The public safety of Cleveland City Council, please come to order.

Madam Clerk.

Do we have a quorum?

Would you please call the roll?

Present.

Thank you.

And I want to apologize to the administration and to the viewing public.

We were in a meeting, a very important meeting with VAPAC to talk about vacant properties and the issues that we're confronted with in the city of Cleveland as it pertains to residential issues, disinvestment, abandoned properties, et cetera.

So it was a meeting that all council members were heavily engaged in, and I want to thank my colleagues for the line of questioning that they had, and I want to thank Frank Ford and people from VAPAC, the team that came in to make their presentation to us.

So again, I want to uh thank the administration for their indulgence and the members of the command staff that are here.

Um, as to what the um how it went with the tow truck operators.

Absolutely.

Okay, so without objection, ordinance number twelve fifty dash twenty twenty-five is held um at the call of the chair.

Thank you.

Ordinance number 26-2026 by Council members Palencick and Griffin by Departmental Request an emergency ordinance authorizing Director of Public Safety to enter public safety or a lot to apply for and accept grants from the Cuyahoga County Public Safety and Justice Services for fiscal year 2025.

Stop Violence Against Women Act.

Program for sexual assault advocate and for the law enforcement and prosecution components of the Cleveland Domestic Violence Program and authorizing one or more contracts with the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center and other entities to implement the grants.

It was read the first time on January 12th, 2026, and referred to the various departments.

It was approved by the Director of Public Safety, approved by Director of Finance.

There's no legal objection.

It was returned to committee on January 21st for proper assignment to committee.

And again, approved by Director of Public Safety, approved by Director of Finance.

There's no legal objection.

And again, to um to the administration, my honorable colleagues and to the viewing public.

This council takes very seriously the issue of domestic violence, sexual assault.

And we've um and we vindicated that by the legislative action that we've taken.

So at this time I'm gonna call upon the director.

Yes, uh to the chair again, council safety uh committee members.

The piece we're talking about is uh ordinance number 26 2026, and this uh legislation would authorize me to direct the public safety to apply for and accept three grants from Cague County for fiscal year 25, uh Violence Against Women Act or VOA grants program.

This legislation will provide funding for the operation of the Cleveland Domestic Violence Program, law enforcement and prosecution, and the sexual Cleveland Sexual Assault Advocate.

These grants have a match requirement.

Uh and this is the purpose of the grant.

The goal of the Violence Against Woman Act uh grant program is to provide funding to enhance an investigation, prosecution, and victim advocacy of domestic violence, stalking and sexual assault cases.

See if Cleveland will be reimbursed for costs associated with operating the Cleveland Domestic Violence Program.

This is a partnership with the Cleveland Police Detectives, Cleveland prosecutors, the victim advocates for county witness victim services.

Cleveland will also be reimbursed for the cost associated with a victim active advocate from the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center being assigned to the police sex crimes unit.

Um this program uh the DV program for law enforcement, uh, the Cleveland police domestic violence unit detectors investigate reports of DV and stock and present them to the prosecutor.

The detectives share an office at police headquarters with a victim advocates.

The grant pays for partial salaries of two detectives, and this is how the expenses are are reimbursed.

Personnel is 153,225 and 90 cents.

That's for the detectives, travel 4500 for conferences, supplies 3,727, and also for a total of 161,453 and 37.

I'm sorry, 57 cents.

Okay.

Uh the grant award is 121,090 and 18 cents, and the matching fund is to 40,363,039 cents.

And and to the director, that's out of general fund, the 40,000.

Correct that we have a uh, yes, that's correct.

And for the total I mentioned before the 161,000.

Thank you.

And then also we have the sexual assault program.

The Cleveland Rape Crisis Center signs a victim advocate full-time to the police sex crimes unit to help sexual assault survivors traverse the justice system and locate any needed support.

The expenses for this is the contractual is $62,940 and eight cents for the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center.

Supplies is $398.49.

Uh phone is 1,068 for a total of $64,407.

The grant award is for $48,305.

Matching amount is $16,101 and 82 cents for the total I just mentioned, which is $64,472.

And next is the domestic violence program prosecution.

See if Cleveland Prosecutor's Office provides prosecutors who focus on charging and prosecuting domestic violence and its related crimes.

For example, menacing by stalking, aggravated menacing, violation of protection orders, provide specialized attention to this and the specific concerns that arise with with handling such cases and work with individuals affected by domestic violence and abuse.

The expenses, 200,000 and 50 cents.

That's for prosecutors and law clerks.

Travel, 17,913 for DV conference, 981 dollars and 37 cents for supplies and 6,000 for printing uh informational pamphlets for a total of 225,000, 860 and 87 cents.

The the grant award is for 169,39565 cents.

Uh the matching fund is 56,465 and 22 cents for a total I mentioned before, which is a 225,000.

The grant period is from January 1st of this year through December 31st of this year.

This is the eighth year we received a sexual assault grant, and we have received a domestic violence grant since 1997.

We're here to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director.

And as I indicated earlier, this is something that the council has felt uh very passionately and strongly about over the years.

Uh would you care to identify and uh the your team members at the table here?

Started then the prosecutor can we'll start with uh prosecutor Jordan at the end.

Thank you.

Okay, and introduce yourselves.

Okay.

Hi, uh, through the council, uh the chair to the rest of the council members of Clayla Jordan, City of Cleveland Prosecutor.

Thank you.

Push the button.

Push the button.

Yeah.

Okay.

Good afternoon.

I'm Sergeant Maggie Crestville with the Cleveland Division of Police Sex Crimes and Child Abuse Unit.

Thank you.

The Chair of Council, my name is Kyle Freeman, I'm Lieutenant Cleveland Police Domestic Violence Unit.

Jason Shachner Assistant Director of Public Safety.

Thank you.

Now, uh on our side, we have some new members of the committee.

So you might not have had the opportunity to meet them.

So I'm gonna ask to my extreme right.

I'm gonna start with Councilman Joe Jones, work around the table, identify yourself.

Thank you.

Good morning.

I'm Councilman Joe Jones.

I represent the Lee Harbor Severe Miles community known as Ward 1, and now parts of Mount Pleasant community.

Thank you.

Good morning, Councilwoman Stephanie House Jones of the New Ward 8.

Um Councilwoman Nikki Hudson from the new Ward 11.

Councilmember Richard A.

Star 5.

Councilman Slife, Ward 15.

Councilmember Kevin Conwell, the home of the mighty mighty tabletters, Glenville, Collinwood, Mighty Collinwood, and University Circle.

Thank you.

Councilman Mike Palencick, Ward 10.

Okay.

Who would care to uh lead us off on this discussion?

What I would ask.

Oh, excuse me.

Okay, I've got you.

Okay.

So before I call upon any other uh Councilwoman House has Jones, anything else?

Um Jones has questions.

Um to the administration, uh to the prosecutor.

Do we happen to know in 2025 how many people were prosecuted under this statute that we have questions too, Mr.

Chairman?

Okay.

If you give me one moment, I'm checking our grant report, and I'm gonna be able to get that number for you.

Okay.

Okay.

Let me see what I got.

Okay.

Okay.

Um with anyone else uh while the prosecutor is looking, um, would there be any other comment from the administration?

Any other comments?

Okay.

I'm gonna call, I'm gonna start with um as as you're looking for that information, madam prosecutor.

I have that number.

Okay, what is that?

Um there were a total of 735 misdemeanor cases brought in the previous year.

I unfortunately do not have the felony number cases.

So we've been referred to the county prosecutors.

Okay, if you could uh provide that to us because this is obviously gonna be going on to finance committee.

So again, I would say to the director in this new year, uh, when we're looking at grants and um the performance of grants and initiatives that we've undertaken, if um if data can be provided to us uh along with your um presentation would be very helpful so we can see if we are having an impact.

Um, if we are uh having um uh uh filing through on the the um target of the grant, we are the recipient, but we want to make sure uh that the areas that we're trying to address are uh that is taking place.

So again, I would say in the future, please have that information for us.

I'll call upon councilwoman house, uh excuse me, Stephanie House Jones at this point.

Thank you.

Uh to the through the chair to the team here.

Good afternoon.

Um, so I guess I guess this is part of more of a request because it's not provided of being able to share the complete picture of how many um, I guess in this category and like understanding the various categories under domestic violence, sexual assaults, having that uh disaggregated for the different types of people that have come to report it versus then those that have actually with for through prosecution and then understanding uh the results of it.

Um I don't know, is that clear?

Is my request clear?

Did you understand the question?

Can you repeat that again?

I was trying to take notes as you were talking.

Right.

So it's one thing where someone comes to say this happened to me, right?

It's a whole other thing for then people to take that initial report and then it translates into judicial action being taken, and then from the judicial action that was taken, it was a court hearing, whether someone is guilty, not guilty, so forth and so on.

And so if we can have a clear um indication of what is actually happening in our community, I think that would be very helpful to just understand context.

And I don't know based on this work, have there been um any things or things that you can find that is happening in the community as it relates to um divest divest domestic violence and sexual assault here in the Cleveland area?

Okay.

And while while you're uh contemplating that question, I would hope to the Madam Prosecutor Um that if you could whatever you could provide to us, if it could be broken down on a ward level as well, so we have the data so we can each see what's transpiring within our own individual communities.

Director?

Yeah, through the chair to council member House Jones.

Uh, thank you for your question.

And I believe I if I um not mistaken, the pretty much what I understand from you is how many uh in individuals or victims that actually reported some type of either sexual assault, domestic violence or both, and then what actions were taken from those particular individuals, and then the disposition of those particular cases.

Am I is that sound correct?

Okay, right.

Um I know that Sergeant Freeman has some numbers for you right now.

We can make sure we get accurate numbers, but it they have statistics right now that he can actually give you right now relative to some of the the questions that you just asked.

Sergeant.

No, Lieutenant.

Excuse me, Lieutenant The Chair to uh council personnel.

So the domestic violence unit handled a total of 2,220 cases last year.

481 of those cases were referred for felony charges.

And 386 were referred for misdemeanor charges, with the 46% of our cases being sent to the judicial system for criminal charges.

So um, I guess uh through the chair to the team here, um, so what exactly what are the themes or the analysis that you can um gather out for uh are there any things?

Are there any analysis that that can be made based on these initial reports?

Um through the chair through the council lady.

One of the resounding themes we can tell you pull it closer.

That yeah, one of the resounding things we can tell you from the prosecutor's office that we notice is that after the initial report is taken, our victims are less likely to cooperate.

