Legal or other issues.

We need to resolve those.

And so how can this committee and council work with Cleveland Public Power to resolve it resolve those issues?

Um so we can move forward and promote more solar projects in the city.

And finally, there's a uh an open, you know, unclosed landfill in Slavic village that's been festering for years.

So those residents need uh a plan uh for the city to move uh and deal with that problem.

So I'm hoping the council can deal can delve into all those issues today.

Um and uh uh we can move forward as a city.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Mr.

Beach.

Lou.

Good morning, everybody.

Do you want to introduce yourself and then go ahead?

Okay, uh, I'm Lou, uh a resident in uh Cleveland, not particularly in Slotwood village, but Slotwood village is one of of our neighborhood carrying very significant historic meanings for the city.

However, uh the people in this area, they have been angered and frustrated because for them they see lots of the uh funding project opportunities coming to their neighborhood.

But all of a sudden, all kinds of a strange reason, these funding projects will just pull up.

That means this particular neighborhood should have got well developed, just like other neighborhoods, but they keep losing opportunities because they have never been informed why.

This particular solar project is a very good news to the whole city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, because finally we can do something to establish better structure to reserve our power sources instead of uh grabbing power from outside, which would not be a favor to us at all.

But why this decision has been made?

The rumor has it on the street all over different things.

So there is no transparency I really have to address here.

Who made the decision?

Why the decision is make, and how would this decision carry on if this will really affect in the future project coming to Cleveland or any neighborhood, or any decision make without residents' participation?

And this is really the failures of all of us together as a city in whole.

And we should not continue this.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Uh that concludes the public comment portion of the meeting.

Thank you.

Uh again to everybody who's in the who's in the room.

Ten minutes to my colleagues.

Um there is uh two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven um pieces of information exhibits on our tablets if you want to follow along.

Um we have five different uh entities that are going to be presenting in order.

We're gonna do CEP, Cuyoga County, Slavic Village, Office of Sustainability, and the Department of Public Utilities.

Uh again, I'm gonna ask my colleagues, we're gonna hold off on questions until everybody's presented their cases, and then each council member will have 10 minutes uh to ask their questions.

So is there a representative here from CEP?

No.

CEP would be the owner, the the solar, the the people with the solar, nobody hears from them I wasn't aware we'd invited them to they were invited.

All right, I think Mike Foley from Cuyoga County.

Uh how are you, Mike?

Good.

If you want to introduce yourself and then uh we'll give you 10 minutes.

Uh go ahead, Mike.

Thanks.

Uh I'm Mike Foley.

I'm the administrator for uh the county's new utility, Cuyahoga Green Energy.

Um we at the county have uh uh in 2022 created our own uh legal entity to do utility clean energy work.

Um we branded it as Cuyoga Green Energy.

Um just historically we've done a lot of work around energy projects at the county.

We've done uh this residential solar co-op this month we'll have our 500th home that's putting solar on on rooftops.

Uh we've done um solar on a bunch of our buildings, our facilities.

We've helped cities like Shaker Heights and Lakewood and Cleveland Heights put solar on their facilities.

Um and one of the big projects we did was the Brooklyn landfill um in 2018.

It has uh 35,520 solar panels on it, and that power is uh generated in Brooklyn and runs into uh we are we take it virtually at the county through virtual net metering.

It goes through Cleveland Public Power uh lines.

So we've we've been at the county concerned or interested in in um conscientious about trying to uh uh mitigate greenhouse gases, address climate change, uh uh, but also put as much clean energy in into the um the mix as possible.

We we were excited when the Biden administration um came in and also put started putting a lot of money towards clean energy work.

This is not something that has ever been around before.

Um it was an opportunity that we wanted to take advantage of as fast and hard as we could.

So one of the elements of the inflation reduction act um was the climate pollution reduction grant.

And so there's about five billion dollars set aside across the country.

It's a very competitive grant that was created, and um we um together with uh City of Painesville, City of Cleveland, uh there was nonprofit groups like Power Clean Future Ohio, Power Up Local, uh Gunn Foundation and the Cleveland Foundation helped put money into helping do grant writing.

So we had about a two-month sprint in uh February 2024 to get an application in and we were able to do that.

We were very excited, we thought we had a good proposal.

Um we you know, never not sure we're gonna win.

It really was this really highly competitive grant.

It was about for 200 million dollars.

Um, and 129 million of that came from the EPA, and 68 million dollars came from uh federal tax credits uh from uh the IRS basically.

So um we were notified in July of 2024 that we had won.

It was a huge, we thought this is a huge victory, at least from the county side, just the largest grant we thought we'd ever received.

Um, and it included the those partners, Cleveland, Painesville, Cuyahoga, um, and um it would create 63 megawatts worth of solar at a bunch of different brownfields, landfills across Cuyahoga, Cleveland, and uh City of Painesville.

Um it would remediate this huge eye sore of a of a problem in Painesville, the old Occidental site.

It's a thousand acre site that's just uh you know uh complete and other uh ecological mess.

So we're gonna put solar on uh 35 megawatts of solar, and that will generate revenue to help remediate that whole site.

Uh West Creek Conservancy is was involved in that.

Uh and then in Cuyahoga, there were three sites in Cleveland at West 11th, Koltoff Road, and Harvard.

Uh and then on the county side, we were taking solar at Brooklyn, um, Garfield Heights, where our uh new uh central services facility is at um uh and what else am I missing?

One other site to forget what offhand.

Uh so we had a number of sites uh locally that were gonna be putting solar on landfills.

At the Harvard Road site, part of that site was our site.

So part of the Harvard Road landfill is um 70, 80 acres, half of it is in Cleveland, roughly, half of it is in Cuyahoga Heights and Garfield Heights.

So our portion of it was gonna be in Garfield for the most part, uh, and then Cleveland would have the northern portion of the Harvard Road site.

So that was what we won.

Um we uh um as I say very excited about it and started moving forward.

Um we started going through contract negotiations with Paynesville, Manufacturing Works was helping us to do uh workforce development, so there's a subcontract with them.

Um and those contracts have been done since last February.

We've had you know hang-ups with Cleveland, and and I don't think there's any uh, you know, people folks know that, right?

So uh we have not been able to get a subcontract done, um, although we are now at time we've we've developed terms around uh what that subcontract will be.

Um but it has been it's been you know a struggle, right?

Uh to say the least.

So uh we now are at, you know, we one of the hangups was at with the Brooklyn site.

Um for us, that was a major portion of uh of this grant, and there was issues with Cleveland about whether Cleveland would accept power coming from that Brooklyn site into the CPP grid.

Um lot of back and forth on that.

We are we're moving ahead, but that is not named in the contract that we're having with Cleveland.

So that's a point of contention for us, but we're getting over it, and we're we're uh um we're gonna move forward and developing that site anyway.

Um we were you know notified in in early September that uh we we had passed back documents back and forth.

We got a document in um early September, late August, early September of this year that didn't did not include Harvard, right?

And that was first we'd kind of known that uh all right, whoa, what's going on with the Harvard Road site, the issues with the Harvard Road site.

So we that was a concern for us.

When it you know, one of the concerns the bigger concerns we have is that there's been a sea change in the administration nationally.

So Biden administration was very friendly to this stuff, had resources available when it you know when it uh assist Trump administration has not been uh so supportive of that.

Um we were trying to desperately minimize any changes to um large structural changes to the grant.

Um we think we figure that out.

If if if Harvard doesn't go forward, we'll take the power and we're gonna reallocate the five megawatts that were at Harvard.

Um, and we are trying to figure out how to solve Harvard from the county side.

So the the um right now that the Harvard Road South side, um, we are trying to develop, we're we're working through a lot of issues right now, but but we um you know, we we're working with partners like the Solid Waste District, West Creek Conservancy, CEP, uh who's the who has the the uh rights to develop on that property.

At least our idea right now is that we're gonna go back and try to put two megawatts of solar on that site.

Um and I should add that parenthetically that well, we originally that was part of the site that part of the the original plan.

