Uh, we were in need of a partner referral resource center on the west side due to the increase, uh, definitely within Garrett Morgan's numbers, within John Marshall's numbers, within Rhodes numbers, and as well as those returning youth from the Ohio DYS and juvenile core area.

With Esperanza, what we hope to do is work with their youth leadership programming, which will be focusing helping young people with their GED as well as some of their tutorial services, um, as well as job help, filling out applications and so forth, and mentoring services.

Uh, so the teams that are out in the streets have another referral source within within the west side.

Thank you.

Uh, I'll start off with Councilman Polincic.

Uh, Councilman Polencick, did you have any comments on this uh piece of lesson?

Mr.

Chairman, I spoke to the director I wholeheartedly supported.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Santana.

Thank you, Council President.

Um, Council President Director, thank you for giving that background.

So this was the last of our neighborhood equity funds for Ward 14.

So I am sure every council members could agree that this summer was hot with gun violence and car break-ins.

And so this 100,000 allocation really is in response to that.

I think if we offer more opportunities and pave the way for our youth, then we could probably keep them off the streets.

So um, as you know, Esperanza's been around since 1980, and they've been doing great work.

So um we thought that was the perfect partner along with community relations department um to be able to service youth um this upcoming year.

So thank you.

I do have a question.

I'm not sure why other wards, which I welcome to service other areas, but I am not sure why other wards are listed on this um when it's like ward 14 initiative or director.

To the chair to the councilman.

I think some of it was too.

We were trying to figure out the new ward designs at the time.

So we were trying to figure out the new ward numbers to make sure because we were pushing it for this year and going into next year to make sure we were covering all the appropriate areas.

Got it.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other comments on ordinance number 1452-2025?

Seeing no questions, ordinance number 1452-2025 stands approved.

Please sign on.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is if somebody could summon the utilities chair.

Next is ordinance number 1494-2025 by Councilmembers Casey, Harrison, and Griffin by departmental requests, an emergency ordinance determining the method of making the public improvement of designing and constructing local renewable power projects for the division of Cleveland Public Power, and authorizing the director of public utilities to enter into one or more public improvement contracts for the making of the improvements, enter into one or more professional service contracts and other contracts needed for the making of the improvements to apply for and accept gifts and grants and authorizing the director, the direct employment of the necessary labor for the Department of Public Utilities for contracts executed no later than December 31st, 2030.

Director.

Yes, thank you, Chairman, members of council.

At the Division of Cleveland Public Power, we continue to aggressively pursue any opportunities for partnership in the development of renewable power generation.

We do there have been some recent changes in the investment tax credit, which have evolved into some other potential opportunities.

We did get the support from the law department to get this through kind of late in the game, so do appreciate them and certainly to council for hearing it today.

Hopefully it will result in some uh opportunities for uh funding to do a feasibility study site location as council is well aware um and has pushed CPP continuously to to seek and strive for a more diverse power supply, renewable power supply owned by the customers of CPP, and we believe this ordinance would help us in that goal.

And the Commissioner certainly is the um champion of this ordinance.

Thank you.

Happy to answer any questions.

Councilman Casey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr.

Chairman, as you know, I'm I'm not one that usually likes to bring things to committee of the whole because that means we didn't thoroughly 100 percent vetted.

However, I did have conversations with uh the director and the commissioner regarding this piece, and I would like to offer some amendments to the to the legislation uh if we could.

In section one, line fourteen, it should read 1231 2027.

Section two, line five, it should read 1231 2027, and section three, line 10 should read 1231 2027.

If they can't get this done within two years, then there should be no reason that we should be pursuing it any further than that.

And then in addition, under section eight, line five, if we could add the director of public utilities shall notify this council through its clerk of any funds accepted under the authority of this section on receipts of each award.

And then in the title line of the legislation, very last line should read December 31st, 2027 as opposed to 20 uh 30.

Okay.

And I have them written out for the law director.

So does the law director have those?

And can you get those?

Thank you.

Okay, an amendment was put forth by councilmember Casey.

Do I have a second?

I'll second.

Councilman Polencyc has seconded it.

Is there any discussion regarding the amendments put forth by councilman casey?

All right.

Seeing no discussion, uh all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, the ayes have it.

The amendments carry.

And the law director has the official copy of the amendments, and we'll proceed with hearing anything else regarding 1494-2025.

Mr.

Chairman.

Councilman Michael Pelancy.

Mr.

Chairman to the director of the commissioner.

So at this point, there is no cost to the consumers, to the customers.

Chairman of the Councilman, that's correct.

Okay.

And I I want to say that because we know that as we all want to see renewable energy sources.

There's been a historic concern as it pertains to increased cost to our customers as a result of moving toward the green energy supply.

I just want to make sure that the administration is very mindful of that fact that I want to make sure that our rates remain competitive in the City of Cleveland.

We want to see renewable sources, but at the same time, I'm very much concerned about the cost, utility cost for our citizens across the city, whether it be Cleveland Public Power, whether it be water, whether it be WPC.

I want to make sure that we are all mindful of that fact as we march toward different um different ideas and concepts.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Seeing no other comments, ordinance number 1494-2025 stands approved, please sign on.

Council President, can I get a miscellaneous?

Miscellaneous.

Please.

Yes.

As amended.

Okay.

Thank you, Council President.

I will be brief.

Um, through the Chair, um director.

We've been getting a lot of causal disutility shut off.

CHN lost funding and so now step forward is handling uh the utility uh application.

I'm just curious to know through the chair, what is the state of disconnections and what could we do to kind of improve that process?

It's very unclear to me where people go where they call.

Thank you.

Um through the chairman of the council members.

So we still have a relationship with CHN contractually from the Department of Public Utilities, thanks to council's support.

So we would still be doing the City of Cleveland utility assistance programs and the affordability program.

Um the uh the moratorium is still in effect.

So, in its essence, when council was aware and hopefully supported in the mayor, put the moratorium in place there the first week of November, um, all severance activities were ceased.

So when we do reinstitute, and we have not made that determination yet, and certainly council will be informed, that will reinstitute the entire severance process, which would mean the shutoff letter, the 30-day wait before another letter, and then the door hanger.

So anybody who is currently facing um shutoff or disconnection or in a rearage, we do um recommend that they reach out to us.

We still have very flexible payment arrangements at the Division of Cleveland Public Power and at the Division of Water with no penalties, no interest, no fees.

Um, but uh as we reinstitute, the most important thing to do is if you get a letter uh affecting disconnection or or saying that there is a possible in-severance uh process to reach out to us.

Okay, and we'll do our best to to to accommodate the changes at CHN and and I know that um there have been many, and that's true throughout our social service agencies and the amount of help.

So that's our number one priority is is to be cognizant of that fact and work with every customer to try to maintain service.

Got it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Casey.

Mr.

Chairman, just so that um the council is aware, I think it's January 18th, is we're gonna have a hearing on uh on moratoriums and shut offs and and that stuff uh through Cleveland Public Power.

No, January 18th.

We won't be here then in December.

So just so the council is aware, you know, we will be having a hearing on that in January.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilwoman uh Rebecca Moore.

Thank you.

I I really understand the need to keep the miscellaneous short, but if this wasn't an urgent need, um could you provide an update about the rewiring of the lights around 55th and Broadway?

Those have been out for quite a while.

And uh last we talked, you were talking about end of November to get them back on.

I'm wondering if you could provide an update to the chair.

Through the chair, um, I guess brief recap is we had about 4,000 feet of wire stolen from that area.

Shortly thereafter, we had sections stolen along Broadway and then up towards 9th Street.

So this has been uh a pretty widespread issue for us that we've been fighting to to get under control.

I when I sent that email, I we had initially planned on coming in through a different direction.

We were not able to do that, so we had to pivot.

We I think we have uh a solution to better secure the the underground, but we have to do that first.

I will say I know the crews are probably out there today, actually, the last few weeks, we have been re-pulling cable.

So I don't have a specific ETA, but my uh belief is it will be before the end of the month.

Um but again that assumes that this solution can help keep that cable on the ground where it should be.

Yes.

So to be clear, the lights are not on, and you do not have a path to turn them on, and and the earliest might be the end of the month.

Not all, yes.

Some of them because again, it was a a big area that was affected.

We've been able to get some of them back on, but that uh intersection is still out.

Okay, all right.

Thank you.

I appreciate the update.

As as you know, this I mean it's not just my ward, it's multiple wards, and you know, as you said, this was the result of thefts, and I think we all understand, but I think the public is owed an update about um the sort of timeliness and urgency.

So I thank you for providing that today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Casey has a follow-up amendment.

No, Mr.

Chairman, to the to the law department director, we found one more since section five, line 16 should read 1231 2027 as well.

Councilman Casey has put forth an amendment.

Do we have a second?

Councilman Starr is seconded.

Is there any discussion?

Hearing no discussion, all in favor say aye.

Any opposed, the ayes have it.

Thank you so much, thank you.

Appreciate it.

We're gonna go to public health.

If uh public health are they here, public health.

Okay, Commissioner Ordinance number 1464 dash 2025 by council members Conwell and Griffin by Departmental Request.

An emergency ordinance authorizing the director of public health to enter into one or more contracts with the Merrick House friendly in settlement, West Side Community House, Lexden Bale Community Center, Birthing Beautiful Communities, the Metro Health System, Ronald White, DBA, the Transparency Project, Case Western Reserve University, and other organizations to provide moms first services to women at risk of poor birth outcomes in the city of Cleveland for a period of one year.

Or commissioner.

Good morning.

Thank you, Chairman Griffith.

Um, and thank you to council members.

We are always uh thankful and grateful for the support that Cleveland City Council uh allows us to have for this program.

As you are aware, the uh City of Cleveland uh funds for moms first makes up around, depending on the year, between 18 and 20 percent of our overall funding.

The majority of our funding comes from a for a federal grant uh from Healthy Start, which year to year is sometimes um under uh pressure uh due to potential cuts at the federal level, and so we are very grateful to have the City of Cleveland uh be able to support this program continuously.

Uh this is our regular request for general fund usage, uh which allows us to round out some of our contracts with providers that provide community health workers that do home visiting for pregnant moms, babies, and also dads.