So what we really need from council and hopefully the community is for us to really talk to our community members about staying engaged in the process throughout.

It is very difficult based on case law to bring evidence-based prosecution of domestic violence cases.

So, in order for us to continue on with the cases, and we know the criminal justice system is slow and drawn out at times.

We need the support of the citizens to stay engaged in the process so we can successfully prosecute these cases.

Thank you for that.

Oh, yes, for the follow-up.

Um, through the chair, um, to the team here, and that's one of the things I've been looking at some um, I guess studies that have been doing uh that have been done of uh talking about I guess they are um the language that is used in the reporting is basically called signaling, um, and how basically based on how reports are done can lead to an indication if it's positive language that is used during for the reporting, then it's more likely to be taken to prosecution versus the neutrality or if it's negative language being done.

And I don't know if you know what's which kind of reports I'm talking about.

This is I know this is work, a body of work that um Professor Rachel Lovelo out of Cleveland State University has been doing over for a long time.

And so I I really would like to know how we are using this body of research, potentially or not.

If you don't agree with it, don't agree with it or whatever, that can then build up confidence in victims to even actually want to be partners with us to stay the course if or when they may find themselves being victimized.

Okay, who would care to comment?

Uh to the council through the chair to the councilwoman.

That is part of why this grant is so critical.

Um, one of the things our offices do is actually community outreach.

And so we are very intentional about ensuring we are in the community, talking directly to victims, passing out informational pamphlets or both shores, so we can rebuild that trust.

Um kudos to the detectives and the domestic violence unit because sometimes they have very little information to go on.

And they get out, they talk to the victims, they try to talk to witnesses when appropriate, they interview the children that may have been witnessed to this.

They do everything they can and bring every single case to our office to review.

Sometimes that means they are in our office while we ourselves are calling victims, right?

Just so we can see if there's any way we can move forward with these cases.

So I do appreciate the support of the domestic violence unit for the detectives.

Of course, I always wish there are more detectives there because they are so phenomenal.

Um, but it really is about us continuing to be engaged in the community, which is what this grant supports.

Okay.

Any other questions?

I I will I will stop here.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman Joe Jones.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um, it you know, one of the things uh that you requested earlier, there was the breakdown of these numbers of 2,200.

I I want to say that was uh the number two thousand two hundred and twenty uh different actions or assaults that were taking place last year.

Is that correct, Mr.

Chairman?

Um, to the distinguished gentleman.

To the chair to uh council member, yes, that is correct.

2,220 uh domestic violence cases.

And what do we do we I know that the chairman asked, you know, was it broken up in the wards?

Is it broken up in in the wards or or is it?

Would that be difficult to assemble that information quickly based on um chairman?

Yeah, well, we're gonna ask them.

Uh and I don't know if that would be the process.

Through a chair to okay, go ahead.

Through the chair, council member.

That's what we can take a look at that.

I mean, I can't answer that right now, but we can take a look and see if we can break that down.

Yeah.

And and so, you know, it would be I would certainly uh uh be interested to know that as soon as possible for my territory because you know we want to start uh making the awareness known and um have uh a meeting in our community.

Um a lot of times I get a lot of calls uh dealing with um domestic violence, and actually both ways.

So I don't I know that we hear a lot about women being um assaulted, um, but men uh are being assaulted too.

And so I I guess my question would be uh have you seen uh upward trend there or or you know what are the numbers that look like in that on the on the opposite side of this?

Who could care to answer that?

The chair to uh council members, the so the domestic violence unit handles mainly uh female victims according to the uh uh grant language.

So very few uh male victims to be handle.

Do you have them coming forth, Mr.

Chairman?

Do they come forth and and and and tell their stories or they're kind of quiet about it?

Whoever can answer that?

So the the male victims that we have had that they do come forward, yes.

I see.

So wait, just on that point.

Um, so if you have educate us um adult versus a child, so if you had a male child abuse, what's the the step?

What's the process?

Yeah.

See the chair uh that would be handled by the sex crimes unit, any children that are victims of domestic violence, we handle that.

Okay, Councilman Jones.

Yeah, it the reason why I asked, because I had a couple of cases was interested in how they told me how they were treated, uh, man up was one of the words.

Um you should be so lucky you were touched.

Um, and um, so it's just you know, I I just wanted to get an idea, you know, um just how broad or base it is.

Also, I would like to know, Mr.

Chairman, um uh to the director, this grant that we have, what's the total grant amount?

Because I see there's like three of these.

What's the total of this entire grant amount that's being assessed here?

Is it the bottom where it says total project amount 225, 860 87?

Through the chair to councilman Jones, it's broken down in three separate grants, and one is for the domestic violence program, law enforcement, the others for the sexual assault program, and then the DV program uh program itself for the prosecution is broken down into the three different grants.

Is it is it the total at the bottom of the total, yes, so the total project amount, for example, for the domestic violence program law enforcement.

The total is 161,453 and 57 cents, and the sexual assault program, the total is sixty-four thousand four hundred and seven dollars and twenty-nine cents, and uh the DV program prosecution is uh the total is two hundred and twenty-five thousand and hundred and sixty dollars and eighty-seven cents.

Eighty-seven cents?

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

All right, and so how many people are actually are is the grants covering the salaries of of these actual people, or do we have more money that's added to it?

I mean, what's the overall budget for the for domestic violence program that you have here in the city of Cleveland?

Through the chair, this uh the program that we have in front of the grant for the vial grant.

Um it's for two um detectives for at least the law enforcement.

There are two detectives, the salary for personnel for them is the 1535 three thousand dollars.

Right.

And the other one is for the sexual assault, um, and that's for um the rape crisis center.

Um Cleveland Rape Crisis Center.

Um they have advocates assigned, and then obviously you have the prosecutors well.

We have personnel from prosecutors' office, which is a prosecutors and law clerks were involved in this as well.

So are you saying that the prosecutors come some of their portion comes out of this grant as well?

Yes, they are currently seven staff members from the prosecutor's office who a portion of their salary is funded through this grant.

I see.

And and I guess the question I would have, Mr.

Chairman, um, to the director, is how many people are actually working on on domestic violence uh for us in the city of Cleveland.

Director, Lieutenant The Chair to the uh council member, the domestic violence unit has a total of six detectives, one sergeant and one lieutenant.

Two of those detectives fall under the uh uh grant funding.

I see.

And and Mr.

Chairman, um, lastly, um, on the proposition of the grant, um I would love to have an opportunity where we can have a meeting in our neighborhood to talk about domestic violence and how to to deal with domestic violence, how to um be able to identify it as well as uh all of the programs are available because I know that what we're where we have in front of us right now is just part of some of the grants.

Um, and I and I presume that there's a lot of different opportunities and programs available to assist uh people who are unfortunately victims uh in this um as the prosecutor uh eloquently stated um that hey we need to get more people to stay into the program um so so that the prosecution can happen.

And then I guess on that ending note, um what are some of the things that you would suggest that we how we could help here as a counsel to assist in that whole proposition of things?

Director, anyone would care to comment.

Oh, prosecute man and prosecutor, excuse me.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Through the chair to the councilman, thank you for that question.

Umestic violence is unique because it involves families.

And at the end of the day, the majority of these families are going to stay intact.

And so we have to look at the systemic issues that lead to domestic violence and how we further support our families once the case ends.

We know through the data collected that oftentimes before police are contacted, there are seven instances of domestic violence in our household.

We have to do seven instances before police are contacted.

We also know that domestic violence, more particularly strangulation, carries a highly foulity factor, meaning it's an indicator for future murders.

We need to do a better job of supporting our families overall, so they have the resources so that when they get stressed, when they get in these situations, they do not take it out on each other.

Mr.

Chairman, I want to thank you.

I want to thank the prosecutor.

I'm gonna thank people here at the table that help our folks that certainly are in need.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman, for your line of questioning.

Councilman Conwell, then councilwoman Hudson.

So what you guys do?

Um you send them to some kind of classing or counseling and to try to do prevention.

To the chair through the council person.

So we do not do prevention on the front end because other than our community engagement, we don't get involved with the families before cases brought to us.

But when we do have a domestic violence case, we do try to do things.

Our court has phenomenal programs.

We have amazing judges in the Cleveland Municipal Court who understand the unique situation the domestic violence poses.

And so we have our CAPS program, we have our anger management program.

I forget the exact breakdown, but I will get that for you.

It's a community action type program that teaches our offenders better skill sets so that when they are reintegrated to the families, right?

That we have armed them with some sort of resources to help lower recidivism rates.

Okay.

Yes.

Um favor, prosecutor.

Write down the um get some of them to start working with Al Grimes as well with the fatherhood movement.

Best thing a father can do for his children is to respect his children's mother.

And we gotta change some of our own behaviors.

And the uh councilman talking to the mic, please.

If we can get some, we can get the course uh Ted turned my head.

We get the courts to start um doing referrals, that would be uh a good thing.

And maybe we could even do a um a class session there with the um with the courts because prevention is the key, because even dealing with domestic violence, you know, you're an expert duty chair to the um prosecutor, it's the children.

You're gonna hurt the children, and then they see that in the long run, and then they think the best way or how to resolve issues is to hit and fight, and you'll get that on and on.

So we looking at the children, and when the children go to school, these young boys wondering is his mother and father fighting, and then you look at their grades and wonder why he was once or she a student, but the student now is making D's and F's, or the student act out in school and start fighting another student because they think that's the best way on how to do it.

So um with the counseling, as you said earlier to the chair, to prosecutor Jordan, the whole family get involved with it.

You just said that two minutes ago.

No, I did.

You still got the that was the other phone.

You still got two minutes left on this one.

Okay, okay.

Gotta get that fatherhood movement involved with it.

And then even councilwoman um House Jones, they have a group they that they started on dealing with um black women, and um look at some of the systems there.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman, for keeping time.

Okay.

Um councilwoman Hudson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, through the chair to the prosecutor.

You you mentioned, you know, um how it's important to uh develop a partnership with the victims to continue on through the uh process to ensure that cases are are prosecuted.

But then you also mentioned that um, you know, in cases of domestic violence where strangulation occurs, that it's a you know high indication of future murder.

Um what is being done to help protect victims where reintegration with the families is not an option.

Uh to the chair, through the chair to the councilwoman.

I'm so grateful you asked that question.

Um, that is where another essential component of this grant really comes into play, and that is our advocacy supports.