We at the county were just having so many issues with kind of getting this contract done with Cleveland that um we had we had gone to EPA before the Biden administration left and added in some alternate sites uh in Euclid, the sewer district, and Metro Health, and which gave us a authority or flexibility to reallocate where some of that power went to.

So it at some point we had made the decision, all right.

Let's it's just really tough to to figure out this Harvard South site running that power into a Cleveland substation, uh Cleveland public power substation that CPP had helped us identify.

It's just it's just not feasible.

So we we moved to other sites.

Um at the end though, right now where where we're at is we're trying to figure out can we still go back and save the site by running developing two megawatts on the um Garfield Heights side of the of the Harvard Road landfill and running that power through a two-mile mile and a half, two mile distribution line down to our new uh central services campus in Garfield Heights.

Um, and also figure out how to um work with uh other entities, including West Creek Conservancy, the Solid Waste District, to figure out how to get this property out of receivership.

It's it's been a festering source uh in the Slavic village neighborhood for years and years and years and years.

Uh and so there may be a way that if we can figure this out, we'll develop two megawatts of solar.

It will feed ourselves down at the new jail site uh, and that would enable um uh West Creek potentially to come in and take over ownership of the of the whole site.

So those are things we're trying to work out.

There's a lot of things we have to figure through figure out right now.

So hopefully I don't know if I've made 10 minutes.

Yeah, is that under 10 minutes, hopefully.

We have 52 seconds left if you want to keep going.

Good.

All right, you're good.

I'll take this for a minute.

Can you stick around?

Yeah, be honest.

I know I have a number of questions for you, so but I want to get through everybody's presentations first.

Thank you.

Mike Weiss from CEP has joined us.

Mike, did you want to come up?

We'll give you 10 minutes to say anything you want to say.

Mike's pretty much said it.

I'm happy to answer any questions, but I don't have anything.

Okay, but you'll you'll stick around for the hearing in case we have any questions for CEP.

All right, thank you.

All right.

Uh there's a representative here from Slavic village.

All right, if you could uh introduce yourselves, uh and you I know you guys sent over a lot of attachments.

They're on they're on the uh they're on our tablets, so everybody has access to them.

Um but you have 10 minutes, and remember we're keeping this to the Harvard landfill and the solar project.

Okay.

All right, so go ahead and introduce yourselves and well I'll introduce myself first because Crystal will dive into the details.

You need to turn the mic.

No, turn push the button until it turns green.

And then pull it close to you.

So Shauna Sanders, I'm the executive director of Slavic Village Development.

Crystal Sierra, Planning Director for Slavic Village Development.

Go ahead and get started.

Good morning, honorable chair, uh, Councilman Brian Casey and respected members of the Utilities Committee.

My name is Crystal Sierra, and I'm the planning director for Slavic Village Development, a community development corporation serving 22,000 residents of Cleveland's Southeast Side.

I have been working on the Harvard Refuse Landfill for nearly four years, first as the sustainability director and now as a planning director at the CDC since 2022 prior to the climate pollution reduction grant.

I am joined by my executive director Shauna Sanders, as well as Slavic Village residents and members of our board of directors sitting behind me, which I feel is important to point out so that this committee is aware that we are not alone in our request for transparency regarding the Harvard Landfill and the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant project.

Additionally, our residents have shared with us that they are tuning in to the live broadcast on TB20.

Our involvement with the Harvard Land Refuse Landfill as a CDC has always been primarily to advocate for our residents who are impacted by the site and the condition that the landfill is in, as well as for productive reuse that addresses the issues at the landfill.

The Harvard landfill is an abandoned landfill and its care and future impacts our residents.

Slavic Village Development has a long history with the site, predating 2015 when we first submitted comment to the public record under Judge Brennan Sheehan regarding the court appointed receivership.

Our history with the site is detailed in the first document.

We respectfully submitted to this committee entitled Resource Guide for Community Members Information and Background Regarding the Harvard Refuse Landfill on page two, I believe, of your docket or documents.

Our involvement with the site began prior to 2015 as convener of interested parties and most recently with the assistance of Case Western Reserve Environmental Law beginning in 2022.

We are not a party to the Harvard Landfill receivership, but we have been allowed to give comment to the legal public record on at least three occasions.

Our role has always been as an advocate for our residents first, who are impacted by the landfill, educating our residents about methane detection, how to make air quality complaints, and who our residents can reach out to in regards to the issues at the landfill.

The resource guide also includes history of the site starting with the receivership in 2009, complications related to the care, maintenance, and security at the landfill, that BMB wrecking is allowed to operate on this landfill, crushing rock and storing piles that tower over our residents' homes, and a timeline of relevant activity related to the landfill, including the timeline of the CPRG grant in 2024, which is on page 11, I believe.

Yeah, design.

On the tablet, it's the um utilities hearing presentation.

Utilities hearing SVD presentation.

Okay, that's what it is.

Okay.

Um and the timeline can be found on page 15.

As you can see, our involvement with the Harvard landfill has been substantial over the years.

We seek solutions to the many issues that have plagued the site for nearly two decades.

Our main objective is to educate our Slavic village community and to work towards a positive resolution for this land where the methane is contained and the landfill is cared for.

The third document included included in our submission to this body is a letter that we sent to Mayor Justin Bibb and County Executive Chris Ronin on July 8th, 2005.

And that is on page 17.

In this letter, we detail the impact the climate pollution reduction grant would have for our community and the excitement we had about the potential solar project.

We also expressed concern over the methane, rock piles, and air quality issues.

The climate pollution reduction grant would have allowed for productive reuse of an abandoned landfill that is impact impacting our residents' health, safety, and welfare.

The project developer CEP Renewables would have brought the landfill out of receivership and into productive reuse that not only addressed maintenance costs for the site, but would have added free solar power to the municipal power grid.

Our support for this project is predicated on addressing BMB's rock crushing operations and the conditions at the landfill.

CEP renewables intended to bring Harvard landfill out of receivership and has a purchase agreement that has been in place for nearly two years prior to the CPRG grant.

On September 19th, 2025, just two months after we issued our letter to Mayor Bibb and this administration, we learned that the Harvard Landfill Solar Project was in jeopardy.

CPP Commissioner Amon Danielson gave three reasons why the city would not be moving forward with the Harvard landfill as part of the CPRG subagreement between the city and county.

He cited cost, time, and site control as the three reasons why CPP would not be moving forward with the Harvard Landfill project.

We feel that these reasons have been intentionally obscure, and we want to know why these issues were not resolved prior to September 19th, 2025.

We also want to know what the city is prepared to do to address the issues at the Harvard landfill now.

Commissioner Danielson's email was alarming, and so we notified our board of directors and our residents regarding the project's status.

On September 23rd, just four days after the Commissioner's announcement, we hosted a community meeting at Jones Road Church with at least 50 people in attendance.

The main goal of our community meeting was to inform our residents that the CPRG solar project at Harvard Landfill was at risk.

Many residents attended, and many concerned parties in the audience took questions from our residents.

Chairman Casey, you attended this community meeting and expressed that you wanted to hold this hearing related to the CPRG because the details of the project were not adding up.

Since our community took meeting took place 10 weeks ago, we learned that the city and county have come to an agreement excluding the Harvard landfill.

And we still do not have clear answers as a community as to why CPP refused to include Harvard in the first place.

The issues that Commissioner Danielson cited were either non-issues or could have been resolved.

Our community is owed an apology and an explanation.

The landfill will continue on this path of environmental destruction and health hazard to our residents because the issues at the landfill still not have been addressed.

How many times does our community need to report that there are rock piles towering over their homes before the city does something about it?

We want to know what the city of Cleveland's commitment is to Harvard Landfill now as it continues to impact Cleveland residents today.

What you are seeing now is a set of photos taken from as recent as October 2025.

The first photo was taken from Finney Avenue and East 78th Street in September of 2024.

You can see the pile heights towering over our residents' homes in the background.

The second photo you see shows the same crushed rock pile undisturbed from the perspective of the landfill in August of 2025, a full year later.

The pile remains today, and you can see signs of vegetation and erosion indicating that no part of this rock pile has been moved.

Our residents' homes are in the background.

The next two photos are of active OVVs.