We utilize several community organizations for this uh throughout the year.

Um with that, I'll leave it at that.

I have Khadija Fair here, our mom's first project director.

We are willing to answer any questions about the legislation that you might have.

Thank you.

Uh Councilman Conwell, you relieved us out of health.

Well, definitely um, you know where I'm at with that.

I mean, that's first thing first.

Mothers and families together.

Um you mentioned the dads too.

You have to have the fathers engage and engage fatherhood, it's very, very important.

I mean, that's how the children when they grow up, when they had a dad engage and father-child bonding is very, very important to me.

And um when you said that you guys were there on that, then I'm there 100%.

But you gotta have those dads there.

You got to, you know, I'm gonna say this when a little boy and little girl grow up and they're connected with their dad, then they know how to, especially the young girl, how to have a good mate and good relationships with her um husband in the long run.

That stuff is important for me.

So with that, I ask my colleagues to approve uh this legislation.

Thank you very, very much.

Thank you, Councilman.

Are there any other questions?

Uh, Councilwoman Welsh.

I just went through the chair.

I just want to thank you for the work you're doing.

Um, just a quick question.

Um, how are you disseminating the funding to make sure that that funding is disseminated equitably among the organizations?

Um the through the chair uh to the councilwoman, the funds that we utilize uh are we have been contracting with the majority of these organizations for a number of years.

Uh we make sure that we have representation from all sides of town to cover the entire city of Cleveland.

We also make sure that we are giving special um uh accommodations for different populations, including uh women who might be incarcerated at the county uh county and city jail during uh their pregnancy.

We also uh make sure that we have um representation uh of all cultures uh and accessibility to um information appropriate to language, information appropriate to culture.

Uh we participate in multiple uh trainings and updates for all of our staff.

Uh and also uh within the last four years, the program itself has been uh integrated from the health division of the public health department and to the health equity and social justice division, uh which is responsible for health disparities, uh, as also stood up in response to um uh addressing racism as a public health crisis.

Um through the chair, another question I have is um thank you for that.

Uh, but also um can you just describe some of the tangible ways?

I know when I was working with RTA, we were working with a number of these organizations because transportation was an issue.

What are some of the ways that we can tangibly see that these dollars are being put to use besides just oh, we're providing trainings, oh, we're picking up the phone calls.

I just think that that would be helpful for people to understand.

Through the chair to the councilwoman, if I understand your question, is to better understand a little bit of how the dollars are spent and how these services benefit uh uh participants.

So uh we provide community health workers as well as case management uh to individuals and families, including moms, dads, uh community health workers begin to do home visiting during the pregnancy and stay with that family until the baby is about 18 months old.

Uh providing uh when it comes to transportation, we have uh special agreements with RTA to be able to provide passes.

We also are able to utilize um ride share, uh lift, you know, anything that is a little bit more modern, and some of our programs are able to provide gas cards.

We do also provide emergency grocery cards, um uh uh items like diapers, clothing, uh uh all of the equipment that you would need for a new baby, uh including safe sleep kits, which uh one partnership that I'm very proud of is that we also provide safe sleep kits to our fire department.

Uh so when they're out on calls and they discover that there's a baby that doesn't have a crib to sleep in, they can just run a safe sleep kit with a pack and play out to the family.

Um, and so there's a number of ways, but first and foremost, it's that individual connection of service to family and coming to the home to meet people where they are.

Thank you for that.

You know, you know, Mr.

President, let me do one quick follow-up real quick.

Uh I got to.

You when you do the chair.

You said you visit the um the jails, right?

For the mothers.

Do you visit the jails for the dads as well?

Through the chair, uh to councilman.

Uh right now, our fatherhood program is concentrated on the um juvenile detention center.

Our mom's first program as well as centering pregnancy is in the in the women's jail.

Uh, but in terms of visiting the detention center, and he is providing uh parenting programs for both uh male and female youth that are incarcerated at this time, but also seeing uh the young dads that are there as well, but also then outside of the community.

Once uh people are released, then they have that uh additional follow-up as well.

Right.

So when the fathers are in jail for point of clarity, we talk with them as well.

Is that correct?

Uh right now we don't, but there's another resource that we connect to through the county that does.

Good talk with your dads.

Because it's important when they get out of jail that they have relationships as well, so that uh a lot of times when dads have relationships with their children, they don't want to go back to jail because they become more nurturers like the um like their significant others.

Let me say that.

And then even in the hospitals, when you do uh how like boot camp for dads is in there when that first thing that the fathers did it cut the umbilical cord, then the daughter would feel the power of her father and the same thing with the young boy through the chair.

Because you gotta get that, you gotta get them involved with in that.

That's important because a lot of times they're left out, they're left out, and then you wonder why they're going elsewhere through the chair to the uh commissioner.

Thank you.

We we'll um make sure that you contact with councilman Conwell on that because I think he has a lot of great ideas that can probably help you engage with that, okay?

All right, and Ms.

Fairrill, where were you at before you were here again?

I was at uh Cleveland Transformation Alliance.

Okay, that's what I thought.

Okay.

We were Cleveland where Transformation Alliance with the schools.

The Transformation Alliance.

Okay, thank you so much.

All right.

Seeing all the questions, ordinance number 1464-2025 stands approved.

Uh remember, I'm trying to burn through as much as possible for two.

Because I know we got a very busy uh afternoon, and I want to make sure that we have sufficient time for some very hot topics that many people are looking forward to.

All right.

Uh next one is, and I'll be getting to economic development in a second, but I do want to knock down this safety piece.

Uh ordinance number 1403-2025 by Council members Belistic and Griffin by Departmental Request and Emergency Ordinance authorizing the director of public safety to apply for and accept the grant from the office, the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services for the FY26 Recovery Ohio LEF grant program to provide funding for the operation of the cartel gang narcotics laundering task force.

Director and team.

Morning, Chair and Council members.

The Cleveland Division of Police is the lead agency of this multi-agency task force, and the funds will be spent accordingly.

Personnel, 45,101 dollars and fifty cents, travel five thousand eight hundred and forty-five dollars, equipment three thousand nine hundred and forty-five dollars supplies, four thousand other three thousand confidential funds, and the amount of forty-three thousand one hundred and eight thousand fifty cents for a total of the 105,000 dollars.

The grant award is the amount of 105,000 dollars.

And the period is from May 1st of 2026 through April 30th, 2027.

This does not have a matching fund requirement.

And I have Sergeant McNeely to my left here for any stats that the uh council members may have.

And also to my right is uh Don Hart Song, our grants administrator.

Thank you, Councilman Balenci, before we uh hear from anybody else.

Yes, Mr.

Chairman.

I reviewed the legislation.

I wholeheartedly support it.

Thank you.

Um Sergeant McNeely, or anyone want to make any comments?

Good morning, everyone.

Uh I would just want to point out that the uh grant funds for the task force.

Without those funds, uh the task force wouldn't be able to operate in the effective manner that it does.

Thank you.

All right.

Any questions regarding ordinance number 1403-2025?

Seeing no questions, ordinance number 1403 dash 2025 stands approved.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We will go back to economic development.

And I do believe we have a guest.

1411-2025 by Councilmember Santana Harrison and Griffin by Departmental Request and Emergency Ordinance Authorizing the Mayor and the Commissioner of Purchases and Supplies to acquire and reconvey properties presently owned by TW58 Cleveland, LLC or is designed, located at 1200 West 58th Street for the purpose of entering into the chain of title prior to the adoption of tax increment financing legislation authorized under Section 5709.41 of the revised codes.

Thank you, Chair.

Um excited about this one as it aligns with some of the city's core economic development priorities.

It's reactivating underutilized property, it's catalyzing private investment, it's supporting neighborhood revitalization goals by increasing residential density, um, ground floor activation and um improved pedestrian experience.

Um with me I have um Dave Fishback, who's a partner in the project, and Ken Kalinchuk, who um is with PMC.

And I also have um Bobby who will um help uh kind of go through our participation as the city.

Thanks, Locke.

Please proceed.

Good morning.

Uh so this is another uh chain of title piece uh ahead of TIFF.

Uh so this is for uh the property at 1200 West 58th Street, which is uh the old Westinghouse plant that kind of is really like a landmark that sticks out if you're driving west on the shoreway out of downtown.

Uh and so uh the it's local developers based here out of the city of Cleveland, uh, Mr.

Fishback as well as Mr.

Liam Fishback, uh Mr.

Jim Rosnov are the development team.

Um, and the Croco will be the uh construction manager for this project.

Um they all have some uh development expertise here in Northeast Ohio, uh including being the contractor on projects like uh the Tinderman Loves and uh the Worthington Yards project, uh for example.

Uh so the pro uh the property, uh this is uh 113 uh thousand square foot uh former industrial building uh across eight stories, uh built in 1898.

Uh and it's got industrial zoning, so uh the housing obviously will fall uh much less intense than that.

On the project, uh so uh the project is split into phases 1A and 1B.

Uh 1A comprising uh 106 market rate apartment units uh as well as 10 uh workforce.

Um and one B would have uh 30 market rate apartments.

Uh and then uh you can kind of see on the photo that that structure on the left, uh just the facade of the existing structure still exists, and it will kind of be a new building uh built behind that historic facade.

And that will be 23,000 square feet of commercial office retail on CAFE with creation of five new full-time equivalent uh jobs through the development, uh not counting what will be created through uh the end users on that commercial space.

Um this is uh an $81 million project.

Uh similar to the last uh presentation we had.

Uh the CBA is under negotiation uh between OEO and the developer.

Uh and uh we will not bring that final TIFF legislation forward before that is finalized and fully executed.

Uh and so uh the TIFF for this uh is a 30-year 100 percent non-school funded uh tax increment financing uh that would net an increase in 23.3 million dollars uh in income tax revenue and payments in lieu of taxes to the school district uh over its term.

Uh with that, happy to answer questions uh anyone may have through the chair.

Uh before we go to uh questions for the council, Councilman Harrison, did you have any comments?

Uh yes, Mr.

Chair.

We also relieved this piece uh after speaking with the director.