Um Cleveland Pro partners with the Cuyahoga County Um witness and victim services who provide advocates to our victims to arm them with skills so that when a victim is ready to leave that situation, they have the supports and skill set to help them get to a safer place.

One of the things this grant also provides is that pamphlet I talked about that our office provides that is grant-funded.

We have an English, Spanish, um, and it's available, well, will be available online in two other languages.

It provides a plethora of resources throughout Cuyahoga County that our victims can use.

Part of why that pamphlet will shore becomes so important is for victims who aren't ready to engage in the process yet.

We can get that in their hands so that they know there are resources available.

Some victims may never engage in the criminal process, right?

But if we can arm them with information to help keep themselves safe, then that's part of the importance of what we do.

Thank you.

Any other questions of the committee?

Um, I would just say again, um, as I said earlier, this is something the councilman, uh the council has felt very strongly about over the years.

Um so this will be going on to finance, but I would hope that you could supply all that data to us either in a handout or a part of your summer summary document.

So it would save us some time uh of asking questions and anything you would do to the prosecutor and to the director that you can provide to us broken down by ward would be very helpful uh in us um indicating to see if if you know if we're having a if we're having a big problem in our neighborhood, we might not know about it.

Because as we all know, the reporting process has changed substantially over the years to city council, um, and please correct me wrong as a result of Marcy's law.

So there's a lot of information that we don't get anymore that we used to get.

So that's a challenge for us here, and that's sort of viewing public because viewing public thinks that we have access to everything, we don't as a result of Marcy's law.

So which I find um difficult at times because we all like to know what's happening and who the victims are, so if there's anything we can do to assist, but we're denied that information today by law.

So um it's a challenge for us.

So whatever data you can supply to us would be very helpful.

So without any further line of questioning, ordinance number 26-2026 is approved as read.

Please sign it up.

Um, and again, we'll look for that data that before the at this at the um finance committee and to the prosecutor, thank you to the sexual assault and domestic violence team.

Thank you very much for coming.

We're gonna go right into a presentation with regards to the nuisance law, uh, which is of great concern to the body.

This is something that the council enacted um some time ago.

We updated it last year.

Um I want to thank the administration for the um support that I work with them very closely on updating the nuisance law.

Um so again, this is a critical piece because we all know uh that we are dealing with the neighbors from hell at some times, and we're dealing with the landlords that are from the same uh location, and so but we want to make sure that our citizens and our families have protection from those individuals and or those landlords specifically, absentee landlords who do not want to police their properties uh adequately.

So, director and assistant director, the floor is yours to update us on the city of Cleveland's nuisance law.

Yes, sir.

Um Chair and Council members, uh assistant director Scheckner is our lead in my office and part of our team of who helped uh um with this legislation on he has uh a presentation for the body.

Thank you.

Proceed.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, just for some background with the criminal activity nuisance, which is ordinance uh or codified ordinance 630.01 and 630.02.

Um these were amended first in I think March or April of last year, and then after performing um the searches at the properties and starting the nuisance declarations and warning letters, uh we came back to council to make some additional changes which were enacted in July of 2025.

Um just so everybody's on the same page.

This is distinguishable from uh public health nuisances, these are criminal activity nuisances, meaning that if three uh criminal activities that are enumerated in the ordinance um occur at a property that a warning letter could be sent out at that time, they have the property owner has to submit an abatement plan of how they are going to prevent any future criminal activities from occurring.

Um if they don't provide that plan, they're fined a hundred within a certain amount of time, they're fined a hundred dollars a day until they do provide such a plan.

Assistant director, you forgot to mention uh how many times before that kicks in.

Right.

That has three um three events over what period of time?

Over a year.

Okay.

And then let's say once they hit those three events, they're kept on a list for a year.

If a fourth event occurs within that year, then they're declared a nuisance, they're fined 250 dollars, and then if another within that year, that's 500, then 750, then a thousand, and then each one after that is a thousand.

Uh, I'll start with um addressing some challenges with the uh criminal activity nuisance uh enforcement.

One is that we certainly our goal was to continue a essentially a spot check.

So we created a or um our division of crime analytics.

Um police created a um Power BI which accessed our CAD system, which is computer um assisted disp aided dispatch system where we were able to spot check properties and determine which have had three reports that qualified under nuisance activity.

That was very that is very time intensive because you're talking thousands of calls that occur.

Um you have to narrow it and then you have to further narrow it to ones that have already been declared or received a warning letter and what hasn't, what counts.

You have to investigate each one to ensure that the events actually occurred or or more likely than not occurred because that's a probable cause standard.

Um so we've been working.

Uh we created eventually created a cadence where once a month we would go through the list of all the calls and see which properties would qualify.

Now in the fall, the police um CAD and our and records management system changed over.

Um at that time um it impacted our ability to look at uh histories of properties.

So we were unable to do that spot checking.

We are still currently working um with uh digital analytics to um reinstitute that spot checking, which but that doesn't mean that we're still not doing property uh evaluations.

During that time we created a form which we sent to the and we had meetings with the commanders of the districts where if they have a problem property, they could fill out this form about all the criminal activities that have occurred and we can investigate and enforce a nuisance ordinance against them.

Um just on its own with property reviews that we get from either the public or council or other areas of the city.

We have performed more than 200 of those since June.

Um and also we have become involved in the prob in the problem property board, which includes members from the uh building and housing, the prosecutors from code enforcement, um, so we could kind of go back and forth and see if we have identified a problem property or someone else has um is there a way to go after them using the criminal activity nuisance, or is it a public health nuisance, or are there other avenues?

So we're with that.

We have a new commander recently um with uh that's over dispatch.

So we do have plans to speak with dispatch and meet with them to ensure that the right notes that make it easier for us to do these investigations are being um inputted into the system.

Uh and then I'm just gonna show some of the stats and some reminders here, the history.

So this the impetus of this change in the ordinance is that between the years 2019 and 2014, these were the declared nuisances per year.

Uh in 2019, you see there were nine, in 2020 there were eight, and 2021 there were six, twenty twenty-two there were two, twenty twenty-three there was one, and twenty twenty-four there were no declared nuisances.

That that is pitiful right there.

Yeah.

Uh some of that had to do with there used to be a system that broke down, um change in you know, administrations and COVID certainly had an impact in investigations, but also there were barriers in the way that the ordinance was written, where um there was a view that there actually had to be a citation issued in order for a criminal activity to count towards a nuisance, and a lot of these um quality of life issues such as noise complaints, they're low priority calls, so by the time an officer gets there, it's over.

Um on those low type misdemeanors type of calls, um, you in some events you have to observe the activity in order to issue a citation.

So you weren't able to uh count as a criminal activity.

The change in the ordinance allowed us just to have probable cause that it did ex observe and clarifies that a citation is not necessary, therefore, based on interviews or videos received from the complainant, we were able to move forward.

So you'll see the change since June.

We've sent out 71 warning letters, meaning that they had three activities or more and had to submit an abatement plan, and we have declared 14 properties and nuisance.

And that's just since June.

Again, as a reminder, we have not even been doing this for a year.

Uh so we're still working through our processes and uh improving on them.

Um there you see kind of breakdown about nuisance warning letters by Ward.

Of course, this is the old ward numbers because uh that's the data we had at the time we did these.

Um, and then whoops, and these are the declared nuisances by war since June 2025.

You see, it's not equally applicable across the board.

Some wards had no nuisance declared, some had two.

Uh we were as a little sampling of the abatement plans that we received from, for example, one was a car wash, part of their one of the issues was that there were um parties going on at this car wash when it was closed and was bothering the neighbors.

Um they put up cameras and actually a remote sprinkler system.

So when they see people on the property after hours, they turn on the sprinklers.

Uh we had an Airbnb that was causing a lot of issues downtown with parties and disturbing the other residents and apartment complex.

Uh the owner said, okay, he's only rent he's in requires a deposit now.

If you live within 30 miles of the city, you're not allowed to rent for just a day.

There's like a three-day minimum to avoid those type of parties.

Um, extra security.

Uh we've had evictions uh implemented in some of these properties.

We've had uh property management companies that instituted new rules and let their tenants know that if we're getting a letter from the city saying you're causing a problem, we're gonna that's a break, that's a violation of your lease.

We're gonna start eviction proceedings.

We had commercial properties where we had street takeovers uh occurring or starting on their parking lots, and they've indicated that they're going to mill their parking lot, they're gonna look into adding islands.

Um, so it's not just a free-for-all people doing donuts in there anymore.

Uh so that is the reason we have seen results.

We're looking forward to creating um hopefully with our new CAD system and or MS and once everything's set up and all the historical data is accessible.

Um, hopefully being able to automate some of this because right now it's all uh manually done in terms of looking and seeing which properties have three or more just based on a spot check doing a regular cadence of it without uh somebody reporting it.

Um so hopefully we'll be able to automate that process, give our um digital an analysts the tools they need to do that, and that is on the horizon for us.

Okay.

So I have Councilman Jones.

Uh, first I'm gonna call again on the vice chair and then Councilman Jones.

Uh, but let me just say that to my colleagues to give you some a little bit of a background.

Um early last year, um, I went to the safety director and assistant safety director with uh growing concerns because I was this um the co-sponsor of the original piece that was enacted, I don't know how long ago, a long time ago.

Um, and I felt that it was not being enforced uh the nuisance law uh based on complaints that I was receiving and I was hearing from my colleagues.

Um and lo and behold, uh to their benefit, uh they did their own research and came back very clear that the nuisance law wasn't not being enforced.

Um and in the course of their due diligence, their deep dive, uh they came across some areas that they thought um were impeding the enforcement or the um implementation of the nuisance law.

So again, I want to say for the for the record of my all my colleagues into the being public, I really appreciate the safety director and assistant safety director for really um and their team for going in deep diving, working with me.

Um and then they came up with some recommendations and changes, which we collectively, the council uh implemented, we passed, and now you can see from the data where we were having virtually no nuisances declared.

Think about that from 1920 to 2024, just since June of last year, how many uh nuisance letters have gone out and how many properties and slash landlords or tenants have been declared as nuisances.

So again, I want to say to the for the record, I really want to thank the safety director and the assistant safety director because the numbers speak for themselves.

It's the position of the council that if you want to terrorize your neighbors, if you want to terrorize your street, you want to be disrespectful, there's gonna be a price to pay.

Um I feel very strongly about that.

Uh and especially where where we're seeing uh where we have the greatest problem again is we just came out of a meeting talking about absentee landlords.