There are two open structures that are accessible from the Harvard Access Road off of Harvard Avenue at the northern end of the landfill.

This is where they store crushed rock and where the gates have been reported open throughout the day and night over the past several weeks.

Residents also reported broken methane extraction pipes and increased activity by BMB wrecking at the northern end of the landfill since September of this year.

Air quality issues remain unaddressed, vegetation is out of control, the crushed rock pile that you saw may be encroaching on private residential property.

There are active OVVs and methane detection will always be necessary at this site.

BMB wrecking cannot remain on the site, and we need to address the landfill's future.

We have also included materials for your review related to the city's prior efforts to address nuisances at the landfill, which are part of the public record, including a history of prior citations initiated by City of Cleveland, actions related to those citations, our objection to the sale of parcels in 2024, and an article published June 14th, 2025, wherein the city and county are quoted about the dispute regarding the 129 million dollar CPRG grant.

All right.

We get your 10 minutes.

We appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Um you guys will stick around, right?

For for questions.

Yes.

Afterwards.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

We have the Office of Sustainability.

Director O'Keefe.

And then joining is Department of Public Utilities.

Director Kane and Commissioner Danielson.

So Director O'Keefe, you have 10 minutes, and then Director King, you'll have 10 minutes as well.

So, Director, whenever you're ready.

Okay, I'm ready.

Go for it.

Good morning, uh Chairman and members of the council.

Thank you and members of the public.

A couple of main points about the CPRG2 grant sub-award, that's climate pollution reduction grant.

Mike Foley from the county already described it pretty in detail, so I'm just gonna move forward with a couple other details.

As Mr.

Foley described, the subaward agreement terms have been submitted to the city, sorry, the county council into their legislative process, and once approved, they will be brought to the Cleveland City Council for authority to proceed.

The subaward contains two, excuse me, two out of three originally proposed projects that will bring roughly 15 million dollars in grant funds to Cleveland with another six to seven million dollars in anticipated investment tax credits to support the projects.

Harvard North Landfill is already described, will not be pursued by the city as a part of this grant for reasons stated by CPP.

And the county has already described how they're planning to reallocate those dollars so that they benefit the Cuyahoga County and the region.

City is committed to completing the projects at West 11th and Spring Road, that is a Cleveland Public Power project, and the port control project at Koltoff Round Road Landfill as a part of this grant and within the US EPA approved grant timeline.

The city is disappointed it cannot do the Harvard North Landfill project, but also could not in good faith pursue a project that we know will not be successful in compliant with federal grant requirements.

In discussions with representatives of Slavic Village, we have recognized that sustainability.

I will speak for myself here, sustainability could have reached out to Slavic Village earlier in discussions, regardless of whether or not there was a sub-award in place.

However, we have had subsequent discussions about the future of Harvard Landfill, specifically around the issues that were already described by Crystal Sierra.

And that includes engagement across the city.

Sustainability is committed to working with various departments, including building and housing, fire department, public works, and public health to holistically address environmental issues that remain at Harvard Landfill.

That it's all right.

All right, Director Director King.

Yeah, thank you, Chairman, members of the committee.

Thank you for uh having us here this morning.

I just two quick points.

One is is council's well aware of the success of the Department of Public Utilities in administering EPA grants, hundreds of millions of dollars to the benefit of our customers throughout our service area.

Um you also know the amount of legislation and detail that has to go into every single piece of legislation that we come to get the authority to administer those grants.

It's heavily regulated, heavily audited from start to finish, including the procurement.

And as recently as yesterday, we were able to put 17 million dollars on the street of EPA awarded funds through the division of water for our lead service line connections.

That is a tremendously difficult process from application to actually money on the street, but we have been uh thanks to council support and the administration really really successful in administering these dollars, both from a grant perspective and also uh from a loan perspective.

Um the only other point that I would make is the delay that uh Mike that Mr.

Foley talked about with the sub-award.

We were the we were the sub to the county.

Um a big part of that was simply the definition of an interconnection.

Um interconnection is defined by federal law, is a big issue.

This is not simply connecting to a substation.

This is not plugging in an extension cord to a grid.

This is all through the federal government through PJM, the regional transmission operator, which is all regulated and managed by the federal government.

It is very specific, very detailed, and very difficult.

A lot of the time that Mr.

Foley alluded to in the delay was lawyers only.

Director O'Keefe, Commissioner Danielson, certainly myself were not involved in those negotiations at all.

We went through a tremendous amount of expense and energy in those negotiations by way of support through the law department.

And thankfully, I received something to sign on the 30th of October, which I did, as did the director of port control on the very same day.

So I join in Mr.

Foley's frustration without question and realize that delay when I'm looking at the other EPA grants and funds that were able to get on the street within four months in compliance with their rigid timelines, that was tremendously frustrating.

So I join in his frustration, but certainly do not take responsibility for it on behalf of the customers of Cleveland Public Power or the City of Cleveland or the Law Department.

With that, Commissioner Danielson certainly has an email that has been circulated widely with our concerns specific to Harvard.

I know that's the purpose of the hearing today, so I would just hand it over to the Commissioner to get into any specifics.

Commissioner.

Thank you, and good morning.

I don't want to reread the entire thing, but I will just say for any successful project, you have three those three primary components, and that is time, scope, and cost.

And when we're talking about something as important as a local renewable project, when I go back to that that day in June, maybe I think it was when I got the phone call.

I still remember it very distinctly.

I was driving home from a work trip, got the phone call, I was incredibly enthused.

I at the time was largely unaware of the Slavic village component, I will say, but just in terms of its overall effect to our community, that's why we applied for it.

So one thing I I'd like to point out is when we're considering it, when we applied for it, when we reviewed it, when we looked at the challenges, it was never a question of enthusiasm on our part and on the part of the city.

This is I want to say unequivocally, it's an important project and it's one that we care about.

But on the other hand, we also have an unequivocal duty to all of our customers of Cleveland Public Power.

And from that consideration, I have to look at the cost, the scope, and the time of this project, and ensure that it's going to be successful if we undertake it.

Because if it's not successful, it risks the overall the other projects, it risked the grant and at risk Cleveland Public Power customers.

So yes, the delay caused issues, because that's part of project success, right?

We run we're running out the clock.

So that compressed the time.

The federal administration changed.

The federal guidelines changed.

And what we can expect of the federal government changed rather dramatically compared to when we applied for this for this grant.

So we're we're crunched at the front end and we're crunched at the back end of the project.

So that's the time component.

The scope itself when we applied for the grant was very much just an estimate.

We knew when we applied for the grant that we would need to go through a variety of steps to further refine and define that scope.

And going through that process should have all happened essentially after the sub award agreement, which notably we have some signatures on, but I don't have a sub award agreement today.

So realizing how much time was going by, we took some additional steps without that grant funding to do what research we could in order to further refine that scope.

And that those additional efforts without even having the sub award is what led us to the conclusion that this was not a feasible project, that the cost would be higher than we hoped, that the scope was much broader and at greater risk than we hoped, and that we were simply out of time to make it feasible.

So that's I think what leads us here to today with uh a grant application that is smaller than we had initially wanted, but with two very good projects that we are excited about moving forward with.

And I guess outside of this plans, desires, and hopes to go after more renewable energy locally.

This is not the last thing that we are going to be pursuing.

And I know as Sarah mentioned, she's she's worked on other things related to that landfill as well, and that it is something that the city in general is very concerned with cares about greatly, as do all of us in terms of that, the community and its effect.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Um just stay put.

Um if we could have uh Mike Foley, if you could come back up, Sean and Crystal or Shauna or Crystal, and then Mike Weiss, if you want to come to the table as well.

And then I I have I have a number of questions, but I won't ask them all because I'll leave some up to my colleagues.

Um but I'll ask a general question if anybody wants to answer it, or uh I I do have some specific questions to um to certain individuals.

So my first question is does this grant or does this project actually clean up the toxic landfill that's on Harvard?

To anybody who wants to answer that.

And Mike, you weren't here, so if you could introduce yourself and let everybody know who you are.

Mike Wise, I'm senior counsel for CEP renewables.