Uh this developer also needs to lock in uh their uh their evaluation for 2025.

Uh uh fully support again.

This is the first of two pieces that we'll hear.

So this they will be back to the table to actually discuss the the TIFF portion ordinance of this uh of the what we're hearing today.

And so this again only allows us to enter into the chain of title so they can continue the process.

Not a cost to us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Councilwoman Jasmine Santana, this is in your award, this is uh ordinance number 1411, which is word 15.

Oh, it is worth 15.

Okay, I'm sorry.

Okay.

Councilwoman Spencer.

Although I always defer to Councilwoman Santana if she'd like to say that.

But thank you, uh, Mr.

Chair.

Yes, this this is the Westinghouse building, and it many people in the community are familiar with it because it is so visually prominent, heading westbound on the shoreway towards Edgewater Park.

It is a an abandoned uh or formerly abandoned industrial building, and many people have dreamed of breathing new life into this structure, and this is the development team that is finally going to be able to deliver on that.

Uh I am pleased to support this chain of title piece of legislation.

And as Councilman Hirston noted, uh this will the the next step in legislation will happen next year.

It will be the new councilman for Ward 7 who will uh be speaking to that piece at that time.

And I I think the development team has been doing a terrific job negotiating their community benefits agreement.

So I have really every confidence that it will be uh in a very strong CBA that meets a lot of community needs and that really formalizes the development team's commitment to the neighborhood.

So I'm I'm very optimistic that the discussions that are underway will lead to a very beneficial outcome.

Uh and uh happy to support in any other way I can.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I would ask if councilwoman Spencer can be added to this, because right now she is not on 1411.

Okay.

Um that's why I want to make sure that she is added.

That's why I didn't acknowledge her in the comments, but if you can make sure she's added to that, it would be great.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh Councilman Michael Felins.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, my colleagues to the uh to the administration, the developer.

I mean, I think to the viewing public, this is a good indication how long a projects take.

Jenny Spencer worked very hard on this, and I want to commend her.

But this is also, I can remember Matt Zone talking about this property.

So when you talk about how long it takes to put development projects together, this has been at least a decade in development, if not longer.

So my question is this briefly.

What are the the rents?

When you say 10 workforce apartments, eight studio, 81 one bedroom, and 17.

What are the rents set to be in a building?

Uh through the chair to council member Polencic.

Um the rents I'm happy to send to you after the meeting.

I don't have them in front of me.

Okay.

Uh the building is mostly market rate, is not subject to the new CRA.

It's grandfathered under the new CRA.

As part of the CBA, we are providing 10 units at 120 percent AMI.

Right.

Yeah, if you could send those to us.

Is besides the TIFF, is there any other city money to the administration in this project?

Um through the chair to the councilman.

Uh so uh this will be subject to residential CRA uh tax abatement.

Um it will be the 15-year correct tax abatement.

So other than that, the TIFF and a tax abatement, correct?

That is correct, yes.

Okay, so there's no other funds, city funds in here.

No, sir.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Um let me correct myself.

There was a pre-development grant offered $32,000 that went towards uh their brown field remediation of that was probably about a $500,000 project.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And I'm gonna say this, and because uh tenuing what uh Director McNair used to do, these are very helpful.

Okay, and when you give this to council, it always is good to give this to us in the executive summary because it shows what our return on investment will be.

And it makes it clear when you go to talk to the public to say this is how much we're foregoing in taxes, but this is how much we're receiving an income tax, which goes to our general revenue budget.

So that's this is a very good document for you to share with us.

And this is always over because I want to make sure that I'm always correct when I talk to other council members.

This is always over a 30-year period.

So for example, CMSD will benefit 23.2 million in local new income tax over that 30 year period.

Right?

Okay.

So just want to make sure that council knows why that's so important because it helps measure our economic development deals and what we should be getting in in revenue from them.

Okay, thank you.

Uh seeing no other questions, ordinance number 1411-2025 stands approved.

Please make sure you add councilwoman Jenny Spencer.

Next one is ordinance number 1226-2025 as amended by Councilmember Harrison and Griffin by Departmental Request and emergency ordinance to rename.

Uh are we moving this one, Councilman?

This one passed.

Okay, yeah, okay, I got it.

Is as amended.

Okay, if you guys come on.

One of my favorites, Ms.

Andrew Jusky, come on to the table.

All right.

Uh ordinance number 1226 dash 2025 as amended by council members Harrison and Griffin by Departmental Request and Emergency Ordinance to rename the Department of Economic Development to the Department of Development by amending the title to Chapter 144 and various codified ordinances to amend Section 144.02 as amended by ordinance number 1655-80 passed July 31st, 1980, relating to the director's duties to enact new section 144.021 to establish a new office to amend 183.021 as amended by ordinance number 837 2017 passed August 16, 2017, relating to the land reutilization programs to establish a special revenue fund and to authorize the hiring of an additional employee.

And the amendments I will read them just because this is a very important piece of legislation, but they are on your tablet.

There is no legal objection to this legislation if amended as follows.

One, in section five, at amended section 183.021B9, line seven, after paid from strike, fund 17 SF 965 and from insert special revenue fund number 17 SF 965 and number two in section 7, line 1 and in line 5, strike 7 in quotation 17 SF96 and insert in quotations 17 SF964 in both places.

And then line four strike in quotation section three and insert section in quotation section five.

Number three, insert section eight to read as follows.

In quotation section eight, that the director of finance is authorized to transfer an amount not to exceed 450,000 from the Department of Community Developments fund number 15 SF 469 to the Department of Development or have a written memorandum of understanding from the Department of Community Development to fund the home program in the amount not to exceed 450,000 dollars.

Number four, renumber existing sections eight, nine, ten, and eleven to new section nine, section ten, section eleven, and section twelve.

Number five, insert new section thirteen to read as follows.

Section 13 that this ordinance shall take effect and be enforced on January 1, 2026.

Number six, renumber existing section 12 to new section 14.

Number and this is dated 1120 uh 25, signed by Kevin Roberts, Chief Assistant Director of Law.

Director and Chief.

Thank you, Council President, members of the body.

Um excited to be here for you today.

I I, you know, we spent approximately three hours at the table uh last week for Chairman Harrison and DPS, uh, which I think is important because I think this is one of the more meaningful changes to city government that I've seen uh in my time paying attention in the civic structure.

Um here today with Director Joe Vroose uh Bordeaux Small of the Department of Economic Development as well as Ms.

Trudy Andrewski from the Department of Community Development.

Uh not with us today.

I we've slimmed this down a little bit because this was a pretty big presentation uh last week.

Uh not with us today is Taylor Jones, who works in my office, who just did a ton of work around this, so I want to make sure I take a second to acknowledge her.

Um but you know, really, this is kind of our our overview.

It's you know, what are we trying to accomplish uh when we're here today?

So uh what we're doing here really is we're renaming the Department of Economic Development to the Department of Development.

Uh we are going to amend the director powers through legislation.

That is primarily due to the fact that the City Land Bank kind of runs up through the Department of Community Development, so we need to ensure that this new director of development has the ability to kind of uh oversee those land bank issues.

Uh this will allow for the transfer of all surplus uh land into the appropriate city land bank.

I say appropriate city land bank because we have multiple of them via state law.

We need to continue to maintain a separate commercial land bank from a separate residential land bank.

Uh but when we have excess properties, we're gonna be able to now make sure it goes into the right one.

Um this is going to allow for the transfer of 18 existing staff positions from the Department of Community Development using their existing federal funding, right?

We are trying to minimize impact to the general revenue fund uh through the work that we're doing here today.

So, what this in essence does is it picks up the housing development office uh uh in community development, the land bank office and the asset redevelopment office.

Uh those are uh in essence their housing development bureau and their neighborhood revitalization bureau, and it puts it into the Department of Economic Development, creating this new Department of Development.

Uh and then within there, there will be a new Office of Land Strategy.

This will also move the function of property disposition from the mayor's office of capital projects in here, but not the staff, right?

The mayor's office of capital projects does important work related to existing city assets.

We do not intend for this new department to be uh managing existing city leases and things of that nature, right?

This is about strategic uh movement forward.

Um and then this will add uh in the 2026 budget uh five new positions.

Um, but there is uh included in this legislation today, uh, one new head count for the deputy director of land strategy so that it becomes available immediately.

Uh I think everyone in this room knows that hiring does not happen uh overnight, and so we want the ability to start marketing that position now.

It's critically important, we think, for the work that happens here.

Uh and then uh very important to note with the legislation that's gonna be before you does not do, right?

This is not changing land bank policy.

Uh this is not removing council oversight or authority on the disposition of land bank as it comes in or out, uh, right.

Um and again, those policy conversations are great to have, but that is not what this is.

Um as I get into this a little bit, uh, important for everyone to recognize that this is not something that kind of came up out of thin air.

Uh I believe uh you are all aware of the City of Cleveland operational strategic plan that was launched in the fall of 2023.

Uh right.

There was a lot of engagement around that, including with council, uh, you know, different focus groups, things of that nature.

Uh, and one of those recommendations that came out of that was to restructure and consolidate the city's real estate functions into a singular department.

I will explain why uh in just a minute, but I think also important for everyone to note um that there were a lot of things that were studied as potential options in that.

Um I think many of you know that the Department of Economic Development was actually spun out of the Department of Community Development.

I believe in that was in 1987 under the Voinovich administration.

Uh so yes, uh looked at everything from consolidation of both um look uh director Bordo Smalls originally from Boston, right?

The Boston Planning and Development Agency, where it's you've got community development, economic development planning all in one place.

Uh looked at the consolidation of community and economic development back into one entity, and ultimately, I think the idea emerged of creating this new department of development, which allows you with a roughly 50-person uh department, which is still mobile and agile uh for the department of development, a roughly 40-person department of planning, uh, and a roughly 50 or 60 uh person department of uh community development, right, which allows all of them to be more nimble and focus on things to move move everything forward.

Um why are we doing this, right?

This current system isn't working.

I don't think that that is a shock to anyone in this room at this table, uh, right, uh land incentives approval split across too many departments, uh, six of them to be exact, which is kind of wild uh sitting here.

