The Committee of the Whole met on July 27, 2026, at 6:00 p.m. in City Hall Auditorium to discuss the city's ongoing legal and regulatory efforts to hold First Energy accountable for chronic power outages and communication failures. The meeting featured presentations from the Law Department, Mayor George, and the Ohio Consumers Council, followed by extensive council discussion and public testimony. No executive session was held; a future session was planned to discuss litigation strategy.
All right. We will call Committee of the Whole to order. So first I will move to approve the minutes of the June 15th Committee of the Whole without the necessity of a reading. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Discussion. Hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. And that motion passes. We have one item on the docket tonight, which is the communication that I submitted, outlining the timeline of litigation with First Energy, and also setting us up for tonight's discussion with the law department to provide us an overview of those legal matters addressing the First Energy's failure to provide reliable electricity and accurate and timely communication. And then so tonight, as you thank you all for being here, members of the public as well. Tonight you'll hear some of the steps that have already been taken. So those are a little bit complicated. I think sometimes they're almost set up to be intentionally complicated to make it harder for us to hold the utility companies accountable. So we'll be hearing about those as well as asking our law departments some questions about potential next steps. Some of those questions I intend to have as much of the conversation as possible in the public because part of the whole reason for doing this is to help all of us understand and help all of our neighbors understand the legal process that we've taken and what we can do. Some of that we will have to have an executive session to preserve the public interest because it will be with our legal council. So as much as possible though, we'll have in front of in front of all of you. We're also joined tonight by members of the Office of Ohio Consumers Council. So thank you for being here with us, uh JP Blackwood and Tom Broadbeck. Uh we'll be hearing from them after we hear from the law department. And uh I just want to point out before we get started that this is an ongoing effort. Uh it's been over a year since uh Mayor George and I and Rep Raider and Councilman Casey met with First Energy representatives about what steps they were going to be taking. And were it not for the legal action uh that the city has taken, we wouldn't be seeing any progress. And I know that most of us aren't experiencing a lot of progress. Uh today I did hear back from our first energy rep about some of the improvements that have been taken place that they are working on. Um, instead of trust but verify, it's a little bit more in the just verify stages. So uh so but we they are being asked to make these changes ordered to by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. Uh and then we also want to be diligent in our duty to making sure that we are following up on them as well. So that's the plan for tonight. We'll uh have the presentation. Council members will be asking questions, I'm sure, uh, of both entities, and then we will uh uh we'll take public comment. So if you haven't already signed in for public comment and you would like to, you may do so any time uh before then. I'll also call for anyone else who would like to make public comment who hasn't yet signed in. Uh oh uh oh yes, they already pulled it up, but we'll put it back. Uh thank you. A little our clerks are very efficient, sometimes too efficient. So all right, so um you can go ahead and sign in on that. Uh and with that, I'm gonna turn it over to uh Mayor George. Did you want to make some preliminary remarks? Yeah, thank you. Thank you, uh, Council President. Um we appreciate the opportunity to provide some ongoing updates on our efforts to hold first energy accountable and to do everything we can to push for safe, reliable power in Lakewood. Uh we appreciate the partnership of City Council on this very important issue. I also want to emphasize that we all appreciate the voices of our residents and the people who showed up here today. Uh this is an all hands-on-deck effort, and we continue to work together to hold first energy accountable for their failing infrastructure. This is a statewide issue that we are being forced to confront here locally. We are fighting a multi-billion dollar corporation that rather than put money into the aging infrastructure in Lakewood and across the state, instead put its dollars into bribing the speaker of the House and other public officials. Lakewood has been pursuing an aggressive, multifaceted and creative approach to apply energy to up to apply pressure to First Energy.