That's where we have our greatest problem is with absentee landlords who rent to the neighbors from hell or who don't care, or the um Airbnbs, uh people who don't in some cases don't even live in the city or the state renting out uh their units uh to have crazy parties, and then uh the community and the neighbors have to suffer.

And by the way, we're gonna be dealing with that very shortly.

Uh the um Airbnb legislation that for some reason sat and I've asked that it be moved.

So I've been talking to Councilman Conwell and others that we need to move on that because we're all being affected negatively by that as well.

So again, I'm gonna just say this for the record.

I want to thank the the administration, uh the director and assistant director for the action and their team that they've taken because the proof is in a pudding.

Before I call upon uh the vice chair and councilman Jones, tell us from a perspective of the viewing public, and to first let's start with the council.

We have a nuisance, we're getting complaints.

What should we do?

The council can contact uh either myself or Sergeant Leonard.

Actually, the the most direct email would be the public safety mail at ClevelandOhio dot gov.

Um that is looked at by myself, um our administrative assistant, uh Sergeant Lane and Detective Brown, who all are involved in doing these property reviews.

So that if you want to talk about one stop shop of where council can do instead if you don't want to pick up the phone and call us or email uh director or I uh directly, you can do public safety mail and issue your complaint and property there, and that would ensure it will be looked at.

So that would be for a council person from a citizen who's viewing this at home.

What should a citizen do?

We were instructed to tell our citizens to call 911.

The citizen could call 911, that will get tracked um in the system, and we will we are currently working on training for our dispatchers uh to ensure that they take down that information, take it seriously, know that people are being told to call 911, even if it seems like it's not a life or death issue.

Um I would also say that public safety mail at ClevelandOhio.gov is also available to the public to talk about.

And if I can also go ahead, director.

Yeah, we encourage our citizens to call.

Um if it's a non-emergency, it's non-emergency.

Uh please uh we recommend, suggest that they call 216-621-1234.

Again, that's 216-621-1234.

That way we can uh free up the 911 calls uh for the emergency calls.

But again, we do have non-emergency numbers as well.

Okay, and I would ask you to send because obviously just the committee members are I would ask you to send a piece of um correspondence, all members as it pertains to the 630.01 and 02 uh of the codified ordinances on a nuisance complaint.

This is what she should do, which in turn we can pass on to our constituents.

I think it would be very helpful.

Yes.

Okay.

At this time I'm gonna call, I have an order.

I have the um vice chair, um, and then I have councilman Jones, uh, I have councilwoman Hudson, and I have Councilman Conwell.

Councilman Star.

You good?

Uh Councilman Jones.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um, you know, this has been an issue for quite some time, like Mike Polinsick was saying it, and you know, I've had like several uh different um commanders in the fourth district over the space and time since I've been a council person.

Almost seems like I get a new commander every two years.

And um one of the things that we were told, and Mr.

Chairman, you could correct me uh if if if if you hadn't heard this too in years past, that wherever you have the largest amount of issues and problems and situations and crime that assets will be allocated in those directions.

Uh the fourth district is is unfortunately, Mr.

Chairman, uh, to the director is just being overrun.

And with no continuity in terms of leadership there, um we we have problems.

And um, and I have several problems, Mr.

Chairman, to the director that I want to talk about, talking about nuisance.

Um and I'm gonna go to the one that's the lower level first.

And this nuisance is something that I've I've brought to the attention of every single director, not director, but um commander in the district, is these junkyards along Miles Avenue.

If you could write it down, I'll give you the information, because I'd like to have something done here on these issues.

Miles Avenue, up and down Miles Avenue between I would say East 100 and 38th Street.

No, respectively, East 136th Street, all the way up to about East 100 and 53rd Street.

We have a major issue there in terms of these these junkyards uh on that strip, in addition to South Miles from Lee and South Miles all the way up to East 174th Street.

Uh these uh uh actors are parking their junk vehicles all over the sidewalks, and they are a nuisance.

Um people can't get by, uh, there's laws against it, and I've complained about it, and we are not getting the kind of enforcement we need to get in that as relates to nuisance.

So, what can we do, Mr.

Chairman, to the director to try to deal with this ongoing problem uh that again brings the neighborhood down because we're talking about junkyard cars all out in the open, all out in the front of the uh of of the sidewalks, and and they just don't care.

Director?

The chair to Councilman Jones.

I again thanks for bringing this uh problem to our our attention.

I know that you said that uh there's not a continuity of leadership in the district four.

Uh I know there've been some changes in the commandership as you're aware.

Uh currently there's an acting commander there, uh Sean Smith, I believe, was uh really doing a good job from at least from what I'm I understand and what I hear and from my observation, he's doing a really good job.

Um I wouldn't suggest that you contact him in particular uh for this particular issue with the junkyards along miles uh between uh 136 and 152 and along south south miles um from Lee up to 174th uh with the issue of these individuals parking their junk cars you as you um uh stated on the sidewalk.

I think starts with him um and them uh working with uh other city departments such as building and houses to make sure that they they being the business owners for these junkyards are in compliance with the the laws and the the permits and that they have, and if not obviously the officers or the the inspectors from the various departments can uh if they need to cite the individuals then they can, but that would be my suggestion recommendation.

The the reason why Mr.

Chairman I'm bringing it to you in such a public manner is because in the years past it hasn't worked.

So what why I'm bringing it to you, Mr.

Chairman, to the safety director is to help my neighborhood become a little bit better than what it is.

So I'd like to work with you directly um because I brought it to all of these other uh people and it has felt on deaf ears.

Now, Mr.

Chairman, to our safety director, another issue that's a major issue for me in my neighborhood right now, uh, is not only that issue of of a nuisance, but but uh one where it's concerning to me in terms of safety.

And again, I've dealt with the all of these people, just like you've suggested just here at the table again, um, where I've I've asked them, you know, why can't you put a police car here?

Why why can't you catch this person that you know uh is breaking into this uh building once, twice a week.

And I think the the last person's response to me uh was uh um I can't think of Commander Heather, uh, was that this was a a low misdemeanor felony, a minor misdemeanor uh piece uh where this person and I'll give you two examples.

The first one was Family Dollar on Miles Avenue.

And that store kept being robbed twice a week, like clockwork.

And it was so bad and so embarrassing as a citizen as an American citizen to walk into the store and hear the a recording as soon as you walk in the door that we have cameras.

Please do not rob us.

Coming into the store.

And so we brought this to all these folks' attention, and they did nothing about it.

Uh to such a degree that it led unfortunately to one of the employees getting shot and killed over here on the bus stop of Miles Avenue and Lee Road.

And now we have a similar situation now happening in our Dollar General on Lee Road near Invermir.

And it's gotten so bad that the person comes in, they know who the person is, Mr.

Chairman to our safety director.

He comes into the store, he loads up his shopping cart, he gets what he wants, casually walks right on out.

They know he's loading it in his car, they tell him they're gonna call the police.

He says, So what?

Call them.

You want to use my phone.

And he's doing it consistently.

We've brought this to the director's attention, Heather, and that was her response.

So now I've lost the family dollar store which is closed on Miles Avenue now because of it.

And in years past, I lost U-Haul because of people coming in and again bringing this information to our direct to our to our commanders in our district about them cutting Cala converters out of the U-Haul and then catching people sleeping in the trucks to no avail, no help.

And we've been talking about this uh uh Mr.

Polenzik this morning about how the east side is being devastated and all of these types of things are happening, and we're not getting any help anywhere, which way we're not getting help in housing, we're not getting help in code enforcement, we're not getting help in all of these little small issues, and they're add up to major issues, and unfortunately, Mr.

Chairman, as you are well aware, we're losing population because of it.

So, how can we, Mr.

Chairman, to the safety director, deal with this ongoing issue?

And I could keep going, but I don't want to beat you and badge you this morning because it's a new year, but I do need help with Dollar General as it relates to we know who it is, we got them on camera, they made these police reports, it not one report, but several reports, and now I can't even go in there because I look like a oogie to these people, because they're saying it's still happening when I go into their store.

And what are you going to do about it, Councilman Jones?

And I tell them I'm told the police about it until I'm blue in the face.

So now I'm sitting here at this table dealing with this new uh this nuisance that we haven't dealt with as and I don't, and now unless Mr.

Chairman, we're gonna get a new uh kind of program in the city of Cleveland because we don't have police enforcement, go back to the old Western days where you depotize people and give them a gun to go help keep the neighborhood safe.

I don't know what we can do right now.

So can you help me, Mr.

Chairman, to the safety director to deal with this issue?

Director?

Thank you.

Uh through the chair, Councilman Jones.

I'm sorry that uh your experience and the things you just described.

Uh want to make sure that your community as well as all communities are safe and have the proper uh police protection that you and uh your residents in the community deserve.

Um as far as the and and I'll start with the junkyards and and work my way back to the stores, uh Donald General and others and so forth, as far as the junkyards concerned, and and if you can provide those, and I can obviously look them up, but if you can provide those addresses, we'd look and see if they're uh will apply to the uh nuisance property.

There's a possibility.

We'll take a look at that.

Um I will also um uh work with uh district commander, uh they're the acting commander, uh Sean Smith, about some of the issues that you you mentioned concerning those junkyards along uh South Miles and um also along Miles as well.

And as far as the general Donald General and other stores that uh you have the same individuals coming in committing a crime, like you say, loading up the the carts and walking out.

Uh I too will work with uh and talk with the commander in that district, um, which is uh Sean Smith, and uh see what plan of action that they have in place to deal with that particular situation, especially since it's ongoing.

Um I'll work with them and also make sure that he works with you and your staff to uh again make sure that there's a plan of action in place to deal with this particular issue and bring it to uh to an end and uh identify this person and hold that person responsible for uh the robberies at that particular uh dollar general.

Thank you, direct and Mr.

Chairman.

I just want to just add uh to this uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman, to the director.

Um I haven't had a chance to bring this to the new commander's attention, so in all fairness, and um because I know that he is busy, he's got his hands full.

The fourth district is probably one of the most tough districts there is.

So we we we are certainly at a shortage, Mr.

Chairman, uh, as it relates to safety in the fourth district, and Mr.

Chairman uh to the safety director um and to the administration, those who are hearing, we need more help over there.

We've been promised, Mr.

Chairman, to the safety director that we would get assistance and help.

And unfortunately, we haven't received that kind of assistance and help uh here now going on nine years.

And so I would hope, Mr.

