October 28, 2024

Yes thank you. I'd like to thank everybody in the room for being here and giving me this opportunity to speak about some of the things that I've noticed.

The first thing I want to start out and say, it's been very interesting for the last 6 months to come down here and engage with you guys. I've learned a lot, I appreciate.

I want to acknowledge Mark Griffin here for protecting the taxpayers dollars and deciding to sue the Cleveland Browns. I believe that's a great choice. The reason I believe that's a great choice is because the citizens of Cleveland have paid their taxes and that's an investment to anybody that lives in the inner city of Cleveland. Their tax dollars have built that stadium. I had the privilege to go in there Sunday, and what I saw in the stadium, I was very disgusted by it. There was physical rust everywhere in the building. There were chipping paint, and it just didn't look like it was being taken care of at all, so I'm a little concerned about how do we go about keeping the maintenance up on the stadium?

And then secondly I would like to talk about the water and light issue. The Water Department seems to be unfair to the citizens of Cleveland when it comes to our taxpayer dollars. I had a property that I overpaid about 60 days ago and it took me about 30 days to get them to understand that I was the person who paid for these things, and we got that resolved, but as a result now I have to wait 60 days to almost receive $300 back, and I don't feel that that's fair at all for a taxpayer or a citizen of Cleveland to have to wait that long to get their money returned when they made an overpayment to a bill.

And lastly I would like to talk about Cleveland Public Power, right, the light company. I would agree that yes you should get a raise right, but what I would like to go on record and state is like, if you haven't had a raise, I believe somebody said in 40 years or 15 years, and I look around the city, I don't see any work or any development going on with Cleveland Public Power. And Cleveland Public Power is owned by the City of Cleveland and I don't think that they've done a great job with the residents, with their taxpayer dollars. We don't see them in the summer doing any tree trimming, we have a lot of delapidated polls right now within the city limits that's owned by Cleveland Public Power that they're not even taking care of at this moment okay. So my thought would be on that is we have commissions for these things, and I've talked to you before Mr. Blaine, I've asked you to reconsider some of the people on the commissions because it doesn't seem like like they invested. I've also asked you to do the same thing with the safety department, right, because I don't seem like they're doing enough to protect the taxpayers dollars, and I would just like to see the taxpayers dollars protected at all costs. Okay thank you guys.

Good evening everyone. When I was here before I brought it up about the homeless, and it's starting to be a lot. I'm seeing more homeless people than I've saw through my years. I've mentioned to you some of them sometimes have been on my lot, and at the end of the day, I did speak to some of the people who does the demolitions on some of these houses in the city and some of these, you know, they tear them down, they tear down the houses. It's cost like $15-20,000. What they were telling me, however, you could take that same money and renovate a house and put a lot of those homeless people in the house and get social workers who are licensed social workers to help a lot of these homeless people that have mental health problems. Some of these homeless people that are our clients and they arrest them for being homeless. And now the Supreme Court with they dumb ass, has passed the law where the police can arrest them. And I did say that, dumb ass, because they're dumb, okay. Why would you do that? Why wouldn't you do something to try to help these people in this country?

I have no problem with helping immigrants but we need to help our country, we need to help our city. We have a lot of issues in this city alone with crime, we have a lot of issues with people being incarcerated, we have a dilapidated jail, so we have big problems here. And I don't have a problem in helping people. Well, what about helping our people first? What about America helping America? And this is where I'm at with this.

And it's ridiculous, you see homeless people everywhere now, and my issue is why is it so many homeless people. And a lot of these homeless people are educated people, so you can't tell me that it's their fault that they're homeless. It's a fault of our leadership in this community, and that's all I have to say. And yes, I said dumb ass, and if the Supreme Court don't like what I say then they need to come and see me.

Mr. Council President, members of City Council, Mayor Bibb and his administration, I wanted to come and say thank you. At the end of July I retired from Community Housing Solutions after 25 years devoting myself to sharing God's love in my unique space. Mayor Bibb and City Council, thank you for the proclamations. Council members Howse- Jones and Polensek, thank you for the privilege of your time, making the time to present those at my sendoff celebration. But I have much more to say thank you about.

