All right, all right.

Um today is Tuesday, April 14th.

Um, right now the time is one thirty-three, and we are calling to order workforce education training, um, youth development committee to order.

Madam Clerk, can you call the row?

Here.

Thank you, thank you.

Um, through today, I know we have um one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

We have nine pieces of legislation to get through today.

Um the director of Office of Sustainability here.

Um, first number four hundred dash twenty twenty-six by council members starr and griffin by departmental request authorizing the director of finance on behalf of the Office of Sustainability to apply for and accept one or more grants from various public and private entities to establish and operate a climate resilience pilot program for a period of up to two years.

And if you're on public.

Yes, sure.

Good afternoon, Chair.

Thank you, and committee members.

My name is Sarah O'Keefe.

I'm the director for sustainability and climate justice, and I'm happy to present this uh legislation for your consideration today about the Cleveland Climate Resilience Corps.

And if I may just have a couple comments and then quote a questions.

Okay.

So just a little bit about this is an idea phase.

We're asking for authorization for funding to accept apply and accept for funding for this idea and to make it a reality.

This is the Cleveland Climate Resilience Corps.

Basically, it's a two-year pilot that will pay youth and seniors to work side by side as what we would call neighborhood climate stewards.

The core will maintain green infrastructure, so maybe watering and mulching trees, for example, that have been recently planted on another uh for another project.

They will build workforce skills, create trust networks that matter when heat waves or storms hit.

So that's the idea.

This is a resilience core.

We had a tornado just a couple of weeks ago, right over Cleveland.

Huge storms, lots of things happening.

The community is always going to be on call, whether they um are prepared or not.

So this is a grant application initially, and then we have a plan in year two to figure out how this is working and how we can support it as a city.

And I can talk a little bit more about the what this will do.

The timing of this pilot in particular is aligned with two major street greening investments already underway in a particular neighborhood that is Huff.

There's a complete and green streets East 66 Street project, the break grounds and 20 breaks ground in 2026, and then a Wade Park Avenue project follows in the following year, I think 2027.

And so these are good examples for this workforce development program that can put people to work right away and have immediate impact.

So that is what we're asking for today, up to 250,000 to apply for grants from local philanthropy and any other programs that seem appropriate for this kind of project.

Okay.

Within this ordinance, um I see some of the par the um partners as far as departments.

You have park and recreation, public safety, and community relations board.

What role do they play on within this ordinance?

Yes, thank you for asking that.

So we have been working with Parks and Rec and Public Safety to talk about this program in how do we have a climate resilience core that has emergency response readiness.

So for public safety, we've been working with emergency management.

They would help train or contribute to the training of community members and community emergency response.

Community emergency response teams are a kind of specific format that's used nationally, and actually Cuyoga County has training through their um through them as well.

And then so that's the public safety piece.

Community relations board is always on call, as you know, uh when there's an emergency.

So we talked to them about this idea, and director Stuart Woodson was very on board with that in coordinating with us and giving us feedback on the uh the program outline.

And then director of parks and recreation, Alex Nichols and I have talked about specifically what people would do in this core that would support green spaces and green infrastructure so that it does not compete with current jobs, but builds a pipeline, a workforce pipeline.

And she's very interested in that aspect.

And then with your saying that this is targeted neighborhoods, Huff and St.

Clair.

Have you talked to councilwoman?

Um Stephanie House Jones regarding this pilot initiative.

Have you sat down and gave a deep brief of what is going on?

Uh to the chair, no, I have not had the opportunity to the chair.

Uh, and I am I just talked to councilwoman House Jones right before this meeting, and I'm very willing to sit down and talk about it in detail.

And then from this standpoint, when was this actually introduced to um for a council meeting?

I believe it was introduced on March 23rd.

So, and how long have you been working on this from your department standpoint?

Uh so it's been in the idea phase for a couple of months.