Chairman, from one administration that we have from Mr.

Jackson's administration now here uh in Bibb's administration, we have been promised that we would get more help over in that district.

So we need help.

And Mr.

Chairman, I just wanted to say that uh to the director that uh the new commander hadn't brought it to his attention, so I don't want to to to this to be any kind of ill effect upon uh his uh uh being the new commander and thank you, councilman.

I can add you back on the list, but uh your time is up and I'm thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I'll need yes.

Thank you.

Uh again, third chair to councilman uh Jones.

Um thank you for mentioning uh about not having uh the opportunity to discuss this with uh commander acting commander uh Smith.

I think if you give him the opportunity, I think you'll see uh a big difference uh with uh with him and his leadership, and and also it's important to note that our staffing uh in division of police is increasing.

We've uh we have 65 in the uh in the academy right now.

Um our staffing including those in the academy, and I know that not on the street, so I'll give you you know uh the numbers, the raw numbers is one thousand two hundred and thirty-five.

That includes the recruits, and if you break that down, the budget is staffing, as you know, is thirteen fifty.

So you know, we're getting relatively close to our clo to our numbers of 1350.

Um we're we're we're going to put another class on, uh which would be class 162, which is scheduled either start in April or May of this year.

So we're really uh moving to inch up to our our budgeted numbers 1,350.

So we're getting pretty close to those numbers.

So we're we're increasing our staffing.

Thank you, Dorothy.

Uh councilwoman Hudson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh, through the chair to the safety director.

Um, of the 14 properties that were declared nuisances in 2025.

Um after that declaration, did the activity at those properties stop?

Or um so what effect did the nuisance uh declaration have on that?

There was uh through the chair to the councilwoman.

Um there was only one property that had an additional um activity occur.

So the activity did stop at all other properties.

So 13 out of 14.

Um another question.

Um of the properties where warning letters were sent, um, but not necessarily declared nuisances.

Um was connecting with the rightful property owner an issue, and um what is being done to uh follow through to make sure that you uh that the letter does reach the rightful property owner.

Thank you.

Thank you whoever through the chair to the councilwoman.

Um that was an issue with the prior um with the prior ordinance which required us and to wait 10 days from when the letter was received, so we didn't know whether or not the person actually received it.

That was difficult to track.

People could refuse it if we send it certified mail.

Uh so we changed it from 10 days from when the letter is sent, which mimics um things that are in civil service and other areas in our code in terms of service rules.

Uh so we do our best to we use the tax mailing address um to send the letter.

If that comes back, which it has um as either vacant or um address unknown, we then post it to the actual uh property.

Um there has been instances where people have just ignored and hasn't haven't sent us um an abatement plan due to that.

Um those people are racking up fines at a hundred dollars a day, they receive an invoice at the end of the month of three thousand dollars or thirty one hundred dollars, depending on how many days are in the month.

Uh and those in September get certified to the county um to go on the property taxes.

So one way or another, the we're looking to get their attention again.

Um when people have reveals where finally someone responsible did get the letter or notice that they're being fined this amount of money, they come into contact with us, um, gave an abatement plan and worked with us.

We have waived those fines because our goal is not to jam people up or make money off of this.

We want people in the community to fix the problem, the property owners fixed a problem.

So uh we have been successful in that manner, and I'm sure that we'll hear more from these property owners come next September when those their fines are going to be certified to the county.

So there's a situation in in my ward that I actually became aware of the night that I was sworn in.

You know, I was given a handwritten note from the clerk um before I was even an official council member, and the the number of calls to this particular address, it's an apartment building far exceeded um the the number required for for the nuisance to kick in.

A nuisance letter has been sent, um, I believe to the property itself.

However, the owner of record is in Israel.

Um, and um part of the issue with the building is the property management.

Um, you know, this is I've met with the tenants, and so I'm very familiar with what's going on there.

Um so um, you know, what can I do to follow through and make sure I mean we can't wait until September.

Um it's a it's a dire situation going on at this property.

Through the council uh through the council chair to councilwoman, um, without knowing more about the facts on the ground and what the activities are that the that they're having issues with, whether it's a public health issue or criminal activity, criminal activity, criminal activity issue.

Um with that, I again I I could recommend keeping in contact with the commander in the district um to ensure that uh things are followed up on in terms of the property owner uh brought that this has been an issue that building and housing has been working with and holding these property owners accountable when their property management uh people are not uh up to snuff and not doing what they're supposed to.

So we are using an all-of-government approach, and that we're using the tool that we have in terms the only tool that we have in terms of the criminal activity nuisance declared is to declare them a nuisance and keep finding when the call.

I would recommend if you you provide me the address, we could have our um our staff or our partners uh look into the property, see how many calls were made.

If we need to send additional or make additional findings against the property, we can do that.

Yeah, through the chair that and Jason, some uh assistant director shedners correct.

It's all of government approach.

If you can provide us with the address, we can uh work with uh again the other departments, division of police and so forth, and uh attack it in different ways as well.

And I am in constant contact with Commander Um Woods about this property, so he is well aware.

Can you send it to us as well, please?

Um so I've been going through the commander.

Um if if I'm not sure if that's uh to the chair, yeah, you still work through the commander, but we like to have the property address as well.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, counseling good good question.

One one of the things I wanted to uh direct to both of you gentlemen uh and to my colleagues, um why this is so important, because this um information would could be admissible in a liquor hearing.

Let's say if you had a carry-out established or on-premise consumption and it was a constant source of complaints in a liquor hearing, that information would be admissible in a in a state liquor hearing if it's city has declared it a nuisance.

The other question is the follow-up on councilman uh of Houston's um Hudson's, excuse me, Hudson's comments, that same thing.

I would hope that you could uh build in a referral to building and housing court or building and housing department, because when we prosecute a case, if it can be substantiated that this is a nuisance as well, besides building code violations.

That might have a greater bearing with the housing court judge on the type of fine or penalty that is in place.

At the end of the day, uh the term that we've tried to uh that I know that I've coined in my own neighborhood is the misery index.

I'm trying to raise the misery index on the people and businesses that make my neighborhood miserable or make the neighborhood miserable.

So anything we can do to create a paper trail on these nuisance properties, whether again, whether it be a liquor establishment, um premise, convenient type store, whatever address, because we know when we're getting complaints, nine times out of ten, if we're getting nuisance complaints, you can you bet your bottom dollar that there's a building code violations on that establishment or that location as well.

So in that note, thank you again, councilwoman, for raising those issues.

Councilman Conwell then Slife.

Thank you very much.

Uh, I'm gonna piggyback on what you're uh talking about uh Mr.

Chairman.

You know, um and to you building and housing, I think when we first it was me, Donald Brady, and uh Jay Westbrook, when we first introduced this nuisance law.

That was me too.

And you you as well, Mr.

Chairman, you as well.

We had to fight for it because they didn't want to do it over the hall.

You remember that?

Yeah, battle, man.

And so I was here too.

Yeah, in your dream, you were not getting keep going.

Yeah, okay.

He threw me off from that one.

I gotta take that out of my mind.

Building that housing, um, I think didn't we give them the the authority to do nuisance as well as uh to the chair?

I'm talking with you, the health department.

Uh Mr.

Mr.

Chairman, to my honorable colleague, they uh uh the health department can cite, I mean they can actually serve a notice, same with building and housing.

So they don't need the nuisance law, they have the existing uh codified ordinances, which we all argue they're not enforcing now.

That's part of our challenge.

Right.

Yeah.

So if we get them to enforce the law, and then we have the nuisance law for again for disruption, chaos, whatever the case may be.

Now we have multiple paths we can go down against that that establishment or that property.

It's just getting everybody on the same page here.

We could do prevention with that uh and to the through the chair to the uh giving me the commander look right now.

Because you know he was our commander for a while.

Uh safety director, do you guys meet with the health department and building the housing?

Because health and safety, they're directly correlated.

Do you guys meet through the chair, Councilman uh Conwells?

A good question.

We meet uh not on a regular cadence, we don't have a regular cadence that we meet with them, but as uh assistant director Shatner stated, um we use an all of government approach with these nuisance.

Uh if it's anything uh associator deals with building a housing, we'll we'll uh uh work with uh the director and the inspectors there, same thing with health.

We'll work with the director and his inspectors to make sure that we uh again apply an all of government approach to these nuisance property.

So let me ask you this.

Here's the the other question to the chair.

With council member um Joe Jones was narrating um when your police officers when they're in their zones and they see they actually see crimes happening, because I know they do, because when I pass by, I call.

And I know they see it because I see them out there patrolling.

Do they call in a nuisance?

And and and what happened?

Do we follow up on it or through the chair?

Through the chair uh to Councilman Connell.

Well, obviously it's a crime in progress.

They're gonna take the appropriate and requisite enforcement action.

Um if it's something that's persistent, you know, they will deal with it themselves as well.

Also work with their supervisors uh and the uh the units that they have, the respective districts to deal with that particular issue.

Um part of the nuisance uh criminal nuisance property is um taking the information that's actually put into the system by the officers.

The officer may see something um deal with it themselves.

Um that's put into the uh computer aided system, the cats, this computer aided dispatch system, the caste system, so we have a record of it.

So when we're checking the respective addresses, we can uh extrapolate that information that's entered by either the officer because they have uh uh uh terminals inside their vehicles or information that they give to the dispatcher, which is entered into the system.

So again, so we have the ability to extrapolate that particular information out of the system so we can respond accordingly to those uh criminal nuisance properties.

So through the chair, do you you see the police officers doing it?

Because you are a commander and you did road calls and did you narrate that to them?

I'm just axing so I can know.

Through the chair, when we um went Jason, that is, I want to give credit where credit is a duke.

Jason is the one that put this this together after talking with uh uh counsel chair, safety chair Polinsic, um part of uh the responsibility under uh my team and and and um assistant director Shachner in particular is to actually go out to the districts and uh explain the new criminal nuisance property to the commanders, the uh patrol officers, supervisors, so they have a basic understanding of how the new um or amended uh legislation would work.

Um so they have an idea of what we expect in order for us to uh again hold property owners, property managers, uh responsible for their properties in our communities that they're abiding by the laws and um that's uh that's expected uh in our communities.

Yeah, dude through the chair, you know, that's crime prevention when they see that and um and have to be ongoing because you could tell them to do it one time, they get out there, they do it, but you gotta constantly keep training, and they have to be in your training manual for us to keep doing it over and over again so that it become part of their DNA through the chair.