Um if by cleanup you mean like ultimately clean up, no.

Uh the the estimates to do a complete cleanup on that site are you know 50 to 100 million dollars.

Okay, so even if we go forward, it's still a toxic landfill.

Correct.

Okay.

So the Slavic village, that's one of your questions that you had.

It's still a it's still even if this project goes forward, still a toxic still a toxic landfill.

Mr.

Chairman.

Yes.

I'll I'll just Mr.

Chairman.

Um so what it does do is the issues with the um the piles, the rock piles, um, the general maintenance of the site, all of that is addressed through the project.

It just doesn't do a complete cleanup would mean removing the waste that's on the site, and that's not going to happen as part of this project.

Okay.

Mike?

And and just the other thing is that it it takes it out, so it's in receivership.

This has been in receivership for 15, 20 years.

That and the receiver doesn't have any money to do anything with this, right?

So what it does is it takes it out of receivership, puts it into the hands of responsible owner who's in responsible for maintaining uh maintaining the site.

And who would that owner be uh CEP has the rights right now to buy the property and own that property and maintain it.

If we work this out with West Creek, it could be that West Creek becomes that owner.

Um and there's some other reasons why West Creek may want to become that owner.

We've got some other potential revenue to help.

So CEP only wants to take ownership if this project goes forward, even though they have they have first rights to it, correct?

Correct.

And then CEP would not completely clean the landfill up.

You're just going to do what with it if you get it.

We all the piles would be gone.

Okay.

Um the site would be maintained better than it is now.

Uh there'd be some improvements, you know, potentially trails.

Um it would look better.

There would be more protection for the site, better fencing.

We're just not going to remove the waste that's currently at the site.

So even if you even if you get and it becomes your property, you're going to be the owner of a toxic landfill with solar panels on it.

Correct.

And we do that all over the country.

I'm not I'm not worried about all over the country.

I'm worried about Cleveland.

Fair enough.

Mr.

Chairman, just and that's typically what happens with landfills, right?

So they're capped or closed, they're highway PA regulates them.

So there's rules around which it you know, just never happens that you just go and take out what's ever in the landfill and get rid of it and throw it out somewhere else.

So it is but at least there's a responsible party in this circuit.

A responsible party who still would have a toxic landfill.

I mean, that right.

I mean, and I think looking at it from a resident's point of view, I think that's a big issue to the residents, is they want the toxic landfill removed.

They want to cleaned up, right?

No matter what's on there.

It could be a solar farm, it could be new housing, it could be trails, it could be a park, it could be whatever.

I think is a from the resident's point of view, they just want to they want it cleaned up, right?

That that that would be that would be my thing.

And can I just and cleaning it up would just make it making sure that there's someone maintaining it, right?

And and not allowing it to allow leach aid to run into the creek and but and and I can't.

And I get that, but we're here as it we're here as utilities, right?

So we're here for the for this project.

If that's an issue for another department within the city of Cleveland, that's something that another committee can deal with.

We're dealing with there's no argument.

That's the way it is.

Um so I just want to make sure that for the purpose of the solar, right?

That I don't want to use the term do it only halfway, right?

I think the ultimate goal here for the residents would be to get the whole site cleaned up so that it's not toxic.

It's not um and I mean that would be that would be the number one ultimate goal is to get that cleaned up.

Well, if if I may.

Go ahead.

Um in terms of resident sentiment, I think more so than removal of waste from the landfill, what they want is relative safety for where they are now.

So a capped land bill is infinitely, intimately, I mean much more palatable for our residents than where we are now, because now we have leaking methane in people's backyards and in their basements.

And so that's the I and I don't want to speak out of term for Crystal, but um that is the issue.

Okay.

Um is the subagreement between the county and the city signed?

It's been signed by the city, it's going through our process right now, so we've sent it in for our county council to approve.

That will probably happen in early January.

So the city the city has done their their part.

They're just waiting on the county, correct?

Um does the subagreement to the that the that the the city is signed or the that the county is presented endangered CPP status as a municipal utility or violate any of the PERP, any of the PERPA regulations, no, Chairman.

Not at all.

Okay.

I mean, that's the the West 11th and Cold Tulf our sites controlled by the City of Cleveland, so that those assets would be owned by the customers of Cleveland Public Power.

All right.

Um would this project cost the um CPP customers any additional dollars?

As the subaward currently constituted, no.

We don't put that's the relationship between the county and CEP.

We didn't we didn't procure CEP.

We signed on with the county to apply for these grant dollars.

So we have no idea what relationship it took us a year and a half just to get a sub award.

We have no clue what it would have taken with the a third party selected by whomever if they're to develop the power or to generate the power, how would we receive it?

Who would pay for it for how long would we that none of that has been discussed?

Nor will it be under the current sub award.

All right.

And Mr.

Chairman, and there's no match.

So there's uh so there's no federal match required.

You know, typically when you get federal dollars, it's a 50 percent match or 25 percent match.

So this is a hundred percent paid for by the federal government, and then you know, for us and for Cleveland and for Paynesville, that means that we're getting free electricity to put into our systems and and to serve our customers.

All right.

So what's I'm understanding, I'm of the understanding at the presentation that you guys were at there was a long-term purchase power agreement presented to the community as a solution to this, which we don't have the authority to enter into.

Right.

Um, what's the capital cost estimate to connect to the to the grid?

Or for the for the uh to connect to the transmission.

What would be the what would be the infrastructure cost to putting this together?

At Harvard Road?

Yeah.

Okay.

So I think it the estimate originally was uh it was going to be around close to five megawatts.

So that's uh $2.20 a watt.

That's $11 million roughly.

Connecting into there's a um CPP had identified a substation over on, I forget what 86, something like that, which wasn't too far away, so you need to run a line from the uh substation to the solar, uh, you know, let Am and answer that, but I you know, a couple hundred thousand bucks at most, and and there was money in the grant to pay for intercon interconnection to to run from uh run those lines.

Commissioner, what would be the estimated cost of to of the interconnection?

So it's uh clearly more complicated than just a dollar, and that's well give us an estimate, a guesstimate.

Millions of dollars.

And I don't know, and that's part of the problem.

If it if it had just been the relatively limited scope that we had thought it might be, just looking at a map, I think Mike's probably right, it would have been a couple hundred thousand dollars.

But looking at the engineering in more depth that we would still have needed to go through full engine full engineering after getting the sub award millions of dollars, if feasible at all at that substation, which preliminary engineering suggested that it was not.

Would the grant cover that whole cost?

No.

And again, this comes back to Chairman and I apologize.

The definition of interconnection, right?

Like fully is right.

If there's a pro transformer in the proximity, if it could hold the capacity from the generation, and you just had to plug in an extension cord.

Yeah, a couple hundred thousand dollars.

But the feasibility and the engineered analysis of putting that load on the grid in a true interconnection under federal law is the millions of dollars.

And that's where the sub award and all of these things have gone to today.

All right.

Mr.

Chairman, and I don't mean to argue with Director K.

But in our estimation, this is behind the meter, right?

So this is not we're not interconnecting at this point to the transmission grid.

This is solar that is just strictly going into the CPP district and network, and so becomes behind the meter in terms of Federal regulation and transmission law.

All right.

Does PERPA director, does PERPA circumvent long term power purchase agreements?

First of all, Mr.

Chairman.

Can you uh question?

Can you explain who PERPA is?

I I'm sorry.

Public utilities, public public utilities regulation act.

I believe it's what's the Power Generation Act.

Public utility.

Right.

Just in in layman's term, can you just tell us what PERPA is?

So that's the Chairman, the federal law that dictates the interconnection of any generation, but especially renewable generation into the grid as we maintain for our customers and comply with under NERC and FERC.

So you want to quit now you've got to tell them what the Energy Regulatory Commission and the Federal Energy Yeah.

NERC is a corporation, FERC is the Federal Commission.

What he said.

Yeah, it's high it's very complicated.

It's very um detailed.

It's it's it behind the meter generation, like they're proposing to do in Euclid or with the sewer district or wherever, is dramatically different.

And that's when you put solar panels on your house.

