Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Cleveland City Council met on the evening of October 5, 2026, with all 15 members present. The meeting featured public comments on homelessness, community resources, data centers, housing neglect, and constitutional issues; a special recognition of 100-year-old WWII veteran Charles Lehman; and floor debates over east side disinvestment. The council passed multiple emergency ordinances and resolutions, with two voting against a street vacation ordinance and one against an airport baggage system contract.
Okay, so I always gotta hit the audio dentist. Okay. All right. Madam Clerk, please call the role. Griffin. Here, Bishop, Conwell, Davis, Gray, Harsh, House Jones, Hudson, Jones, Casey, Polencick, Santana, Shaw, Slife, Star. You have a quorum, Mr. President. Thank you. Will everyone please rise for a moment of silence, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. I pledge it through the flag. One nation under God in the physical liberty. Justice for make the following statement. This meeting of Cleveland City Council is a lawful meeting under Section 605.04 of the codified ordinances. No person with purpose to prevent or disrupt a lawful meeting shall do any act which obstructs or interferes with the due conduct of such meeting. Members of the public are invited to speak only under the rules set by this council. Disruptions, including but not limited to speaking out of turn and making loud noises and loud utterances are in violation of the rules and interfere with the due conduct of this lawful meeting. Such disruptions may constitute a misdemeanor and a violation of section six oh five.04. Anyone who disrupts this lawful meeting in violation of the codified ordinances commits misdemeanors and is subject to prosecution. The following is the first and only warning. Again, this is the first and only warning. Thank you. We'll move to public comment. And the reason why is because you just want to be fair across the board with everyone. So please acknowledge your time and ask all the council members to turn around and please recognize and acknowledge all the speakers. Me, I choose not to believe in death. How crazy is that, right? Although we see it day in and day out, we choose to believe what we choose to believe. All of us have seats that we sit in. You have your seats, we have our seats. And when we die, and we will, there's going to be a judgment. We'll stand all of us in front of God and have to give an account on how we handle the business he gave us. Regardless of how you believe you got there, the only way that we can truly get somewhere is because God appoints it or he allows it. And the whole our responsibility is to make this world great. And what we do when something goes wrong, typically, even when we don't believe in God, we blame God. And if God was able to speak to you for himself, but he typically used people. And I'll tell you what he'll say is everything that's going wrong is on us because he gave us a responsibility to make this world great. And he asked us to do something that is less painful than somebody else pointing the finger at you. He asked us to examine ourselves. Look at ourselves and see are we doing what we should be doing? And sometimes we can get blinded by greed, selfishness, and we take resources and only think about ourselves and the ones that we love. But what about everybody else? What about the people that can't fan for themselves? What do we do then?