Through a chair to councilman, I I agree, and part of this, the training process include providing our contact information.

So if they have any questions and any clarification, we're all always available to answer the questions and make sure that uh we answer their questions, give the information they need to be uh to have successful prosecution or uh successful in our um enforcing the criminal nuisance uh law.

Yeah, because your sergeants, who who the sergeant is through the chair, sorry, sorry, Mr.

Chairman.

The sergeant is the uh one that um supervise the patrol officers.

Is that correct?

Through the chair, Councilman Cowell, that's correct.

So the sergeants, are you talking with them so that they can push it?

Because you know, when we we are in our meetings, the new ones don't know this yet, they blame us for everything.

And they blame us for even if your police officers, if they didn't call it in, or if I didn't call it in, we get blamed for that, and we really care.

It's not just the blame, but we want people to execute on their job.

Do the uh chair to the um whoever want to answer through the chair to the councilman.

Um with from the start of this uh process, uh I've answered calls from sergeants asking about certain properties that they're aware of and whether certain activities qualify, and I've instructed them on how to provide us the information they've provided us information in the past of the events and in a way that we're able to investigate and determine whether a nuisance needs to be declared or a warning letter has to be sent.

Um our team uh since director Michael Herb did create an internal form that an officer can fill out that includes the property, the ward, the property owner, um, the alleged offenses that they've uh occurred and it populates into a database which then our the rest of our team is pinged on that so we know it's in there to go and investigate.

And that was rolled out to the command staff and is being rolled out to the rank and file.

We do have those um those uh neighborhood, what are the neighborhood officers?

NRG, yeah.

So we're looking to roll that out to the NRG officers um that really do the quality of life, um, handle the quality of life issues within the districts because they're really are the front lines of getting those complaints and being aware of those nuisance properties, so they have those tools that allow us to then follow up and send those letters out.

So, yes, it's a process, it's been less than a year.

We're really working on formalizing everything so this could run no matter who the director is, who the chief of police fit is, that we have a system that becomes a part of the culture, and that takes time, and we're working on it.

You know what, Mr.

Chair, and and I'm gonna close out.

Let me and and this is a thought.

Frontline workers, not just with you guys.

Uh Mr.

Chair, you have our sanitation workers out there working.

You have a lot of our um employees are out there in the universe, frontline workers.

And so they have a workload of what to um execute on.

But if they see something outside of their workload, it could be whatever the case if they had a checklist, and I don't know do they have it or not, but if they had that checklist, they could turn it in.

Open vacant ventilized houses, nuisance properties, chuckles, whatever the case may be.

I know you you got a work low, but you could do a job enlargement, and you could turn they can help our also and become our eyes and ears.

What do you think?

I'm asking you.

What do you think?

Well, I think a lot of a lot of things we could be doing differently, and I'm gonna mention in a moment uh what we could be doing differently.

I I think again, in sub in some suburban communities, they do do just what you've indicated.

They do, and I can tell you that for a fact.

So that's something we we're going into to my colleagues, we're going into the budgetary process.

These are all things we need to talk about.

Think about so anything else, Councilman?

That's it, right?

Okay, I was just gonna just gonna say this.

Um, I'm gonna age myself, but we had a protocol.

We had a protocol here at one time.

I don't even know if the this might have been uh when he was just the patrol officer, but we used to have a building inspector by the name of St.

John, who was opata certified.

Oh Pata certified.

He would actually go out with the police at raids, and um and um at night with the police department, and when you guys hit various locations, he would actually go in and then write up building code violations.

Oh, that's it.

And it worked extremely well.

There were two of them.

For my time.

Yeah, before your time.

But I remember how effective it was because not only you were getting hit by the vice squad, now you got the building department coming in your front door and paying you a visit.

And so, and then he retired and he's been retired.

I I I don't know if um I hope he's still around, God willing.

Um, but it worked and it worked well.

And then once he retired, there was nobody in that role.

But I tell you, I I can tell you as uh as a young council member, I saw the effectiveness of that.

Police vice squad hit a place, boom, the building inspector was right with them, and he was opata certified, he carried a handgun, he carried a sidearm.

Wow.

Yep.

So that these are something we need to talk about during the budgetary process.

You know, Mr.

Chairman, they gotta cross-train workers.

Yeah, it's not just throwing money at something.

You gotta cross-train them, do job enlargements, so that and I think that would help the whole out.

Yeah, we'll discuss that doing budget hearings.

Thank you.

Councilman Slife.

Uh thank you.

And I I just want to make sure that I understand process as I'm experiencing it.

The I have on my computer screen a letter that was sent to a property owner for the three thousand dollars owed for November.

Uh uh, and to my knowledge, they have yet to submit an abatement plan.

Are they still in the pre-nuisance phase because we're pending the abatement plan, or are they a nuisance, or is it hard to speculate without seeing that we're having the address?

And just on that point, are all members of council getting copies of those letters that are going on?

Listen up uh through the chair to the council.

The council receives according to the ordinance letters when we um send out warning letters and declared nuisances.

Um that goes to the member or the clerk, it goes to the clerk, which is then distributed to the paper.

We have a breakdown there because I don't believe that's being distributed.

I uh through the chair, it it's been uh a minute because of the issues with the CAD system um and the RMS system, so there hasn't been um a large amount of nuisance.

Thank you for bringing that up.

Go ahead.

Um, in terms of the we do not wait for them to submit an abatement plan.

Um that's just a requirement.

It used to be in the old ordinance that you could get out of being declared a nuisance if you submitted an abatement plan.

We now turn an abatement plan into a requirement once you get the warning letter.

If you never submit it to us, we're gonna keep fining you.

If you do, um if you if another event happens and you still don't submit, we're gonna keep fining you for not submitting abatement plan, and we're gonna declare you nuisance, so on and so on.

That doesn't um wait, we're not waiting on that.

Okay, okay.

So so uh thank you.

So through the chair, the what what I'm and I this just again, this is for informational purposes, this property in front of me uh may or may not be a nuisance letter, uh, but they are being subject to the hundred dollar a day fine for failure to submit the plan.

Through the chair, correct.

They they have received the warning letter that they're in danger of being declared a nuisance.

Um they may not have been declared a nuisance yet, but they are being fined a hundred dollars.

Okay, okay, that's fine.

And and then you had indicated through the chair that the uh taxes will get certified in September.

And that that's just will would be that is that it that will be an annual process this coming September.

Will that be the first time that occurs?

Through the charity council, and that would be the second time it occurred because we did have some fines that were not paid when we started this in June.

Fifty, five hundred dollars were certified to the county to property taxes uh last September.

Okay.

How many properties?

I do not know how many properties.

Okay, so thank you.

And just doing rough math, we're talking about five thousand dollars annually if you go through an entire year of not submitting.

Uh uh thirty three thousand six hundred fifty dollars.

Whatever three hundred and sixty five million dollars.

Yeah, okay, let's do math.

Let's stop doing that.

Yeah, there we go.

There we go.

There you go.

Math is whatever you want it to be.

I've always said.

Um that's great.

My follow-up questions that I don't know if they're appropriate for today are gonna be understanding how we lean on the county then to begin tax foreclosure proceedings uh to uh I think there have been a number of instances in the past where we even like lawn cutting and stuff has caused properties to go into tax foreclosure, and uh and what do we need to do understand as a policy?

There's always been a reluctance in the past to foreclose on properties through tax foreclosure that are occupied.

And I think we need to have an internal discussion amongst ourselves of if we there's a nuance here for what an occupied nuisance property would be when this could become the opportunity to physically remove the nuisance.

Through the chair and councilman's life, that's a great point in this uh I believe for another discussion.

Um like you say, an internal discussion about that versus at the table right now.

Okay, and so just something for us all to uh think about over the next coming months.

My final question.

What the limitation in the previous law having been that a police officer inevitably is gonna show up two minutes later uh than the nuisance, or people see the police officer coming and they turn down the music and now everything's hearsay.

What onus is on the neighbors to report and if there's a desire to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation, does that exist, or are we still relying on neighbors to make some formal declaration and their fear of retaliation could be well founded, I suppose.

Through the chair, uh to the councilman.

Of course, we can't make any promises that any um thing would be held confidential.

I can say looking through the CAD system when they do make calls, some people choose not to leave their names.

Um it says anonymous.

Um we're unable to from what we see to go up and after and figure out who that person is who called.

Um the only way that would hurt the prosecution of these is they appeal to the board of zoning appeals.

Um of course the rules of evidence don't apply in those administrative hearings.

Um it's just a matter of whether the people on the Board of Zoning Appeal members membership believes the evidence that we present, whether it's just the calls that we received and other evidence.

Maybe there was some photographs, maybe a police officer eventually went through whatever we have.

Um we wouldn't necessarily rely on actual live testimony of people.

Of course, that would be helpful, but it's not necessary.

And then is an importance of are we able to abate the nuisance without declaring it a nuisance if by the time the person's appealing it have they abated it themselves?

Then we believe the problem was solved.

We don't have to go any further and we could just concede and have it the appeal granted.

Okay.

So if there may be the a quick way to maybe uh a rule of thumb would be if you're gonna call, it's it's it it's understandable you might want to remain anonymous on the call.

We really need you to remain anonymous after in in a live discussion with the police officer and ask for an anonymity at that point, but the anonymity prior to talking to an officer would make it exceedingly difficult to use our system because we are relying on witness testimonies.

But but but choosing to remain anonymous while giving that information for a police report is not going to throw a wrench in this entire system.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Councilman for keeping time.

Last question here, Councilman Joe Jones.

Mr.

Chairman, to the director, you know what would probably be really beneficial, uh, Mr.

Chairman as a suggestion is that the new members as well as some of the old members have an opportunity to take tour to see how the whole entire system operates and works.

Um in terms of being able to go to the crime center, um, as well as a lot of the times uh when I'm dealing with issues, I have to call dispatch.

They'd like to have the opportunity to go and take a tour of dispatch.

Um, I know that we had done some things like that um some years previously, um, but it would be nice for maybe the council to really have an ideal and an opportunity to understand uh all the funds that that are allocated to our safety forces is over two-thirds of our budget.

Uh we should know how the how some of these systems work and then how some of these systems can be more efficient and effective in our respective territories.

And I think part of that is is getting a real good thorough orientation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

As it pertains to the nuisance law, uh assistant director Shachner, he can really walk you through that, any member as it pertains because I work very close at the director in the kid with both of them, especially Jason, in the course of the the changes we made because of my own frustration.