That's behind the meter generation.

It is not as heavily regulated as what is was being proposed, to my knowledge, um, for these other facilities.

All right.

Um how many customers does the county have through your clean energy program that you have running now?

So 500 residential, we've got a number of cities that are we've helped do behind the meter projects, we've got our own projects.

We are doing a micro-grid district in in Euclid, so that would have uh seven manufacturing customers, eight manufacturing customers.

So we will be the distribution utility.

This will be the first time we'll do like become the actual distribution utility.

We'll uh take power off the transmission grid, we'll run our own sub uh uh build our own substation, become the distribution utility.

That has been passed by council to move forward.

Um we expect that by in two years that that will be on run and on line and running.

And then we've got uh next projects uh set up in and hopefully Brooklyn and a couple other cities that we've been working with.

So then my question would be why would Cleveland City Council or the City of Cleveland be supportive of a county utility that's going to be in direct competition with Cleveland Public Power?

Uh because we're not.

Um so our legislation says that before we can operate in any city, we have to get that city's approval.

So uh if you don't give us approval, then we're not, you know, we're not probably wouldn't get approval.

Um but it doesn't mean that we can't cooperate on projects.

So one of the things, one of the issues that we talked about early on with with the commissioner, and is is there ways when we're developing Euclid, we could cooperate with Cleveland.

You've got a substation that's close by, right?

Is there a way that we could um utilize that substation, pay for it, maybe pay for upgrades, right?

Uh and and share uh resources that way.

We wouldn't take customers, and we've always said that we would never want to take customers away from CPP.

But there are the ways that we can cooperate.

It's one of the reasons why this whole grant became available, is because we started talking about how do we cooperate together.

So you are you telling me that you have 500 customers now that actually pay the the county for the.

So they have bought their solar themselves, so they own the panels and they are just net metering off of the grid.

Um we don't have anyone he's right now who is paying us.

Correct.

But in the future we will, right?

And that is I mean that's the goal, right?

We're want to create a thriving distribution grid.

You want to create a utility.

We cannot.

I want to be really clear about this because I think it's been an issue.

We are not trying to take over CPP, we're not trying to compete with CPP.

We cannot compete with CP.

We're not allowed to, unless you tell us, hey, County, uh we want you to come in and compete with us, which you're never going to do, right?

But there are ways we think that we can cooperate together and and um and and that's what we've tried to um uh how this grant came about, to be honest.

That can be debatable.

And my one of my how many jobs will this project create for the city of Cleveland.

So um to the chair, the grant with the two projects at West 11 Spring Road.

Is it just Harvard?

Just Harvard.

It did not have any standalone jobs associated with it.

We have three jobs associated with the other two projects and the subaward terms that we have already agreed on.

But none for Harvard.

Correct.

Not nothing specific to Harvard, that is correct.

And then property tax, right?

Since the county the property tax is set by the county.

Once it's out of receivership, do we know what the value of the land is and what the property tax will be?

No.

Solar is there's a different construct for solar sites, it's payment and move taxes, so there's a different state code.

Um and it's 7,07500 bucks per megawatt of production.

And if it's owned by municipality or non-government, you know, uh a local government, I'm not sure whether that um those property tax or the pilot payments are required.

So I'm not sure about that.

All right.

I have a whole other boatload of questions, but I want my colleagues to have an opportunity.

So uh Councilman Polencick is first on the list.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, my colleagues.

Um I have not been to the Harvard uh landfill, so I'm just going by from what I've read and and the presentation to date.

Um but uh I want to just get some basic information where you can educate me.

The 120 million dollars, was that allocated how was that allocated, the 129 million?

Uh so it's 129 from EPA.

Right.

Um eighty goes to Paynesville.

Uh the rest of it comes to Cuyahoga and Cleveland.

Um we had around third, 2830 uh million of that, and then Cleveland had around 20 million of that roughly.

So that money is still there?

The money is still there, correct?

Still there.

So besides the the proposed uh solar farm at uh Harvard Refuge, where else, what other sites were you looking at to do this?

Uh to the Chairman, for Cleveland, we were looking at Coltoff Road Landfill, which is a landfill that's owned by the airport support control.

The transmission infrastructure there is also owned by the airport, so it's a much more simplified project.

And then the West 11th Spring Road landfill, the former landfill at that site, which is under the City Land Bank, so we also have control over that.

Right.

And then that site, just uh a moment on that site will have uh a parklet, we call it, and an interactive site where people can learn about solar.

Okay.

Are there any other sites that are being considered?

Uh for in the city of Cleveland for this grant, no.

No.

Okay.

Uh because there's that site behind Gim Academy, which was a former landfill, um, which I which is an area that concerns me greatly.

Um, and I would hope, and I'll be talking to the administration, you folks, as that's been abandoned now.

That's sitting there, and uh it's kind of adjacent right to a uh Cleveland public school.

So it is of great concern to me.

But let me further go further in this process.

So I'll be talking to you more about that.

Um what I don't understand is it pertains to this site uh as it pertained to the ongoing, and please correct me if I'm I'm um not correct, um as it pertains to the rock crushing operation.

Um how is that permitted?

How is that permitted to take place ongoing?

Who can answer that?

Councilman through the chair.

Um the rock crushing operation is allowed to be permitted through the receivership.

And and the city, and there's been no action taken by the city against the that has taken action over the years um against the receiver related to uh crushing related to methane.

Um there's a number of uh violations that the city tried to enforce um over the past two decades.

Umfortunately, um, because it's in receivership, um any citation, any accountability would have to go through that receivership.

See, uh that's what I I find extremely um confusing.

Uh if there is an if there is a hazard to the the adjacent residents businesses, et cetera, and you're saying this has gone on for two decades, the rock crushing?

Of from approximately about 2010.

Well, again, Mr.

Chairman, I know this probably would be an issue for you before um building and housing in the health department, but I just can't conceive how the city would not take an aggressive approach.

Um this isn't court of common, please?

Yes.

Why the city would not take an aggressive approach to prohibit or bring to an end the rock crushing operation?

To me, this is inconceivable.

Um is your opinion that the city has been aggressive or not aggressive?

I think in the past through the chair, excuse me.

Through the chair, uh the city in the past has been aggressive about enforcement.

Um I think in 2015 the city was held in contempt uh by Judge Sheehan, and so since they've been less um, held in contempt for what reason, Mr.

Chairman?

Um I don't know.

If you asking, no, I'm through the chair.

Having to do with the receivership.

Is that is that information in here on why the city was held in contempt?

It is.

If you look to page C of your presentation?

Yes.

Um But it but again, them being held in contempt has nothing to do with the Department of Public Utilities or the solar project.

Okay.

Well then, Mr.

Chairman, I'm uh I would ask respectfully to the administration who are here, um, and I know we have the Department of Utilities here and sustainability, but I want to uh I would like to understand why there has not been an aggressive action taken.

We know what uh fumitive dust can do.

Um dealt with um rock piles, dust pile, dirt piles, we all know what the the end result of that can be.

So I'm you know I think it's my general opinion here.

And across the board, I've come to the realization that the city is not aggressive on a whole lot of stuff, whole lot of things, or we could be far more aggressive.

But the council, that's under the that's not under the purview of the council.

We cannot hire, we cannot fire, we cannot deploy, we cannot administer.

Um that's up to the administration.

So I would again um urge uh the representatives from the administration at this table to send the message back to whoever that there has to be an aggressive approach.

I'm uh I'm sure my uh my two colleagues to my right are the ones who have to experience the complaints and the concerns based on what they're hearing from the constituents and from the Slavic Village Development Corporation.

So I um I just find in the course of this discussion, and we're dealing with a couple issues here, solar panels were dealing with a landfill.

Um so uh again, I'm trying to educate myself.

So the intention of this was to cap the landfill and to install solar panels on the site, correct?

Through the chair.

My understanding is that the landfill capping would not be part of the original grant proposal.

So to so then to the county representatives, so of the 129 million within this grant, none of it could be used to cap the site.

Mr.

Chairman, so uh so the site, Mr.

Chairman, Councilman.

The landfill is capped.