Uh those processes are disconnected from each other.

Uh we spend way too much time sending people all over Cleveland City Hall to overlapping contacts, right?

And it's like I know that is confusing for people on your end, I know it is confusing even for people in the administration.

It is even for worse for people outside of the building, uh right.

And so trying to streamline these things again, even on the real estate side of things, uh, and again, this is by the way, this is what that looks like in kind of an org chart fashion uh with all these different departments.

Uh you have uh multiple you've got economic development doing acquisition disposition, community development doing acquisition and disposition, mayor's office of capital projects doing acquisition and disposition.

Uh all three of those places, by the way, do acquisition and disposition differently, right?

Which is uh not great.

Uh you have a uh land bank and the department of economic development.

You have a land bank and department of community development.

Uh you have multiple people managing those, and so oftentimes you have all these different departments on different floors with different people working on the same projects in a very disconnected manner, um, which leads to confusion and a lot of challenges.

And so uh genuinely trying to come up with something that is a more simplified, easier for people to access services here, uh easier for you to be able to work with your constituents and navigating here.

Um, and so a few goals and objectives of what we're trying to do here.

So, one having a clear front door for people that are looking to make major investments in the city of Cleveland, uh, whether that be a development project or a redevelopment project, excuse me.

Uh increased accountability, right?

If you look at that quote or chart tree, I'll go back to it real quick.

Like it goes up even through separate chief structures, right?

So uh there have been even in my time here, you might have something where you know, somebody in economic development and chief of integrated development were aligned on something, but like going into the other chief structure can take months of conversations and meetings to try to get alignment and move things through.

Um, so again, we feel this will bring to increase accountability through that.

Uh leveraging our tools, right?

Um, by placing all of our real estate tools and resources and those assets in one place, like this allows for comprehensive neighborhood revitalization, right?

Like to me, that is what this is all about.

Um, as I've said to several of you when we've talked about this, it's like just try to imagine, you know, pick a point on the main street in your ward, any commercial corridor that sits right there.

You now have in one place the tools to look at that spot on your commercial corridor.

Maybe it's an intersection.

You've got a couple of buildings that are run down.

You can now use storefront renovation program.

You can use incentives for small businesses to help go into those buildings.

You can look at maybe acquiring some of the vacant commercial land next to it for future redevelopment sake.

And then you can look at those residential pieces that surround it, like draw a quarter mile radii around those things, issue an RFP, like all of those things now exist in one place for a singular conversation of how that can move that forward.

And I think that really truly leads to empowering our employees, right?

Uh, creating a more collaborative environment for allowing those employees to do more meaningful and transformational work.

And I firmly believe this allows us to look at our land more strategically, uh, right.

We have over 18,000 vacant parcels of land in the city of Cleveland all over the place, you know, where a city that's gone from nearly one million residents to a city of 365,000 residents.

This allows us to kind of think about uh that land more strategically and like what drives civic value.

Um so with that um, you know, again, sorry.

It's stuck in there.

Yeah, probably.

So ultimately, kind of nuts and bolts of what we're doing here, right?

This process will take uh the housing development office, land bank office, and asset redevelopment out of community development, move it into economic development, that land strategy, which uh again, that's 18 staff positions, it's five new staff positions uh that are created uh coming out of that.

Um then, you know, this is where I kind of that that vision for a rebalanced structure.

Uh, you know, if you look at the four departments that exist within integrated development, uh, you know, I think that this kind of recenters us in a variety of ways.

You've got building and housing, which is focused on uh regulation and preservation, right?

They're the enforcement arm uh of what goes on here, uh planning, which should really be more focused on what is that overarching vision uh for what we want to see in our city.

Um I feel strongly that this allows community development to now focus on that most critical and important act of neighborhood stabilization and also the housing policy piece, um, which then allows a department of development to truly focus on uh essentially implementation.

Planning and community development are like drawing the lines around the coloring book we can draw on.

This new department of development is the one that's coloring it in.

Billion housing can yell at you if it colors outside of the lines a little bit.

And one thing that I've said over and over in particular to employees within that department.

That's not changing.

One, I think we're doing that because we're gaining something.

We have the ability now to do things that we haven't been able to do before by putting all those pieces together.

But that still leaves, you know, within community development.

You have the residential improvement bureau, which is focused on uh home repair and like getting that to work right and work well.

And there's a ton of work that's going on right now trying to get that chip right.

Uh, you know, this is where I always say, you know, my time nearly 15 years in Ohio City, uh, I would always say that that was the overnight success story, 60 years in the making.

Not one thing was built in that neighborhood without decades of work of tons of people working extraordinarily hard uh to fix up houses, uh lead community impact work, right?

Like all that stuff is still happening there.

The program operations bureau and Joy Anderson who's working in there.

There are more contracts that pass through community development than any other department in the entirety of the city of Cleveland.

Uh it's it's work that you guys support all the time, funneled through there, uh, you know, and so allowing them to really focus on that.

Um, and then there's some really interesting stuff happening in their community programming bureau around fair housing.

Uh their community engagement office is led by uh Brett Parsons.

Um, you know, but but I also think it's important too.

A lot of the housing policy work and uh have spent a considerable amount of time uh talking with Mr.

Titurn about some of the work that you guys are looking at from a policy perspective.

I like how this starts to lay some divisions of power, uh right.

While the Department of Development is really focused on implementation, uh I think by having that policy level work around housing, uh, you know, again, as we start to grow in certain areas, how are we looking at land trusts and things of that nature?

Uh the 10-year housing plan.

If if if community development is working on a 10-year housing plan uh and and planning is working on your overall citywide plan, like those two things together inform what a department of development is doing, right?

So again, uh there's a lot of important work happening in that department that doesn't change.

And as a matter of fact, I think this gives us the opportunity uh to work with those folks and really focusing that work.

Uh I'm excited to work on that with them.

You know, as I told many of you over the course of time, um, I think that that is uh you know the most important part of my job is actually working with these departments to help them reach their maximum capabilities, and it's something that I look forward to doing.

Uh so with that, I want to hand it over uh to Director Bordo Small, uh, Mint Andreweski, they're gonna walk you through here.

There are some changes that we want to make sure you see how this is set up and how it impacts things.

We'll go from there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief.

Um so this first um diagram demonstrates uh the restructure that uh our team has been working on for the last two years.

Um when uh Chief McNair uh walked into the department, there were eight um staff members.

Um I believe I was his first or second hire.

Um we now have a team of 28.

Um, and that was uh you know entirely a part of this this restructure.

This diagram does a good job at kind of highlighting our expectation that all three teams, the major the major projects team, the business growth and site development team, and the neighborhood revitalization team all work together.

Um, and the leadership team and the operations team are really there to support them, make sure that they're following along the strategic vision of the department of the city.

Um so this this first reorg really um was very intentional.

Um we built it out to really create um specialization, right?

So neighborhood revitalization, major projects, business growth and site development.

Um, we're thinking about accountability, clear lines of responsibilities across all the teams.

So I think this was really kind of fundamental and crucial to modernizing our department's functionality.

But what did happen though, as a part of this was that it also further highlighted the need for the change that we're requesting here today.

This slide captures our evolution into the department of development.

Here we have we have six major teams, and those being the leadership team, the operations team, the neighborhood revitalization team, the business growth team, the major projects team, and the newly established land strategy team.

As Chief mentioned, all of these were really fragmented across the city, and we're looking to create a single clear path for development, right?

To go from land to incentives to project execution within one department.

And I think you know, again, demonstrated by this diagram is kind of the fact that all of these teams will be working closely together and will be leveraging each other to really create transformational change for the city.

So I will try to go through these org charts as quickly as possible.

This first um portion of the org chart demonstrates the way we've structured the leadership structure.

Um we are building a bench of um high-level executives that will serve as deputy directors of each team.

Um and so as a part of this request for reorg, we will be creating the deputy director of land strategy role.

Um, and that is why it's highlighted in red.

The the roles that are highlighted in blue are currently existing um roles in the darker blue, and then in the green um are um existing mayor's office roles that we work closely with as a part of our department.

Um the the operations team, and I think what this slide highlights is the establishment of what I would like to call the post-closing team.

Something I'm really proud of.

Um what we've done is historically project managers used to handle projects from incept inception to closing, um, which kind of left a lot in the hands of the project managers, led to a lot of mistakes, a lot of things were kind of you know overlooked, things were moving really slowly, and so we've kind of structured it in the same way that most banks operate really.

Um, and so this team represents the post-closing team, they handle everything after a contract has closed.

Um, so uh delinquencies, you know, um kind of loan servicing.

Um as a part of the kind of this the section is the um fiscal team.

Um we highlighted in red are two new roles that we're we're going to be adding, um, and that really is a function of added capacity.

You know, we're gonna be seeing more volume, and so the fiscal department, who I'm very proud of, and they do an excellent job.

Um, they're gonna need more hands, and so um that's kind of what that represents, um the two the two red roles.

And then the compliance inspector, that is one of the 18, is that correct?

18 roles that's um coming down from CD.

Um, and it is in that lighter shade of blue to indicate that um it is it will still be CDBG funded.

All right, the neighborhood revitalization team.

Um, as a part of our initial restructure, we've established this team of six neighborhood investment managers.

Um they have been um structured in the same way that the neighborhood planners are.

They're you know, our expectation is that they work really closely with the neighborhood planners and establish relationships with the business owners in the commercial corridors for the regions that they represent.

Um that has proven this structure has proven to be um an excellent one in the in the last year, they have tripled the number of um businesses that the city have been able to incentivize and participate in.

So that's the huge, and we only expect that to increase.

The other thing that's a relatively new as a part of this structure is that the storefront renovation program has come down from CD as well.

The thought there was that it would be taken away from C DBG dollars, making it a lot more flexible.

And I think the pairing with the neighborhood investment managers is a strong pairing, and we'll really start to feel that in the commercial corridors.

And I will allow Trudy to kind of speak through this portion of the art chart.

Awesome.

Thank you, Director.

Thank you, Council.