So on that, but you know, that's a good suggestion for the new members to go through um police headquarters.

On that note, I had um had the opportunity myself to tour uh the new police headquarters just to get them um uh look C as to where we are.

Uh they are in the home stretch, so I maybe I would suggest that we um unless you want it to happen now, the new police headquarters were set to open when it should be before the uh by the third quarter of this year.

By the third oh so we'll by September once you guys go into new building.

Okay, well then I don't think we want to wait that long.

So let we'll coordinate something for the um good suggestion for the new members or anyone else who would like to go over and see police headquarters.

Um now would that be um or wait a minute, let's back up.

That should be the third district because he wants to see dispatching.

I was gonna say to the to the chair, I believe uh councilman uh Jones and mention about he mentioned a real-time crime center, which is in a different location.

Right.

And he also mentioned dispatch, and that would have to be coordinated through the division of police because there are certain requirements because of leads information and so forth.

But again, they would have to coordinate that.

Okay, we'll um we'll with staff will coordinate that for the um for the third district and then the um uh the um 205.

Okay.

Thank you, Councilman Jones.

Okay, are there any other questions on the nuisance law?

Again, whatever data you can supply to us, we're gonna check with the clerk to make sure and I would say to staff as well.

Let's want to make sure that the information that the clerk is getting is being disseminated to members of the council as pertains to the nuisance law.

Okay, if I can before you move on, I know we're gonna move on to the drones.

Um but I did uh contact uh director Laird of Public Works, and he said that they have a system in place with his employees, this team, that if they see something out there, yes, they report it in.

So there is a system in place as the question was asked by Councilman Connell.

Well, he's not here.

Um but yes, there is a system in place by public works when the uh workers are out or employees are out there, they see something, they make a complaint, and uh that's followed up.

Well, uh, hope they're reporting them streets that have been plowed yet.

That's enough open, okay.

Okay, let's go into um briefly on the drones.

Sure.

Okay, and I have uh Deputy Chief Shallot comes up here.

And I know this is probably the worst time of weather to be talking about drones because I don't even know if you can fly them in this weather, but you'll you'll educate us quickly.

Deputy Chief uh Shalad will talk about the uh police drone uh program.

To the viewing public uh council passed legislation.

Uh please correct me if I'm incorrect.

Uh over two years ago, well over two years ago to purchase drones.

They had been purchased.

There was a question whether or not uh they could fly them based on the federal monitor and based on the citizens police um commission.

Uh that issue, although I believe those issues have been resolved, correct?

And identify yourself for the viewing public.

Good afternoon, uh Chair Deputy Chief Jared Shalat, and the chief of staff for uh division of police.

Was I correct in what I indicated?

Yes, sir.

Okay, then proceed.

So far, since the uh start of our drone program, the division has had 12 official deployments over the course of this time.

Uh large-scale public events, crime scene documentations, and the large-scale public events are involved, our event action plans uh to where they're they're in our safety plans uh to be part of the process.

Each instance drones were used as a support tool, not as a surveillance platform.

Uh all deployments fell in the two categories preauthorized uses or command approved uses which are within the policy.

Uh within the policy, uh all flights were conducted overly over public accessible areas where individuals do not have reasonable expectation of privacy.

So we were not going in residential areas into people's backyards, uh looking into windows or anything of that nature.

Um so far it's not been targeted surveillance on an individual person.

Uh we do not use any facial recognition with the drones.

We do not employ automatic uh automated analytics with the drones either.

They're not used for crowd control or or anything of that nature.

Uh so far, uh it's been successful.

We have several certified FAA certified drone pilots.

We have them trained regularly.

We're developing a training schedule for the year of 2026 where uh they are gonna be coming down quarterly to train in the drones, not just during events, so they stay sharp with their skills and uh things of that nature and the equipment, the updates to the equipment.

Um every doc every deployment has been properly documented documented using standardized reporting forms.

And so far it's been a success.

We're we're looking this year to expand the drone program, uh possibly purchase more, get them out into the districts.

Uh we're looking at we started because of the updates, overnight updates, the charging, things of that nature, the care of the drones.

We have them stored at a central location where officers come down, get them so everything's done, they return them, but we're looking to get them out into the districts now to increase the availability and response time to scenes when needed.

Okay.

How many drones do we have up?

Nine.

Uh nine.

And now they're under what system?

What what system they operate?

SkyDO.

How do you spell that?

S K Y S K Y D I O E I O.

So nine drones, nine sky, and that's what we would call them nine Scottio drones, or what do you refer to these as?

Yes, sir.

Sky drones UAS.

Okay.

Now we also have additional drones that are operating where.

We don't have any other drones operating right now, but uh we we do have the the uh public safety drone program uh that we're gonna implement as the first uh responder drone program um through public safety.

We're in the process now uh again through the Department of Public Safety to get that program off the ground.

Okay, we are in the process of uh purchasing the drone drone, uh having the the drone installed on one of our centrally located uh fire station.

Uh the drone will deploy from a fire station to areas along the shoreline in case there it's water rescues, missing persons, and also highways for accidents, so for this is about situational awareness for the um the commanders and supervisors and fire as well as EMS, uh so to have uh real-time situational awareness by having the drones respond to some situations.

So they're gonna be used for fire EMS animal control.

Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

So now other cities like Detroit have utilized them in partnership with their building and housing department to fly over areas that are unaccessible, or there were there's issues.

Um and I know there was a uh I believe it was a and in um Michigan Supreme Court decision, because I guess someone questioned that.

And this um from what I understand is Michigan Supreme Court said the city city was fine to do that as long as it was for public use.

And I I guess it was an issue with the junkyard.

They flew over, they were trying to find out what was going on in this junkyard, and I guess I I I'm just hoping at some point uh that we can utilize them with a building and housing uh and other departments and division as it pertains to uh public health and welfare.

So that I'll I'll put that out to you guys to think about that.

I was on the impression we had purchased either 10 or 12 drones.

Where's the rest?

Where where do they go?

I can look into that for you, sir.

I can tell you it was more nine.

Three of them could be training drones.

Okay.

Nine are operable, three are for training.

I'll I'll confirm okay.

Yeah, that would actually give you the numbers you're talking about.

Because you're that would be you know, nine are operational, they're useful.

We did purchase about twelve.

How many operators do we have slash pilots?

I'll get the exact number, but between ten and twelve.

Okay.

And we have and we have not strategically positioned them yet, because you heard mentioned about districts.

To the uh to the chair, um for the public safety uh drone first responders program.

Right.

actually give you the numbers you're talking about because you're that would be you know nine are operational they're using so we did for just about twelve how many operators do we have slash pilots I'll get the exact number but between ten and twelve okay and we have and we have not strategically positioned them yet because you you heard mentioned about districts to the uh to the chair um for the public safety uh drone first responders program right the drone itself uh which will be um um attached to a fire station roof will be centrally located for now right now for the drone first responders program yeah it is a pilot program to see its effectiveness and if it's uh effective are our we'll come back to council for an ask right um so we'll have the data to support it um as far as the police drones I'm talking about police drones um I'll have to defer to the deputy chief deputy chief sir we have operators in every district but like I said as of right now as we develop the policy and carve out locations for these drones to be stored properly charged update it uh we have them at the real-time crime center so they're constantly under uh monitoring charge real time crime center knows when the drones need it they prep it so when the drone operator swings by they hand it to them they get right back out okay so okay I'll I'll put you down the the question is this um as it pertains to the um deployment every time you put one up in the air you have to report it to who the CPC you gotta be kidding me sir every time you put listen up every time you put a drone up you got to report that we have a form that we provide to the CPC and the drone has a public facing website so the public can go on and see exactly where it what drone went up and where it flew how long it flew it gives a map with the line of where it flew but you don't have to notify them before you put it up do you no sir okay no sir so they don't have a veto no sir okay that's okay um is there anything else before I call Councilman Jones or anyone any other comment questions?

The chair the the drones are who manufactured a drones what what brand are they doing Sky Deal Scotty okay um okay we might I will tell you right now we might at some point request the demonstration yes sir okay so we'll figure that out we'll coordinate yeah we want you want one you want to fly one I know that okay so uh we'll work on a demonstration so you can track councilman starr out in the neighborhoods okay so we'll go for that okay councilman joe jones okay you know it we've been talking about this drone scenario now I think this is uh the the fifth year uh when we first started talking about this and um I guess the the the the because I haven't yet to see one uh I know that we've we've uh spent money uh and we purchased them and we talked about them and we we talked about the issues of the commission uh and approval so uh and and though I've heard what we've had to say here today are you saying we can now fly them or we cannot fly them what are we what what are we able to do with the drone program right now we can fly them to the chair uh sir we have flown them we can fly them okay so they are operational yes sir through the chair and so and we have a total of is my understanding nine now through the chair we have nine that were operating okay now each of these drones it was my understanding that they uh cost anywhere between three and thirteen thousand what what are their costs on these drones Mr.

Chairman these were not cheap I can tell you which one I can't remember the exact dollar amount but they were not cheap okay through the chair I would have to get you the exact amount I see so so Mr.

Chairman this is I'll be your huckaber on this Mr.

Chairman um I'd like to go out and see see the drones I'd like to go to the site take a look at them I could set up that time with uh the safety director and the and the the chair we can we can make make that happen thank and then and it'll be real quick and I can come back and report to you okay okay any can you guys councilwoman Hudson thank you uh through the chair to Deputy Chief Schlock.

Um you mentioned that uh just just for clarification for for me and for the public you mentioned that um drones are used for large scale public events and that they're a support tool um not a surveillance platform can you explain what you mean by that through the chair yes ma'am um so think of a uh a large scale event uh the Browns game uh Indians game calves game uh even a large demonstration we're not surveilling the crowd we're looking at the outside how wide is this crowd is traffic coming towards it is there something on the outskirts that we have to worry about that that's concerning uh things of that nature and can you um just explain um what you mean by surveillance tool um you you said that it's not used for facial recognition um so it's it's just to to assess the size of the crowd to um determine um you know necessary safety measures but not to identify certain people in the crowd through the chair yes ma'am thank you okay

And can you um just explain um what you mean by surveillance tool?

Um you you said that it's not used for facial recognition.

Um so it's it's just to assess the size of the crowd to um determine um you know necessary safety measures, but not to identify certain people in the crowd.