It's um it there's uses that are causing problems for the residents as you're pointing out, and those need to be addressed.

There's maintenance that's not being done.

The landfill is capped.

Um that waste will never be removed.

Nobody's gonna spend $75 million to remove the and that's not how it's done.

You cap it, you make sure the cap uh integrity stays in place, and you move on.

That's just how this world is done with landfills.

So, based on the picture pictures that were there, what about all the other messes on the property?

It would all be cleaned what cleaned up.

Through the with the 120 through the 129 million?

We were going to do that as part of our solar project.

Soda project.

Okay.

The um the county, and Mike uh Foley, you are here representing the county officially, correct?

Has the county taken any action against the dust problem, the fumitive dust problem on the site?

Not that I know of, Councilman.

I don't know that we have the authority to.

The County Board of Health, I know has been out there and oversees landfills, but I don't know that what action they have taken with the NRC.

Okay, and then my final question, Mr.

Chairman, is to the director and to the Commissioner.

So what I'm not clear on, the count the city has backed off from this, correct?

That's what I am hearing at the table.

Chairman of the Councilman, correct.

Okay.

And you have backed off from this agreement because you don't believe it is financially sound for Cleveland public power.

Is that what you are telling us?

Chairman of the Councilman to the site, correct?

The site itself, not to the grant opportunity.

That is the West 11th and Colt.

But the site does not work.

Chairman of the Councilman, correct.

And it it and again, to the in layman's terms for the people watching this, what I need to understand.

They want to construct solar panels on the site.

And they want to what I am hearing, they want to supply power to Cleveland public power.

Is that correct?

Or I am incorrect in that assumption.

That is correct.

Yes.

It would be delivered to CPP customers.

So what's the objection then?

The cost of interconnection is not covered.

The issues with site control and cleanup are questionably covered.

And then the site ownership in general is not resolved and not something that we have particular time to resolve.

Again, so going back.

So who will own the site, Mr.

Chairman, Mr.

Foley, and your other gentleman?

Mr.

Chairman, Councilman CP has an option to buy the property and we would own the site.

Tell the viewing public who CP is.

So CP renewables were a national landfill, solar developer.

We do projects all over the country.

So when the Commissioner says it's not clear on who to own the site, I don't understand what the why it's the misconnect here.

I mean, there is no misconnect.

I mean, we would own the site.

We have an option to purchase, we are ready to exercise our option to purchase.

So then what you're saying, and I'm just bringing it to an end from my standpoint questioning.

So you're saying that that burden, that tie-in is not put on Cleveland public power.

Is that what you are telling us at the table?

I mean, we we have a budgeted amount for that um tie-in.

If um if the commissioner is correct and it is 10 million dollars, that's a that's a very high number, but if he is accurate and it is 10 million dollars, the project couldn't sustain that.

What's your budget for the interconnect?

There's uh Mr.

Chairman, there's 1.5 million available throughout for Cuyoga County.

But but I want to hang on.

The 1.5 million for Cuyahoga County, how much how much is allocated for the Harvard?

We've uh when we get there, we'll if we get there, we will be able to do that.

Well, it's got to be a grant.

I mean, it's a proportionate amount to the massive.

So 500,000?

Because Cleveland three sites in Cleveland through this.

So you're telling us five there's 500,000 available for the Interconnect.

750, I think, and then you have got tax credits.

Um through the chair, it's 450,000 in the original grant proposal?

150,000 per site.

The allocation to Harvard North was 150,000.

So that's that's that's a far that's a far cry from five.

Mr.

Chairman Victoria.

So what this does, though, is it displaces CPP from having to buy power off the transmission grid?

So you are getting free electricity, and you can use program-related income from the grant to pay for other upgrades needed for a project.

So we're gonna be doing that in in Brooklyn to pay for it.

And over what time frame?

The grant has to be the grant goes through 2029.

Um, but I'm talking, you said we how long would it take us to recover that upfront money?

I don't know what the costs are to take the process.

Okay, we'll say it's a million dollars.

How long would it take to recover a million dollars?

My my guess, and though that you know, Amman has uh better economics and what they're paying for power off the grid, but I would say a year and a half, two years, right?

Is that the bigger question, Chairman, is who's who's recouping?

The program income is from our customers.

Right.

Right?

So that's the math that you have to do, and that's what you have to pay for.

And what we said in the analysis that the commissioner outlined, we can't saddle that to our customers.

Our preferred approach with these awesome grant dollars are those sites that we control.

West 11th and Koltoff, we don't have to deal with interconnections through PJM.

We don't have to deal with other vendors, right?

We would publicly procure the project in accordance with federal law and compliance with the grant to benefit our customers.

That's it.

May I just one point here on program income?

Uh to the chair, we have a memo of understanding that we signed in July of 2024 before this award was finalized.

And that memo outlines that for the first five years of this grant, the grant terms, we would not generate revenue off of these projects.

So the program income that's being discussed, anything made in program income would be passed on to the benefit of CPP customers.

So CPP customers would have to float this for at least five years.

Give or to say that's that's what I'm hearing.

Now program related income, Mr.

Chairman, has to go back into the project.

So if you generate program related income, you can do it, but you have to, before you draw down any further dollars from EPA, you have to use that program related income.

So what it does is that if the project costs are 10 million dollars and you've got a million dollars of program related income, then you're you know you can budget for a project of 11 million dollars before the project is spent before 2029.

So that's the kind of thing.

Yeah, you meant Mr.

Chairman through Mr.

Fuller, you mentioned about free power.

You're not gonna give CPP free power.

CPP would own the power there, so they would give themselves free power, basically.

They would figure out what they want to do with it.

Would they want did they want them to charge themselves you know four cents a kilowatt hour, eight cents kilowatt hours, zero cents a kilowatt hour?

Those are things that CPP would have to figure out.

And then just finally said you indicated you had businesses in the city of Euclid.

Uh what five businesses was it?

We're uh we've got MOUs from seven right now.

Seven, okay.

Um present Ward 8 will be new Ward 10 come January 1st.

We'll have the largest customer base at Cleveland Public Power in the city.

Um I hope the businesses you're dealing with at the border are not ones that we're supplying already with Cleveland Public Power.

Mr.

Chairman, uh Councilman Punzick, no.

So the only businesses are in the city of UCO, they're the industrial area, industrial corridor, um, these two twenty-second and okay, because we supply right across the border in the city of the city.

No, they're not CPP customers, they're first energy customers.

Uh uh we supply businesses across the border in the city of Euclid, do we not?

Through the Chair, yes, we do.

Okay.

I want to make sure none of those are our customers you're going after.

Mr.

Chairman, they are not.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Rebecca Moore.

Thank you.

Um I appreciate the introduction and Chairman, you hosting this before the end of the year so that we can make sure we have both a public record and and sort of a conversation about what happened here.

Um my goals, you know, I I've spent a fair amount of time trying to untangle what happened, and I don't think I fully have the answer.

So my goal with my time here is to get to the narrate my understanding of where we got to and then ask the questions that I've not yet been able to answer.

So to to first start with the just sort of narrating some of the key issues.

I think it's really hard for the public to follow along with some of the um intricacies.

So let me let me share my 50,000 foot understanding that this um the CPRG grant uh both included this the city of Paynesville uh for uh getting a coal power plant offline over there at Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland.

We all went in together on that grant.

So the City of Cleveland reviewed that application when we submitted it.

Is that correct through the chair to CPP?

Chairman of the council member, yes.

Thank you.

Um and in terms of there are numerous different projects, but specifically there are three within the city of Cleveland.

There is the West 11th site, the Coltoff site, and the Harvard site.

Is that correct through the chair?

Chairman of the council member, correct.

Okay, thank you.

Um we had to uh begin there was a lot of very detailed work that had to happen.

And is it correct that um before the city of Cleveland could begin that work, um, we had to complete a subagreement between the county who is the main recipient of the money and the city who's getting a sub-award.

We you guys had to complete a sub-award before you could start any of the work at any of those three sites.

Is that correct through the chair?

Chairman of the council member, that was our hope in order to use the benefits from the grant.