The land strategy office will include the two offices I've had the opportunity to lead over the past uh year and a half, which are the land bank office and the asset redevelopment office, and also adds critical capacity to enable us to better serve residents as well as businesses and nonprofit entities.

The positions in red again are part of that handful of five new positions.

The positions in light blue are all of our existing team members, so currently budgeted, although not all of those positions are currently filled.

Walking through the chart from left to right just quickly, we'll formally have a land bank manager back in place.

We'll expand the existing team from three to five land bank staff members.

And this office will remain our critical front door to direct work with residents and partners who are looking to invest in Cleveland neighborhoods through their land.

I think this is one of the ways that I have the great opportunity to interact with you all.

So looking forward to kind of doing introductory sessions in early 2026 to look more at the pieces like policy that we're not covering in this legislation, but really deep dive, take a deeper dive into those things together.

With increased capacity here, I'm really excited about our opportunity not just to keep the wheels turning, but we're already drafting new program areas focused on matters like neighborhood stewardship for residents who perhaps want to take care of a lot that's on their block, but perhaps they don't look uh live immediately next door.

Um we are reevaluating opportunities to promote owner-occupied housing development in a more accessible way, and we're also making just our bread and butter transactions flat out easier in the land bank office.

We'll have a real estate attorney on staff dedicated specifically to our work.

As you all know, every transaction that we do requires a legal instrument to be drafted, recorded, etc.

Um, so having an attorney a part of our team will dramatically, I believe, assist our efficiency, but also allow us to handle some of those more nuanced transactions that often get pushed to the side because they're harder to tackle.

Um so I'm looking forward to that added capacity.

Um data and mapping team is under our data architect and GIS specialist setup here.

Um this really will help us put policy into place, right?

Visualizing our work from both a strategy perspective and a communication and storytelling perspective, I think is really vital to the work that we do, and something that we have been lacking historically.

And then as uh we round out the team, the head of urban redevelopment strategy will lead what we now know as the asset redevelopment office, and that's um that's our redevelopment RFPs and RFQs that we've had the opportunity to work with many of you on.

Um, we'll grow from one current full-time uh team member to a leader with four team members who are creating those proactive real estate development opportunities, and we'll also add a real estate analyst to this team.

So they'll help with things like market evaluations, also things like tracking forfeitures to make sure we can be more proactive in uh site assembly that for things that we have you know access to through the forfeiture pipeline.

Um just wanted to wrap by saying it has been such an honor to work with the existing land bank and asset redevelopment teams through CD.

Um, and I'm really excited about the potential we can unlock by intentionally adding capacity in this way and expanding the skill sets where we've seen seen gaps in the past couple years, but also great opportunities to really improve the type of work that we do and doing it amongst a broader team that can uh collaborate and implement with us.

So thank you.

Thank you, Trudy.

Um this last slide really represents the heart of Cleveland's economic um competitiveness.

Um this team is our major projects team alongside our business growth team.

Um they work really closely together to provide exceptional service customer service to businesses that are existing and businesses that are looking to come to Cleveland and grow.

We have created to the right, you'll see the roles senior project manager and project manager that work alongside the deputy director of business growth who is David Lucas, and the executive attraction officer.

That's also a new role.

And Jennifer Sheel is the person that we've hired to do that work.

And to be out there and be competitive and bring um businesses that were intentionally targeting to come in support our local economy.

They got to speed it up.

I think that's all really for this slide.

And okay.

So really I think just summation here.

Again, just want to be clear about what this legislation does, right?

It's changing the name of economic development into Department of Development.

It does amend powers largely around the land bank things that go through there.

It allows for blanket transfer of surplus land that comes in and go to the appropriate land bank.

It allows for the transfer of these positions from community development into economic development, utilizing uh their community development block grant funding.

Um does not change land bank policy or remove council oversight uh on those land bank uh parcels as they come through.

Um and then again from a budget implication standpoint, uh right.

Um ultimately those five new general fund uh positions that are coming through in 2026, uh it all adds up to about a little north of 700,000 for what it's worth, uh I believe last year, the Department of Community Development had over $600,000 in sales on land bank land, right?

Theoretically, uh those dollars can be used to pay for staff too.

So I think that there's some flexibility uh moving forward with there, but but again, I I I'll say lastly, guys, um we gave a whole presentation as a part of this on the business development.

I feel like um in the city of infinite need and very limited resources, right?

We spend an awful lot of time at this table and elsewhere talking about how we divvy up the crumbs on a pie.

Uh right.

We're very focused on actually growing those revenue sources so that uh we can have more meaningful conversations around here.

Um and then again, ultimately, all we're doing is picking up a few uh 18-ish people and changing where they administer from, right, next to other people who do like similar work in ways that we think can radically uh change impact.

Um and with that we are willing to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Chief.

And I'll just we had a robust conversation, and we we heard this on DPS.

I do want to thank you and your staff for reaching out to council members individually, because we met you know prior to the DPS, and it just shows you the success when administration reaches out to council members to brief them on legislation that's coming up.

So I do want to thank you for that.

Um I'm gonna open it up to my colleagues.

We have Councilman Palenzic and then we have Councilman Starr.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson, and to my honorable colleagues and to the administration.

There's three talented people at the table here.

But let me just say this.

Um to change the name is one thing.

And to see delivery is another thing.

Yes, sir.

And so what I've come to understand here is that um it's almost like back to the future in a day when we had a when the council person or a developer came to the city, or some with an interested idea.

There under the Vornamich administration, there was a trika.

You met with a team of city planning, economic development, and community development.

It was a team.

So you didn't have to go in different directions.

Council people, there was a team assigned to each ward.

So we were able to get things done within a reasonable period of time.

Today in 2025, it's more difficult to do a project and uh to get something done in the city than ever before.

So I'm glad to see that there is some rethinking as to way we do business around it, because I will tell you it's easier to part Lake Erie than get stuff done around here.

And and you know, and I'm I'm not aware of Moses any no one in in city council is related to Moses, so I'm telling you right now, you cannot get stuff done around here unless you pull teeth and know the right people.

So I I am a supporter of the reorganization.

This is what I need to understand.

And you don't have to do it now, but you provide it to me uh or the body.

Uh I want to know what is left in community development.

And what are they assigned?

What are their responsibilities?

I need to understand that because there is movement of people from CD into ED.

The as it pertains to new housing construction.

Will that be in this new department?

Who's going to handle housing construction?

Yes.

Because there's major challenges there.

I don't have to tell you, you know, city plan, you know, I have I have a minority developer who wants to build new houses in Glenville, but hell, heaven forbid he should have front load garages.

That the we you can't do front load garages, and the whole damn street is devastated, but you can't do a new house with front low with front load garages.

Give me a frickin' break.

Really?

I mean, I have got a front load garage on my own house.

And so I mean, there's just some stupid things happening here where you can't get things done.

The other thing I I want to ask is this.

Who in this all these charts here are going to do the proactive investigation and uh in like right now I I'm reading everything I can.

I'm reading the Wall Street Journal, I'm reading this, I'm doing this, I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm sitting on my phone at night looking at this graph.

So now here's family dollar.

Um the um and I'm thinking the other the parent company of Family Dollar now.

Um I can't think of the name right off the hand.

The Dollar Tree.

They announced they're gonna close 625 stores.

Do we know how many in the City of Cleveland?

What are we doing to be proactive here?

I'm losing a family dollar right now.

I've already had a dollar general close right across the street from the family dollar.

We know in many neighborhoods with our food deserts, this is the only thing we have, or that the only things that people have available.

So what are we gonna do?

Someone is gonna have to tell me what are we going to be doing to be proactive, touching base with like a family dollar or a dollar general.

What is your strategy in the City of Cleveland?

What are you doing?

I'm here there's going to be a wave of save a lots closing in the city.

What on your flow chart, who's going to be that person who is going to be contacting or interacting with the corporate community, not just here locally, but across the country, so we can get, we can understand the trends that are taking place and how it's going to impact our neighborhoods.

Because when you close these stores, there is a domino effect on the neighborhood.

And I see that taking place, and yet I keep asking, well, who's who's touching base with these companies, these corporations?

Who's doing the leg work?

And I get the impression there is nobody doing that leg work or that upfront stuff.

And then the other thing I want to comment here, um, Madam Chairperson, um, you have a specific person signed to the Southeast side of the city.

I have to tell you, and I'm going to be very blunt about this one.

Um there cannot be winners and losers here at this table.

We're all in this thing together or we're not.

So somehow you're going to have to figure out, you're going to have to have people assigned to other sections of the city as well.

You just can't.

And I I understand the issues of the Southeast side.

I mean, I remember when the Southeast Side was like the suburbs when I came into council.

It was the suburbs.

And because a lack of attention by the city, by previous administrations, the Southeast side went through a tremendous decline.

And now there's line being drawn in the sand, and I commend you.

But the line better be drawn in the sand on the northeast side of the city, too.

And on the southwest side of the city.

There's got to be, we got to have people who are going to be working these neighborhoods.

And I say that because you all three of you, I have I have great confidence in you.

I think uh the mayor made a great decision by appointing you, Tom, as chief.

And I hear great things about uh Director Small about her intelligence and her uh expertise.

And we know Trudy has done a good job in the land bank.

So I'm looking, I'm looking for productivity.

I'm looking for things to happen because I'm frustrated.

You can't get stuff done in this city.

When I if I were to tell you, I mean, that doggone candy store on Waterloo Road, a freaking candy store, eight months, eight months.

You would think that they're, you know, they're they're doing hazardous material.

And eight months until I sent a nasty email to you know who across the hall, and then he personally went upstairs and kicked some butt to get the doggone candy store open.

That's the frustration around this table that I'm expressing on behalf of my colleagues.

I mean, a freaking candy store, eight months.

So I got to have assurances that your new flow chart is going to work.

And there's going to be some commitment to the other sections of the city of Cleveland.

So we're not, we're not the stepchildren here.

I've got tremendous opportunity and potential in the my not only my existing ward, but the new ward I'm picking up come January 1st.

But we need help.

And I want to say this again.

Where do we have deficiencies on the east side is with our development corporations as well.

So we not only are dealing with the historical disinvestment, because where was the bulk of the industrial base that left the city was the east side.