Through the chair, yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um before I call council councilman conwell, the original discussion, because I I'm the one that pushed for the drones years ago, um, and I appreciate the administration support.

It was the purpose for the drones were to help um in our efforts to identify and and chase suspects to look for missing children.

They were all based on public safety, not any type of surveillance.

It was to safeguard our men and women in blue, our citizens, and our children.

That was the original intent for the drone program.

And please correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't think we that there's never been any attempt to vary from that, correct?

Through the chair, that's correct.

Okay.

It was to safeguard our men and women in blue and pr and for protection.

So okay, Councilman.

I can't through the chair.

Um it just depends on the situation.

Um, but it's used again from a public from a public safety police standpoint to help the officers, obviously, um, for situational awareness, but again, it's not for surveilling individuals, but again, to provide real time um information to our officers.

And Ms.

Chairman, the reason why I asked that is because we we had a real bad issue on one of the streets, and the street club president decided to buy one of those drones and throw her up, you know, uh to survey the issues uh as relates to drug activity, and they're really tiffed off about it because we don't have the police down there really fundamentally dealing with this issue, um, where we've had two drug houses back and forth.

The the citizens complained about it over and over again.

One of the residents, Mr.

Chairman, to the safety director, and to w we're not opposed to uh dealing with some of these issues in this way because they're they're destroying our community, and so much to such a degree where the neighbor decided to move away from their house and their home they had lived in for over 40 years because of this this behavior from this house and the how poorly the quality of lives that the they were being threatened by the drug housed people and the drug dealers or bottles and stuff and glass was broken in their driveways, uh they consistently were harassed.

Um neighbors across the street were being harassed.

Then there was another drug house that opened up shop.

It seemed like the two knew each other.

Uh and uh then this was when we had um commander uh cunt.

And so he hever.

And so uh we we even had a person who was willing to um let their surveillance be used and in confidence, and somehow their information got out, and the drug dealer house across the street, the drug dealer knew it was almost like as if it was a media as soon as uh uh Commander Cunt was given it um uh the information, um all of a sudden um uh these people uh uh uh uh was harassed by the drug dealer saying, hey, we know you gave this information, we know you gave the camera out.

So now they felt that their lives were on the table, and then they were looking at putting their homes up for sale uh because the police department wasn't able to protect them.

So I'm saying all that, Mr.

Chairman, um, to let the director know we have some serious issues in our community.

Uh we have some serious issues that it's a shame that our citizen would have to go and buy a uh a drone to throw it up, take footage, and then to try to report that footage over.

So I and then to be assaulted after the fact.

Um so um we're concerned about the fourth district, Mr.

Chairman, to our safety director, because this is not just merely some of the issues we talked about earlier, but some of these stuffs are some of this stuff is far-fetching and far hitting home.

Thank you, Councilman.

And I don't mind getting with you, Mr.

Chairman, uh, to the director, because I love to see our drones and see how they operate.

We will we'll get that presentation.

Councilman Conwell.

So with the um drones, and you you have when you have them in the air, when we when you look at that, I'm gonna ask you two questions, and and I'll be fast through the chair.

You got um we don't cut our um trees back.

We don't cut the limbs back and the vegetation it is so bad that let's say for example if you go on Austin or Pierpot or Lake View um and the street lights are on you think it's still dark because you can't see you can't see because of the vegetation.

Through the chair or whoever through the chair to the councilman uh it can be uh we have flare which is the the heat seeking if needed depending on what the situation calls for but also uh when we deploy our drone operators it's not just the drone operator they also have a spotter that's out there with them so while the drone operators concentrating on operating the drone we have the uh spotter listening to radio looking for surrounding cars possibly driving by looking hey you're getting too close to that tree things of that nature it has not been an issue whatsoever uh so far in the deployments but when it comes to the trees like that I know uh the city has propped up the 311 and if if it's an issue any of the citizens can call 311 request these trees to cut back and it'll get put on the the radar for them.

We've been trying to get trees cut back for yeah a long time they just won't do it cut the trees and the vegetation back.

And it's a safety issue to the chair to the safety director because when you do your street light maintenance at night the um debris it what it does it makes the lights seem like it's dimmer.

Because you can't see or the street is in the lights are good lights but you know that stuff has to get cut back but they just like Councilman Joe Jones said they won't do it.

They just won't do it.

So what do who do we call other than three one Mr Chairman who do we call who through the chair I see uh three one one is one avenue to make sure that they ain't doing it who do we call Mr.

Chairman to do well if I would I would contact the director and or the commissioner that contacted director now.

Well and we're still not getting it done well we who do we contact on the safety side that can get it done for us director through the chair to Councilman Conwell I'm sorry to Councilman Conwell as well as Councilman Jones.

We um in the Department of Public Safety will work with urban forestry that's who's responsible for if they're cutting trees back and so forth the Department of Public Safety cannot do that but we work with them from all of government um approach to uh ask them to cut back those uh branches that are causing problems and the only reason why I'm asked Ms.

Chairman and I think my colleague uh has brought up a really good uh situation is I had to go and cut stuff back myself me too you know I wouldn't got my clippers and wouldn't cut it so I can so Mrs Johnson will know that her councilman is fast action.

If they're chair well again we work with urban forestry to again that's part of their responsibility again at all of government approach to attack those particular areas used the word attack but to to cut down cut back and cut down those particular trees or or branches that are causing problems and making blind spots or preventing the street lights from working properly.

So the chair CPP will do it also if we reach out to them but it takes forever and and that's safety and I want to ask one more question.

Yes you have the floor yet okay let's say for example you have a um an Sident or you have even with the fire to use to use safety director with the fire department when they go to put the fire out it's the science it's not just go there and do surround and drown they're planning before they get there.

So what if we had a drone to get there because they can get there before the fire department and it might say we don't need to have three vehicles or we might need more because this drone could survey the scene shoot the the intelligence or the information right back to the fire engine and then we could plan before we get there and I think that will um help us out because this planning through through the chair to Councilman Conwell that's what this uh public safety drone first responder program exactly what you just described um the drones would be deployed before the fire engines or apparatus are there uh to provide real time uh correct um real time information to the commanders or the supervisors to see if they need three rigs three apparatus or just one that will save us uh on the apparatuses going out to the scenes um so yeah that is the the reason why we have that same thing with ems if there's uh accident on the on the highway or or or wherever case might be having the drone drone respond provide real time information that yes it's on a highway there are multiple vehicles involved in it you need police on scene you need probably fire apparatus or black traffic so that's what the the premise behind this for drone first responders program is also with the shoreline that we have here with our lake and our rivers to be able to respond out there in case there's rescue again you can send a drone out to see if there's actually a victim uh again to see what type of equipment you need to send to that particular call.

There are multiple vehicles involved in it.

You need police on scene, you need probably fire apparatus or black traffic.

So that's what the the premise behind this for drone first responders program is.

Also, with the shoreline that we have here with our lake and our rivers to be able to respond out there in case there's rescue.

Again, you can send a drone out to see if there's actually a victim.

Uh again to see what type of equipment you need to send to that particular call.

Okay, so creating that system, do we need to have drones in every um fire department or or the EMS is at?

So the true uh the chair to uh count Councilman Conwell.

That's a great question.

This program that we are putting together again that uh public safety drone first responders program is a pilot.

So we start with one um one app, one drone um that will be uh placed on a centrally located fire station.

Um there is a hub there as we call it that the drone will respond from if this drone program works well and we believe it will, based on our research from other departments and other cities.

Um intent is provide data um uh to support our ass, which is potentially to use it um or um expand the program to a couple other fire stations so we'll have uh coverage for the entire entire city.

So that's gonna again.

First, we're gonna have the pilot program um if it works, and I believe we'll be successful, and then expand the program.

But obviously, we have to come back here to council get that approved.

And I thank you.

When you when you send for first responders some time, uh fire truck, we spend a lot of gas, a lot of time, a lot of money.

I think when you create this system, it it will help us out with time management, which will help us out a great deal.

So I mean, for me, I approve something like that if you get ahead of the game, but as I mentioned earlier, you gotta cut those trees back so it can see things better.

Through the chair, we certainly understand again part of this deployment.

Um we'll find a media advanced um situational awareness for our commanders for deployment of our resources, and we'll work at urban forestry again.

Uh, the identified, we need to know what the locations are relative and the CPP CPP relative to some of these branches that need to be cut back.

Thank you.

And I'll thank you, Mr.

Chair.

And I'll do respect to my esteemed colleague.

There are so many trees that need to be trimmed in this city.

You better start raising beavers, let me tell you, okay.

You start the beaver operation.

Okay.

But it is correlated to safety.

So Mr.

Jones, your last question, get out of here.

You know, Mr.

Chairman, I just I'm so appreciative that you're the chairman of the safety committee.

Um I question did I win or did I lose?

That's what I'm I appreciate.

I don't give, I don't give uh accolades unless I mean it.

Yeah, right.

So I'm not saying it uh for any other reason than I mean it.

Okay and I appreciate the fact that you take the time to drill down and you're not in a rush because safety is a major issue for the citizens of the city of Cleveland.

And as the chairman of this committee, as long as you've been the chairman, you have taken your time to vet out some of these things.

And and I'm sitting at this table, and I know my citizens in my neighborhood are appreciative that they get an opportunity to hear these things broken all the way down.

So and I've been in in situations where we've had rushed committees uh where they just want to rush through the stuff and just give you two seconds to talk about a very complicated issue.

Um I am equally impressed at the fact that the director talked about uh these drones, and I kind of uh snickled the inside a little bit about how fast the drone would be versus the fire truck.

And and I gotta tell you that I don't think that you have a drone fast enough that does a great job like our fire department.

They they are on it, and if you do get a drone that can beat one of them trucks, I like to see it.

So that was just my my comment I wanted to add in here is because our fire department uh to our safety director is stellar.

And um I appreciate the work they do.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So without any further ado, I appreciate the line of questioning of my colleagues.

I appreciate again the um the fact that we apologize to the director of administration we were late because we had a very important caucus meeting with uh VAPAC.

So uh we will coordinate uh at some point we're gonna get a full tour of the new police headquarters, uh, so everybody can see that, and then the um we'll coordinate as retained.

Just finally, the drones cannot fly over what wind speed.

I'd have to get that for you, sir.

And as it pertains to cold, can they fly in this weather?

They can fly in the cold, it's really the the wind.

The wind, okay, and the precipitation.

Okay, thank you very much.

Okay, without any further ado, safety committee stands adjourned.

Thank you.