We didn't have a relationship with the EPA, but through the county as the prime.

So that sub award would have allowed us to draw down on some of these dollars that have been discussed.

But the detailed, no detailed analysis by way of an engineered study or a feasibility study have been completed at all to date.

Thank you.

And that was actually a key point that I wanted to make sure to highlight.

When we're talking about the dispute over time, cost and scope.

Um cost to be very clear through the chair to the committee.

We do not know how much it would have cost to do the basic interconnection at Harvard because we never got the work done.

Is that correct?

We never did the engineering.

No.

I mean, it's a lot more than 150,000 that was in the original grant application.

And we didn't even begin that work because we didn't have a subagreement in place.

Is that correct?

That's what the commissioner had alluded to earlier about the the steps that were taken by CPP prior to.

We still don't have a sub-award.

Yeah.

But all of those what the commissioner testified to earlier was work completed by CPP.

Thank you.

So I want to just repeat this point for the public.

There was a dispute over a subagreement.

That dispute over a subagreement and a very technical question about in our connection, PERPA.

There was disputes there that delayed the completion of a subagreement.

And without the subagreement, we simply didn't do the work to understand the scope of the project at Harvard.

Is that accurate?

Chairman to the council member, I I don't believe it was a dispute.

I think that's a like there well, those were negotiations between law departments, so you'd I don't know.

But uh the analysis was completed and it was determined to be unfeasible.

The analysis of the no no, I I apologize.

Please uh uh say that again.

You're saying that the analysis of the Harvard landfill site was completed through the what the commissioner through the chairman of the council member to what the commissioner testified to earlier, correct?

I I have to understand uh uh say to you that that's not my understanding of our multiple meetings on this subject.

So I I first want to go back.

You're saying there was not a dispute over the subagreement, but I have the letter between um that was of course discussed in the plain dealer and and released publicly between the Bibb administration and Chris Ronane um saying that they the city was ready to create a path forward for the subagreement if the county would only agree on certain technical matters.

So this June 13th letter clearly lays out that there's a dispute over the subagreement.

Do you have a copy of this letter, Chairman?

Or director?

Currently, I don't.

Do you know what I'm referencing?

Of course.

Of course.

Okay, so there was not a sub-agreement in place.

There still isn't.

There still is not.

Correct.

And with no subagreement, we did not complete the engineering at Harvard.

Is that correct?

Through the chair to the director.

Yes.

It is correct, we did not do the engineering read at Harvard.

Thank you very much.

Um, I I really want to make this point because you know, there's this question over the city versus the county um and and and who is saying what, and what I want to emphasize is that Slavic Village got caught in the middle.

We didn't do the work that would have been needed to understand the scope of the project because there was a separate dispute.

I would actually really encourage everyone to read this June 13th letter.

And I I really want to hone in on one aspect of it, which is that this dispute um about the subagreement.

This is an effort to get the sub-agreement signed.

It says the count the the city is saying I want to express serious concern that Cuyahoga County is jeopardizing this grant through because of the subagreement.

The reason is clear the county is conditioning approval of Cleveland's pre-development ready projects at the Koltof landfill and West 11th on the city's execution of a long-term purchase power agreement.

Now, I would like to understand why, if this was a reference to the CPRG grant, why wasn't Harvard referenced in this June 13th letter?

Were we already out of the picture in June 13th when this pro when this letter was written through the chair to the director?

Um I don't have the answer to that specific question.

What I would say is the wording that you just read aloud.

We had, as already explained, the city has control over Koltoff.

Well, the court control does.

Landfill site and over West 11th and Spring Road.

Those are definites.

Those are things that we were very definite about.

So that's what was included in the letter.

That's my suspicion.

Thank you.

I've also had the chance to review our initial application, uh, which you noted the city of Cleveland reviewed and approved when it was when we applied to the EPA.

Is it true that that original application contemplated CEP being the sole developer?

In other words, that the City of Cleveland would not own Harvard, and we knew that at the time that we applied for the grant through the chair.

Do the chair.

The original grant application had CEP listed as a I don't remember the phrasing in the application.

You might have it in front of you, I do not.

CEP was recognized as having, have they already described a purchase to option, an option to purchase, I believe.

Um, or to develop the solar.

That was our understanding at the time of application that they had the option to develop solar at Harvard.

Thank you.

I am more than happy to pull up the application uh because I think it is critical that we understand it.

Um if you'll give me a minute while I pull it up.

So in the initial application, um, let's see, this budget narrative.

I love these documents because that I mean the EPA makes you work for this grant.

This is not an easy grant to achieve, you know.

Um, and I want to make sure that we make very clear what the city knew when it applied for this grant versus what happened later.

So, you know, when we're talking about CEP, you and and Mr.

Wise, you do this all over the country, right?

Correct.

Um, and what um can you tell a little bit about um how you came to be involved with this project, how you came to get the option on the land?

Yeah, so I'm I'm an energy attorney, lived in Cleveland area my whole life.

We did, I represented the developer on Brooklyn phase one.

Yeah.

And many of our team members worked on Brooklyn phase one.

And after Brooklyn phase one, we obtained an option from the city of Brooklyn to do phase two.

And so we've been looking to do phase two of Brooklyn for the last seven years.

And Mike Foley approached us about what sites did we have control over that would be great landfill sites for solar, and we told him we had Brooklyn and we had Harvard ready to go.

Yeah.

Thank you for that.

Um, and so I've brought up the original work plan um, which said this in order to bring these projects to fruition, the coalition intends to engage CEP as the sole source developer for these two projects and request that EPA approval of a sole source contract.

The justification for our sole source request is twofold.

First, CEP renewables has a unique has a uniquely available service, specifically solar development on the aforementioned proposed sites.

Second, this proposed sites are ideal for solar development.

Unlike many other Brownfield properties, the Harvard and Brooklyn sites are sizable enough to host scale solar projects and are in close proximity to CPP distribution networks.

So with that, through the chair, is it accurate that the city intended to work with CEP when we applied for this grant?

Through the chair to the council member.

Again, that was the county's wording.

So we that would have to be negotiated and agreed to.

Um through the chair, you applied for this grant as well through the chair.

The sub award through the county.

But you were an applicant on this award.

Yes.

So you reviewed, did you review this document?

Yes.

Okay.

Then I think it's fair to say that if you were aware that we were anticipating CEP being the developer, the answer to that question is yes, through the chair.

Is that correct?

The developer, yes.

As the developer, correct.

Yes.

But who the contractual relationship for the power that was being generated was to be negotiated.

Thank you.

So I understand my, you know, I I understand my time constraints.

Um, and I I hope you understand that.

I'm I'm gonna take just a few minutes, Chairman, to get to a second question that I I really think is important to answer.

Do you want back on the list for five more minutes?

I'm happy to get back on the list for five more minutes.

One more.

Um, director, or to Mike Foley, who who actually wrote the grant.

We had a coalition of folks that the main folks were the county and PCFO, Power Clean Future Ohio.

So we were just like, so the count it was submitted by the It was submitted by the county.

So we're gonna do that.

Correct.

Okay.

Councilman Harsh.

Um Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

One question uh through the chair to um uh director Danielson.

Would the cost savings of the power generated from the site in your estimation exceed the upfront infrastructure costs over a period of time?

I can't say definitively which way it would go, but it's my belief that with our current understanding of where it might need to interconnect, we would not be able to recover the cost of the outer interconnection.

Okay.

Mr.

Chair, I'd like to yield my time to councilwoman more, if I could.

All right, and I'll give you anyone back on the list.

I'll give you the remaining harsh nine minutes and 20 on a second.

Thank you.

Well, I I I hope it won't take all of that.

Um I I want to get to the second point um that I'd hope to make around um whether we have fixed the underlying problem that made this project difficult.

And I will be honest with you that sitting on this side of the table, it is not clear to me that we have resolved the key question about how to make solar work in Cleveland.

Um and what I uh it so I'm gonna phrase a question that I I hope makes sense and and I I welcome your honest answers.

It took us a year and a half to get to the point of a near-final sub award.

Um you have clearly had disputes over the definition of interconnectedness of in front of the meter, behind the meter, um uh PERPA.