So it affected our employment, it affected our jobs, the migrations that took place from the south to come up here to migrations that came out of Eastern Europe, like my own family.

I mean, we came here for jobs.

We didn't come here for palm trees and beaches.

And they took our jobs from us.

Just look at the empty factories and plants on the east side of the city, or empty lots now, as you alluded to Tom, about the 18,000 vacant lots.

So there's got to be a strategy, and I'm hoping this, because I watched the I wasn't on the committee when I watched it on a monitor, and I was trying to understand as best as I can.

What you're proposing here, again, in my opinion, is going back to the future.

You got to have the commitment.

And no section of the city should be left out.

I want to say that again.

No section of the city should be left out.

Councilman Conwell, I have been talking about the Northeast side.

We need help.

We need help.

And as I sit here today, I came in here when there are 33 councilmen.

Come January 1st is going to be 15 because of the population loss, which you just alluded to a moment ago.

And the bulk of that's been the east side.

People talk with their feet.

And I learned when I was going door to door again, I heard point blank, what residents want.

They want quality of life.

They want better neighborhoods.

They want to see things happening in their neighborhoods.

And they want the city to understand that you can put all the money you want in the lakefront, but it's not going to do anything for the east side, the east side neighborhoods.

We all know that.

That's unfortunately the sad part about it.

So I am I'm on the opinion, I'm here to support this new reorganization, but you got to have the people in the right places.

And we got to get going, and we got to be proactive, because I I constantly in fact I sent you guys the email about the family dollars in Dollar Tree stores going out from all the stuff I'm reading.

We got to look at long-term impacts.

So I'm here to be supportive, but the proof will be in the pudding here.

I expect things to get done.

I don't expect that to take eight frickin' months to get a frickin' candy store on Waterloo Road again.

I hope that stuff is over.

So that's where I'm at.

I want to be supportive, but I I want to get that stuff from CD, what's left in CD, what they're going to be doing, how we're going to be proactive in the future, and I just will leave you on this point.

What Habitat and Humanity went through to build 10 new houses in my neighborhood.

All the process.

I would ask you, you, the administration has got to take a deep dive.

That is ridiculous what we are charging, especially nonprofit groups to build houses in the city, those taps.

It costs habitat for humanity a fortune, and yet we're sitting on surpluses in water and in sewer, and we're making nonprofits paid through the nose for the taps for water and sewer.

That's ridiculous.

That's got to change, man.

We got to be proactive.

Going in 2026.

No one on in Washington is going to help us.

The Donald's not going to help us.

Those good old boys in Columbus aren't going to help us, that's for sure.

We got to be proactive.

We've got to be pro-job pro-development, because that's where it's all about income tax, creating income tax opportunities for our citizens and for our city.

So I'm I'm here to be supportive, but doggone it, man.

We got to be we got to be watching this like the like the uh the eyes of Texas are gonna be on you guys come January.

I mean, I'm gonna tell you that right now.

Well, that was a lot, Chief.

Are you gonna respond to the question?

I'm frustrated.

And I share your frustration.

Um, and I know that you asked for us sending some sense to do, I will respond uh briefly.

So uh uh through the chair to council uh councilman Polensick.

So one, I I think you all know, but I will say out loud, I care about every single block in the 77.8 square miles of the city of Cleveland, and we are doing everything that we can to move every one of those blocks forward.

Uh right.

Uh and and I know that some of these changes that were happening in the Department of Economic Development, I think are starting to address some of the things that you had discussed uh that goes on there.

Um, you know, again, I I I say all the time we don't actually have an affordable housing problem in the city of Cleveland, we have an income problem.

That's right.

Uh we have been hemorrhaging jobs.

We need to provide good quality jobs for Clevelanders, and so to the proactive part, there are kind of two sides to your question.

Uh, you know, one of which is on uh retail, which is kind of the lagging side of things.

Um we are doing a ton related to proactive business development work, and uh again, we went through quite a bit of that at uh DPS, happy to come uh you know, to to meet with you guys at a further time to get more involved in that.

Um but Jennifer Sheel is leading up.

This is the first time I found I've gone back in org charts 30 plus years where we've had somebody focus specifically on business attraction in the city where we are trying to go out and bring folks here.

You know, you invested 50 million dollars in the site readiness for good jobs fund.

Uh I think when I started here, there was one site of 10 plus acres that was shovel ready in the entirety of the city of Cleveland.

They now have over 200 acres of land under control.

Most of that is on the east side of the city of Cleveland, and so that is a huge focus uh putting on there.

And then David Lucas, who's focused on uh business retention and expansion, and so I think as that capacity develops, right?

Like he will have the ability to start developing some of those larger type of corporate contacts that you're talking about uh sitting on here.

Um, also um uh I did just kind of want to sit on that kind of water sewer tap thing.

Look, we we're spending a ton of time focused on the proactive housing side of things and we're looking at it.

Um that is not a new issue.

I would consider it more of a legacy issue as we've demolished many of those old houses, right?

Like you also remove the water and the sewer connections in there.

Um if you do them individually, it costs about 30 grand to pop it in, right?

Like that's not something that the water department is charging.

Uh kind of joked the other day.

It's like, what do you have to charge that?

It's like, I don't know, do we want running water uh toilets that flush, things of that nature in a home?

If the answer is yes, you're gonna have to do that, and there's a real cost associated with it.

Now our utilities department can't just take that out on their own because as you know, uh the Cleveland Water Department, right, serves many communities.

And I don't think if they were trying to charge residents in Orange or Westlake or other places to put water connections uh in Cleveland, that might not go over particularly well.

Um but I think it's a hurdle that we have to overcome, and we're looking at a lot of different ways that we can incentivize uh single family housing development in the city of Cleveland.

We have some ideas around that stuff, but I think it's a core issue uh as we coming on here.

So again, happy to get you uh more information on uh community development.

We are very focused on the proactive nature uh about how we're both attracting companies to come in here.

Um and and as part of that restructure, we do have a neighborhood investment manager for every region of the city.

So while there may be one mayor's office person focused on the Southeast side, uh as you know, there were a lot of resources that were diverted into that.

Uh and and Mr.

Owens is kind of coordinating all the different pieces parts associated to that work.

Um, but we do have a neighborhood investment manager for each region that I want you guys developing close relationships with.

Um, and we are working on getting personnel that can work more cross-departmentally uh to make it easier for people to invest here.

Okay, thank you.

And and lastly, I'll say I've said this a lot to people recently too.

Um when I first saw this uh proposal doing it, it made a ton of sense to me too, right?

Like I've worked with this city uh for 15 plus years on the outside.

Um, you know, again, this is something in my opinion should have been done 20 years ago.

That being said, uh operationalizing it is a hell of a lot harder than showing you a couple of slides on how it's gonna work.

Um, but we're committed to doing this the right way, uh, and we're committed to getting in and done that actually shows real results.

It is gonna take a minute.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Thank you, Chief.

Councilman Starr.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, I stick to this legislation on 1226.

Um, just for clarification, um, do we have a total number of community development employee means in our department as of today, December 1st, 2024.

25, rather.

So uh through the chair to councilman starr last I checked, it was like 78 or 79.

Does that sound right, Ms.

Andrewski?

Yes.

So around the 78 range is the total number of employees in the community development department, correct?

That's correct.

And then through this change in this ordinance of 1226, 2025, we are looking to transfer 18 existing staff positions from the CD department over to this new department of development, which is replacing ED department through the chair, correct?

Through the chair, Councilman Starr, that is correct.

So therefore we will have been left with 60 positions of employees on staff at community development department, correct?

Through the chair?

The chair, that is correct.

From this change of restructure, how many departments or not departments, how many divisions will be left in community development after these 18 positions left through the chair?

So uh through the chair to councilman starr, it looks like they're one, two, three.

Uh through it looks like five bureaus.

It'd be five different bureaus.

Yeah.

Um after that, so currently, before we do this transfer, let me rephrase the question as well.

Before we do this transfer, we have currently how many bureaus and divisions in community development department through the chair.

Uh through the chair, it looks depending on how this one is set up now.

Six or seven.

Six or seven.

And then after we make this, if if council passes ordinance, we then would go down to about five bureaus in community development department to the chair?

Through the chair, that's correct.

We're taking two bureaus oh, Mr.

Andreweski, you want to sure.

Uh if I may, thank you, Chief.

Uh thank you.

Uh uh Chair to Councilman Starr.

I believe there are currently um six bureaus in the Department of Community Development.

And by removing neighborhood revitalization, which I oversee, as well as the Housing Development Bureau, which currently does not have a head, there will then be four bureaus.

And those are community programs, residential improvement, the contracts and compliance bureau.

And I'm sorry that I'm forgetting the official name of the fourth bureau, but I'm happy to get that to you after this meeting.

Yes, can you enterprise operations?

I think that's right.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Can we get that through the um through the Madam Chair to our staff?

Can you send that over to our staff so we can see those different breakdowns of what we currently have in place with community development?

And therefore, similar to those questions with community development, I definitely would like to ask how many total um number of employees are there in ED currently through the chair.

There are 28.

So we have 28 in that position.

Um, with this ordinance, we're trying to transfer over 18 more, which will give us 46 employees into the um new Department of Development, and that would be able to have us then create additional five new positions, which would take it up to what 51 employees?

Yeah, that sounds right.

Okay, within that staff um from your projection and the actual goal since we have the chief and the director here for ED current division.

Are you looking to possibly add additional more staff in the near future to your department if these changes were accepted through the chair?

Um through the chair to the councilperson.

Um as chief mentioned, this is um an undertaking, and I think what's important is for us to focus on this restructure and and making sure that the teams are um you know are the foundation is set before we look at um bringing in more staff.

Okay, definitely.

Um and then also I would ask to ask to the to the to the madam chair to um the chief when we're explaining and dealing with this change, um, do we have to notify HUD of any one of these changes?

Through the chair?

Through the chair, councilman star, no, my understanding is no.

Ultimately, these are still going to be federally paid employees, and so there will be reports that are filled out, like based on the activities that they do.

Does that sound correct?

Ms.

Andrewski.