Uh if we were where we are right now, a year and a half in, we've negotiated it, we've gotten here, but we were at the beginning of the CPRG grant.

Could we have made Harvard work?

Or are there still unanswered questions about how to make the Harvard site interconnect with CPP's network through the chair?

I'll take a swing at it.

I think it's a complicated question.

So uh I'll just say up front, uh, I think a big part of that is what the federal administration is.

So if we were a year and a half ago with the federal administration of a year and a half ago, there is a reason that Harvard that we agreed to looking at Harvard on there, right?

Um throughout any grant application like this, there's the understanding that you need to go through multiple phases.

So if we didn't have any of the negotiation stuff, if we were able to iron out all of those details, if we were able to work with a more flexible EPA, especially when it comes to how funds are allocated, then it would just be down to those just the more nuts and bolts questions, right?

How is the power actually flow?

Where does it get delivered to?

Um there is there are still some unanswered questions as far as what a PPA means, what an interconnection means, and frankly, those are questions that we don't have to answer for West 11th, and we don't have to answer for Koltoff.

And that we don't have to answer for some of the stuff that we are actively working on.

And some of the the other things that we're actively working on, then it it also means that up front we're resolving more of those issues in terms of where it gets interconnected to our grid.

So I I think we are forward-looking.

We are trying to make sure that we get renewable generation onto the grid, and that a lot of the hard questions are either going to not apply or they will be more readily addressed up front by being able to select a location that we know is more likely to be positive from an engineering perspective.

Thank you.

Um I I think what I hear in that is no, we're not yet at a point where we have solved the technical questions that would allow a successful solar project to happen at Harvard.

Um so I I want to I say just summarize that that that's what I I heard in your answer that it's complex, um, but we haven't yet gotten through the tough questions.

I want to ask the same question to um Mr.

Foley and also uh a separate question to Mr.

Wise.

But Mr.

Foley, um, what's your sense of whether we have solved the root questions about county green energy doing solar projects in Cleveland that interplay with the county?

Do you think we have figured it out through the chair?

Um councilwoman Moore, I I don't know.

I mean, uh look.

Um here's where we're at.

Uh you we've obviously said we've frustrated.

We're gonna move forward.

We need to protect this grant.

It's uh you know, 130 million US EPA grant.

We're doing whatever we can to protect the grant and not raise too many questions um with the with the administration.

And so we're gonna, you know, we're taking that five megawatts of power that was at how at Harvard.

Uh we're figuring out how to reallocate it to county projects, right?

And um, we're gonna put some more over in Brooklyn and try to do the Harvard Road South project now.

Um and you know, so Jonas, I think we're gonna we're gonna benefit out of this a little bit uh uh to to Cleveland's expense.

Um to answer the question about whether uh you know I think those are all solvable questions that that you raised or that that Amon raised, I guess.

These are all solvable uh people do it all over the country.

You know, there's municipal utilities that do this all over the all over the United States.

I think there are there are things that are quickly figure out, I guess.

Yeah.

Um I'll leave it up to to Cleveland whether you guys want to figure that out or not.

Yeah, we do it all over the country and and we didn't manage to do it here.

Um Mr.

Wise, I I think I I would love your view of your expertise from doing this work nationally in terms of where how what's your assessment of of Cleveland's ability to do solar right now?

Do you um would you be willing to work with us on future projects and um how how has your experience been through this through the chair?

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, Councilwoman.

Um there's a huge victory still to be had here.

So we do two megawatts on Harvard South, and we fix all the issues at the landfill.

And we're gonna need the city's help to do, even though we're not gonna interconnect through CPP, there's still gonna be some permitting.

Cleveland can help facilitate that.

We can have a huge victory.

Um we did Brooklyn phase one and and we've worked with Annan and his office and very successfully.

And Councilman.

All the all the customers that are being serviced by Brooklyn phase one were CEI customers that got converted over to so it's it's the opposite of what you're all concerned about converted over to what?

To CPP.

And then for the justice center.

Right.

Well, we so work to be done.

But that was part of the agreement.

Right, but direct, but but uh my point is that we're actually doing this concern that's being expressed.

We we've all been over backwards.

Let's make CPP the winner, because I mean, I don't know, CEIs here.

They weren't helpful.

So CPP has been helpful and we like working with CPP.

You guys have been great.

You were great on phase one, and we want to do more of that kind of work with that.

And we're not gonna go into it, but I just have one question for you.

Uh is Cleveland Public Power being sued over the Brooklyn.

Is there a lawsuit at all over the Brooklyn?

Okay.

It was dropped last week.

Okay.

CE dismissed it finally last week.

Thank you.

Um I I appreciate that.

And and I you know, we're kind of in this moment nationally where we're realizing we gotta get really good at building stuff.

We can't bog things down in bureaucracy.

Um, you know, it you know, we taken us, you know, decades to build like one mile of track of high-speed rail in California and like, okay, let's get so much better at this, and we need solar, we're gonna need green energy to uh you know succeed as a country in the decades ahead.

So we have to get better at doing it.

And uh what I hear out of these answers is like we have the seeds, we have the kernels.

Slavic village isn't gonna get to benefit from the work that's ahead to make this stuff work better right now.

This this particular project at this particular time, we have lost it.

We ran out the clock, we didn't have the engineering done in time because the agreement wasn't in place in time.

Uh you all had agreed to having uh separate developer and then later didn't end up liking it.

Uh I actually think the neighborhood can understand if you say those things out loud and and offer an apology, which I think the neighborhood is owed as well.

But I think making sure that we use this moment to fix the underlying issues so that another location isn't stuck, or we're stuck in the same spot when we try to do Harvard North again under a different grant, it seems critical.

Um so I'll end here.

Um, my my first bucket was this transparency and and and clarity about what happened, what what the neighborhood is owed.

I I think the next thing is this this project is gonna move on.

It it's gonna you're gonna go to Koltoff, you're gonna go to West 11th, the money's not gonna come to Slavic village.

There's might be this county project and uh the Garfield Heights part, but the neighbors in Slavic village are gonna be left living next to the landfill.

And so my I would like on the record um to the sustainability director, are you committed to working with Slavic village development to make sure that we address the issues, including finding a path to pulling this landfill out of receivership?

So through the chair to the councilwoman.

I've already stated that I'm committed to working with Slavic Village Development on the issues that are still remaining at that landfill.

Thank you very much.

I will yield the rest of my time.

Thank you for the generosity generous time.

All that time.

Anyone else have anything else they want to add?

Councilman Bishop, uh Mr.

Chairman.

Uh first I want to say for the record, I just want to appreciate uh appreciate you and your all your efforts uh putting this uh community this uh committee together.

I know it was uh a tough um task to get everybody here uh from all of these different uh organizations, especially under the um intense uh frustrations that everybody has been under to come here this morning and and and talk this thing out for the for the benefit of Slavic village.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, I do I do want to emphasize that we do need the Department of Health here on this matter because I have residents in my ward presently who have methane meters in their basements because we're just we just don't know how safe this landfill is and the health of our residents is the utmost importance in this in this matter.

So I do believe that we need to implore and get the health department motivated and engaged in this process uh for the benefit of our Slavic village neighbors.

I want to thank Councilwoman Maher for all of our engagement over this uh over this whole time.

It is a very difficult thing to understand why this thing has not come together, but I do believe that we can work together down the road, and this Harvard landfill is still sitting there in need of a lot of different things.

Uh it needs attention.

An Office of Sustainability, I I do, I do want you to stay involved in this project and keep communicating with Slavic Village.

But Mr.

Chairman, uh, I just want to say thank you, uh, moving forward.

And uh and I don't want this thing to end right here today.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Bishop.

And that's how I was gonna close it.

You know, I'm I'm not sure this is, you know, we wanted to hear about the Harvard landfill, but I think there's more that going on here than utilities, and I do think it's the health department and building and housing that uh that could take a more proactive role in attempting to get this site cleaned up.

Does anybody have any closing statements or anything they want to say?

None?

Great.

I said an hour and a half.

Thank you.

Thank you.