Uh my bureau, thank you, Chief.

My bureau doesn't interact directly with HUD funding, however, um uh next year is our five-year consolidated plan.

So I'm sure all of these updates will be accurately reflected in that updated report to HUD.

All right, and through the through the chair, through Madam Chair to on the table, um, within this the CDBG current um structure, would that be left in the community development department through the chair?

Uh through the chair, councilman star at this point, yes.

Okay, and then with these changes, are we going to open up the actual usage of how we can spend CDBG dollars instead of having these three buckets?

Are we having any plans to um update that through the chair?

So through the chair to councilman stars, Ms.

Andrew Iski just said, uh, next year will be the year that we can look at our five-year plan with HUD where we look at all matrix codes and kind of set our plan for how dollars are um uh spent.

Uh I will also add that this is not unique uh that there may be CDBG uh employees and dollars spent in other departments.

Currently, the Department of Community Development has memorandums of understanding uh with a variety of different departments, whether it's the Department of Public Health, the Department of Aging, uh, I believe public works uh and building and housing uh and how those funds are managed.

They are all run through community development, uh, but we do spend dollars both for activities uh and staff in other departments.

Thank you.

And then also I will ask um through the structure of currently what we have in place with ED and CD.

Um, if a council person would like to transfer discretionary dollars such as NEF funds or casino funds to your department for usage in projects in their particular ward, are you allowed to accept a transfer from discretionary dollars in our funds and our general fund dollars back over to a department airmarked for a project and award?

Is that something that you have um the capabilities to the chair?

So through the chair to councilman star, I believe uh this is something that we have been working on with both uh city council uh staff as well as administration staff.

Uh my understanding is that if council would like to allocate, and I at this point I will speak uh because I understood it through the Department of Economic Development.

Uh, if council were to want to transfer uh NEF funding to the Department of Economic Development for a specific program, uh you do have the ability to do that.

Uh and provided you have uh somebody in your ward that would like to access those funds, and as long as it's administered through the rules of that program, that can be done.

But I think that that is the distinction, right?

Um, you store front renovation program because easy in my head, uh, you could transfer dollars into the department's economic development uh fund for storefront renovation program.

The department does have the ability to geospecifically code those to a certain area, right?

And then if somebody wanted to apply for those, as long as it's administered the same way as any other uh project in that, that is allowable.

Yep, so therefore that means I wouldn't necessarily need um a third party to be able to do application when I can transfer it over straight to the department because it's an activity in a program that you currently have up and running through the chair.

Through the chair to councilman star, again, as I understand it, council has the ability to transfer funds into a program so long as uh an applicant were to meet all the rules of that program, that is legally allowable.

The reason why I bring that point up because I see how we can do it with ED department, but when I try to do it through another department, I'm again told different from our staff or from a staff, and I'm and I'm trying to figure out what's the difference between each department.

Everybody is a department, everybody is in 6001 lakeside.

Um, you know, because one of the things that is that is often frustrating that I've experienced the last four years, and it's not anyone at this table, is the fact that people are trying to misinterpret what the lawmakers in the city of Cleveland makes based on what their knowledge is, based on what they feel like doing.

And I'm not going to deal with that the next four years.

There's no sense of us having discretionary funds and we trying to get it out to the door, and instead of me having to get somebody to front the dollars up, why don't I give it to a department who does these different activities, who does these different programs, who can administer the dollars and get it out of certain neighborhoods?

The number one concern as an elected official is how do I help assist my neighborhood with getting things done?

How do we get these um buildings that are ISOR, these brick and mortar buildings that need to get up and running?

How do we put dollars into them without asking somebody else to do an application?

And then the application is back and forth all day.

Next thing you know, we ended in the following year, and nothing has got done because too many people trying to administer stuff as opposed to getting things done, the way that the council is asking them to work with the administration, not give their own opinion, their own views, their own values.

They didn't get elected.

And that's some of the challenges that I've been having.

And I also has been understanding that people trying to question my competency when I'm looking at the legislation, I'm looking at the programs and I'm looking at the activities and saying, hey, I'm it's it's a transfer.

Just like we got um, we got this this this finance transfer coming over with 1508, 1509, 1510.

This is gonna be a supplemental transfer that's going to be heard before us today.

But when I'm trying to transfer dollars back to the general fund to be airmarked for a department to be able to do activities and programs that they currently have in place, I'm getting told I need a community development corporation.

The high site 2020, next thing you know, there's paperwork issues, paperwork issues, so the dollars never get out, and the residents in War 5 have to want to suffer because everybody got they got their own attitude and got their own problem of thinking about what they ran, but they ain't ran for not one seat.

And that's not no slight, and I'm just just trying to express my frustration because I'm here to help people, not fight a battle with people who should be helping me to be able to help those.

So I look forward to working with um the department of development, uh, community development department, community relations, health department, um department in the city of Cleveland safety.

Everyone to just get things done and stop putting these red tape and underlying problems in the way from helping these residents in the city of Cleveland.

I yield, madam chair.

Thank you.

Chief, do you want to respond?

No, okay.

So um next up I have Councilman Starr.

Any other I mean Harrison, any other questions before we move on to the chair of DPS?

Okay.

Councilman Conwell, and then we'll move to Chair Um Harrison to close us out.

Uh no.

Um director.

And you mentioned the land up there.

So you mentioned to me earlier in the year about the land bank.

So the land bank will fall under when you change it to ED to um the new department.

What is that?

ED and C D integrating them into uh Department of Development.

Yes, sir.

So the land bank growing department of development, and you just said department of development.

It's so hard.

I mean, it's so hard to get, for example, some businesses don't want to come to Cleveland or whatever because of the inefficiency.

Are you gonna change some things up?

Do we have a timeline that we can get the land?

Because um when you get that, then we can we can grow and we could do better in in the city of Cleveland through the chair to the director.

Can I please?

Thank you.

Uh, through the chair to councilman Conwell.

One of the things that I most look forward to in this consolidation is specifically the point you touched on with businesses looking to access land bank property.

So right now, our land bank, the residential land bank within CD, is the larger of the two land banks.

We have over 18,000 parcels.

Um currently, you know, we really should just have those residential parcels that are tucked into residential streets where houses once stood.

But we have a lot of properties on commercial corridors, the ones that businesses are looking at, um, zoned commercial, industrial, etc.

This um uh consolidation essentially, working across the industrial commercial land bank and the current residential land bank will help us solve that efficiency.

Um, currently, you know, our team is in CD is handling that application and then of that transaction, but we need to work with uh partners in another department in order to ensure that that type of project for a business development would move forward, and now we're cutting that uh additional step out.

We'll be working hand in hand with um team members in the department of development.

Because through the chair, they get the businesses, you know, they get frustrated, man.

Because as I always mentioned, when you take so long, it costs them money and it costs constraints.

That time to get um the land, it bleeds over into the uh to their cost.

And so they go elsewhere.

And if it bleeds over into the cost, then it also bleeds over to quality, and you get triple constraints behind that.

You gotta be able to push that land, and then once they see now, what I don't want to see through the chair, if it's still the same way, and then we have to wait.

You gotta do the chair, you have to monitor your changes, Tom.

If you're saying that director, you're gonna do these things, you put down the dependencies and milestones, and you have to monitor them.

And if it's not going in that direction, then you gotta figure out like create a critical path.

You create the critical path.

If it's not going through the critical path right, then you gotta change it.

Don't let four uh uh 100 partials, uh, let's say you have time constraints on them, and you're not changing it, you gotta watch that.

You have to change it.

I mean, I see that in government, and government frustrates me because government is inefficient through the chair to the director.

So through the chair to Councilman Conwell, one thing I do want to note is what we're talking about today are structural changes and how we administer some of this work.

I think it's also important to note uh so much of the process work and technology changes that are also going on that I think that pair with this.

Uh, you know, and trust me, I I understand what you are saying.

Um, and when I joined the administration, it's like things I always knew, but then when you deal with that on a daily basis, like, wow, the amount of paper that we use to transact almost everything inside this building was pretty wild.

Uh, you know, and so uh again in economic development, uh, and thank you for your support last year, last summer, uh, I guess this year, this past summer, uh, when you enabled the purchase of Salesforce, which is looking at not just a customer relationship management system, but also the project management side of things.

That is that is deep underway.

I know Director Bordo Small, right, and her team uh are meeting like two or three days a week with the consultant for Salesforce, uh like two or three hours at a time, then there's homework on top of that, is that whole process gets digitized.

Uh the land bank is next up on that.

Uh, as Miss Andreeski kind of showed, went through there.

There's also uh, you know, GIS team and specialists are going in here, which is digitizing like the mapping of all that, so we know where they are, but the land bank will also exist within Salesforce, so that like all of that stuff, like you'll be able to see it, right?

Like you'll be able to like log in and like see those transactions, you go know whose desk it's on.

Like it's gonna be a different world in terms of accountability.

So all these things are going hand in hand.

The structure that we're talking about to today, as well as the process and the technology aspects of this.

So you're gonna um to the chair, everything you narrate to us, you're gonna revisit it quarterly, or let's say you do your strategy reviews on a monthly basis, or what?

Because these are new changes, and just changing the name to me don't mean anything.

It's the outcome measures through the chair to the um director.

Yes, through the chair to the councilman.

Yeah, I mean, a hundred percent, all of this has to be measured, and that's uh a significant part of what we're doing.

Um with the added um technology, we are going to be tracking um a lot of our metrics, which you know, will like I you know, I meant I talked about the neighborhood investment managers and their ability to reach and to access and support three times the amount of um businesses that they've supported last that you know in in 2024.

Um, you know, right now that that's a metric that we have, and we hope to have a ton more that we're able to measure um through these tech pieces of technology.

Yeah, because you know what I do through the chair, you look up and you see me looking right at you at your office, and you're gonna blow money in my neighborhood.

I turn around and you look and you see me unannounced, isn't that true?

And I ask you questions about it.

Through the chair, yes.

Because it's serious to me.

I mean, what we say at the table, and then actually to execute it.

That's because the developers, I I understand.

If if it's time in there, they're losing money, then it won't develop in your neighborhood.

And place matters, and it hurts my um residents.

Um you mentioned workers.

So you put money in there to the chair to train them to this new job, and you train them so you can develop your culture.

Putting this in place through the chair, it's another part means nothing to me.

I sit around walking around listening to you, but if you don't create that culture, the culture of executing in your department and everything you have here, guess what?

It would go for not through the chair to the um director.

Um, through the chair, I'm really proud of my team and the culture that we've been able to bring, and um the the hope and the intention is to continue to maintain that and build upon that culture within the department.

Everyone on the team understands the value of customer service and efficiency and the impact, the direct impacts that that has in the communities.

Um, and so that you know, I think that's a core value that we we all understand.

Um, as far as training, it's um, you know, it's part of my budget.

And um it's imperative that um that everyone is trained appropriately.

Um we I have recently sent um both ED and C D staff to um through to go through the Grow America training and to get economic development certified.

Um and I plan to continue to look for more opportunities for the team to be cross-trained.

Good, good, good, because you know, training is ongoing.

I see a lot of directors, they say they train their people, and then it's over with.

But you got to catch someone, even if you caught someone doing something right, you that's a job well done, that's a good thing.

That's a that's you know, out of boy, whatever the case may be, and you constantly watch it, you constantly train to change that culture.

But that culture of not executing, it it really hurts us, and they look at the council member all the time, and when it's not being done right, and so that's why I visit you on an ounce.

So you change that culture, and I'm I'm a happy person now, and I'm gonna yield um Glenn Village.

We spent 15 million dollars on Glenn Village, and the way it is, it's not good.

You can't waste money to the chair to the um director or or you director or the chief.

Uh give me some outcome measures on that, and then I'll yield so through the chair to Councilman Conwell.

Uh the previous mayor's transformation initiative, right, which targeted a handful of the city's hardest hit neighborhoods, including uh Glenville, uh Buckeye Shaker, um uh as well as Clark Fulton.

Um of the core ways that we looked at supporting Glenville, and again, this is the previous administration, uh, was through uh the revitalization of East 15th Street uh as well as the creation of of Glenn Village.

And you know, that was the first kind of new construction multifamily mixed use in that neighborhood uh in a long time, and I think that everyone felt that it was critically important uh that that neighborhood be able to see that type of growth and new development that came on, and to that point I think it was a success.

I think that there are always challenges when you walk into an emerging uh market and kind of just create a new building.

Um and I think there are probably hindsight being 2020, there are probably some things that if I hadn't been involved in the creation of that building, might have done a little bit differently.

Um that being said, I think you know, we're able to find hopefully a good outcome for that with a small business owner that I think is able to take the reins and uh you know do some really great work on the ground floor of that.

The the housing portion of it I think has been a tremendous success.

Uh right.

Uh provided an affordable price point for a number of folks there.

I think it adds some vitality to that.

Uh I know the Department of Economic Development has continued trying to do work to make further investments along and next to Glenn Village to help support that work going on there.

Now, so I think uh with both your support uh as well as some of those neighborhood transformation initiative funds uh looking at bringing a vacant building back to life across the street, right?

We're doing everything we can to try to cluster investments near each other to create some kind of places of vitality uh within our neighborhoods, and so uh, you know, again, I think that there's been some starts and stops to the ground floor of Glen Village, but you know, that building also opened in the summer of 2020 at the height of a pandemic, uh, which wasn't great, right?

And so there were variety of challenges with supporting some of the small businesses that opened up in there first, but it does seem like it's on a good path.

So you guys will start executing um when through the chair.

We we put a quarter million dollars aside.

We're gonna cultivate some businesses, yes, and uh when.

So through the chair, uh that ground floor lease is the Department of Economic Development is no longer involved in that project.

Uh we have given funds to help support uh Germany uh and comfort CLE, who is operating that space now as an incubator, as well as his restaurant.

Director Porter Small, anything else you want to add to that?

No.

Well, manage him.

He got to do something with that.

It can't just sit there as our our money, and we put it there for the residents, and somebody got to tell me a start date on something, and I'm serious, that's crazy.

You have four businesses that could open, we can cultivate businesses, we could put in your mission, we can put these businesses out there, once we cultivate them, teach them how to run their PL, profit and law statement.

We can hire people and we can benefit the entire city, and the building is just sitting there dormant, and that's crazy.

That's crazy to the chair to uh the chief.

So th through your chair, councilman Conwell.

Uh, you know, I think this is uh the reality of working with many small businesses.

You can do everything that you can to support them, you can invest in them in a variety of ways, but ultimately uh the government is not in the business of operating those businesses, and so it is incumbent on uh Jeremy and his team to kind of allow that place to grow and and succeed, right?

But we have invested significant resources uh in trying to make that project as successful as possible.

Did we give him a quarter million dollars to uh to execute on that project?

What how much do we give them member?

Um through the chair, I I think it might have been.

Um I can confirm that with you for you.

Um but I will also say that you know, I I think that uh the team will, I think, as the neighborhood investment manager for that area um has been following up, and so I will get an update from um from him as to the status and where they are in their time, their project timeline.

If you got it, and I'm gonna end.

I'm gonna end.

You know what?

Here's here's the other piece I see.

I see a weakness in your um in your piece there, prevention.

You got people with the neighborhoods in Glenville, Collinwood, Southeast Side, they're gonna help businesses to grow, right?

So, but if you see a risk or a threat of a business getting ready to close, you you can't just let them start closing without coming back telling us what's going on, because that's the risk.

You could develop a business here, but then lose two or three businesses, and then we're just going around in circles.

You gotta have some kind of risk analysis, Mr.

CP, in your plan or risk management to tell us about weaknesses.

Through the chair, that is certainly a role that the neighborhood investment managers play.

Um the the purpose of that role is to be proactive, have relationships with these businesses so that when they are facing problems, they can come to the city and see how we can support them.

Um I think that the um Salesforce will be uh incredible tool for that because they'll be set, you know, timed reminders like hey, we haven't touched base with this business in X amount of time, like let's check in with them.

Um so there are a lot of things that that we're putting in place to to be more proactive in the way that we support our businesses.

So, you know, Mr.

C P like.

Here's the thing you look at Buckeye.

They can go this important because I I watch your place too over there at Buckeye.

You could put in two businesses and then three or four businesses fold.

They're the experts, Mr.

CP.

They're out there watching.

So before it folds or fall apart, they could tell us and we could do prevention.

All right, it it's it's not doing any good if we develop two businesses but we lose four on Buckeye.

And then you turn around and say, What's going on?

You know, you see what I'm saying?

And then this blight, this blight, Mr.

CP, creates crime and other product.

This is bigger than what even what they're showing, because place matters.

And if you lose four businesses on Buckeye or a large mill, whatever the case may be, they're out there in the community, and they need to have a risk in there, some kind of risk plan, and what they're giving us.

And that's that's what I'm saying.

And director top, I mean, not director anymore, the chief know.

So I I'll through the chair to council uh councilman.

I I will only say I have spent a significant portion of my career working with small businesses.

I have more respect for the men and women who operate small businesses and almost anything because the level of risk is insane, right?

But for many of these people, like it's an opportunity to live out their dreams.

That success for them is simply finding a way to keep the lights on while doing something that they care about and they love.

Um, and I want to support that wherever it is we can.

Um, and I know that in today's um retail is suffering greatly.

Um, there are a lot of macro issues that are leading to that, right?

And the way that people shop.

I mean, there um you look it is a tough climate right now for the average small business owner.

Um, and I appreciate that a great deal, and we will do everything and anything we can to support them uh in that environment, right?

Um that's you know, you know what, CP grocery stores, like your grocery store in this big beautiful bill, that's cut 30 percent there, then the grocery stores next summer will suffer.

Same thing with Medicaid and all of those cuts is coming on.

They gotta in their strategic plan, be able to see around corners and to be able to tell us what's going on.

Because if they cut that 30 percent of uh SNAP, then we don't have issues with more food deserts in in our communities.

So I'm there, I'll yield, and you know I'll drop in and see you because I don't just wait for the table to come.

I mean, but I do that with all the directors.

Thank you, thank you, CP.

Councilman Harrison.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

President, uh I'll be brief.

We we set through DPS for upwards of three hours, uh over three hours rather, uh, hearing this piece, uh, really talking through this and uh vetting this uh piece here.

Over three hours, rather, uh, hearing this piece, uh, really talking through this and uh vetting this uh piece here that administration presented, council and the committee, DPS committee in particular, really asked some great questions and really dug uh deep into uh the ordinance that we are discussing uh today.

Fully support uh the the chief and the director uh both committed to uh working closely with this body, in particular DPS, uh, as they continue to uh flush out their metrics, their policy uh goals, you know, and and and the path that they are really trying to uh to uh go down uh to be collaborative with this body uh until we get in and get that commitment from both the um the chief and the director.

So uh as this moves further along, I know it seems like that there are some missing parts of this, you know, but some of this is going to be flushed out and worked out along the way.

Um the committee's going to work closely with them, although not me in particular anymore, uh, but others who will be here will work closely with them uh to see that some of this work, some of the things that have been raised and the questions or concerns are truly uh dealt with uh as they move forward.

And so ask the committee for uh their support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Harrison.

Uh seeing no other questions, ordinance number 1266-2025 as amended stands approved.

Uh I was going to try to burn through a few more pieces of legislation, but I need uh I need to break for a minute for several reasons.

So uh I'm gonna ask everybody to reconvene about one o'clock if we can.

Council President, can I just say a very quick word?

Um I just wanted to say because I think this year in particular, me and my team and CD have taken more time to just honor transitions, and I think this is the last time at least I'll be at the table in front of a lot of council members here.

And I just wanted to say thank you.

I think I've learned a lot from many of you.

Um and I hope that our paths continue to cross and interact, um, maybe in a different way in the future.

But um, it's been an honor and uh looking forward to what's next for everybody.

Thank you, Judy.

Thank you.

Appreciate and appreciate your service to the city.

I'm gonna ask if uh we can reconvene at um one o'clock p.m.

sharp.

One o'clock P.M.

sharp, uh, we'll reconvene, okay?

Thank you.