Council woman Maurer, thank you, you're a lifesaver. The senior who was having furnace problems, her furnace was giving off carbon monoxide and not much heat. One or the other would have killed her if not for your action. Thanks for calling me. Councilwoman Santana, thank you, you change lives. Thank you for introducing me to Marilyn, you are loved. Not an afterthought. Councilman Hairston, remember Miss Marks, that one will be talked about around city hall for years to come, mostly on the third floor. Together we found a way. You're awesome. And thanks for including me. Councilman Conwell. I loved walking Glenville with you. You and Yvonne are incredible, you had a profound impact on a Cleveland hero, the late great Peter Love. Thank you for letting me watch. Mr. Council President, thank you. Keith Smith is a career highlight for me. Your phone call to our beloved Marcia Fudge, she offered kindness I hadn't expected, the news story on TV, a kind soul inspired by God, she said, brought us a $10,000 check to fill a gap I couldn't get past. Thanks for letting me be a part of your story. We couldn't have done it without Director McNamara, who changed my life, embracing me as a part of her team. Mary, thank you for your heart to help see seniors age in place, including me. Councilman Polensek, how did you possibly put together that dilapidated home on East 149th Street? That was wonderful. Thank you. Councilwoman Gray. There was a porch destroyed by a car in a police chase. Together we crafted a way when there was no way. That story was beautiful. Thank you for the chance to be a witness. Councilman Bishop, remember the widow on East 140th Street who needed a boiler and a roof long before she met you. Together we did both just in time. Big assist to Director Hernandez, your team is amazing. They always treated me like a folk hero, tough on me, but always fair and kind, always by the book. Thank you. Councilman McCormack, you do God's work. You always encouraged me with those words for years, remember Miss Ripka. Thank you. Councilman Kazy, Santa Claus and Barb, enough said. Let's keep going. Councilwoman Spencer, we went to a home, a lady who had lost a husband and grown child to Covid, now she's caring for an orphaned grandchild thinking no one cared about her. She said the impactful home repairs we did paled in comparison next to the love she felt from your visit. You don't realize what a kind word from you does. Thank you. Councilman Harsh. I remember our favorite Golden Gloves boxer who used to attach a fresh Plain Dealer article about him from the 1950s to every obligation he sent us. Thank you. Councilman Kelly. You came in late to the table but your heart is gold. You never had a layup for me but together we made a way. And thank you. I just want you to know I mention your name every day to God, I pray for you and your, the cabinet and the city hall employees. Thank you, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. I'm only short, not low, my name is Lou. Good evening everybody. I'm glad somebody just mentioned about our homeless issues here, however, homeless people or anybody else in the city, housing is not our only problem. Yes it doesn't help us to lose population, which is not good thing, so if we want to remaining people to stay here, live happily or at least with good progress, and we want to attract other people in, how about let the city to help our residents in the restaurant with a little bit thing, which will not really cost money.

Here is a national campaign called Cut The Salt, Keep The Flavor. We know in our area majority of the residents have the same groups of health issues. Lots of time, salt, sodium, is one of the issues, however, throughout talking to people with this campaign, I do find out this campaign will help most of our residents who need to have less sodium intake to benefit from this legislation, which is simple. We just want the city to help the restaurants put the sodium warning, or the content for the menu items. Think about that, in the recent three decades who can have a stable routine, going back to home to make your lunch, going back home to make your dinner. It's hard. Since recession and covid-19, people are struggling with jobs, school, take care of the young ones in the family and elderly in the families. Lots of times you do not even have time to eat at the right time yourself, when you actually feel hungry, so you have to go for take out, you have to go for, to go you have to sit somewhere dining in, even for business. So if restaurant menus will tell you how much sodium or it's too much sodium based on Heart Association standards, at least you know you have a choice to make a decision. You want something with high sodium, or you want to have something with lower sodium content. Now this will also benefit people who had a health issue the opposite way. We do have people in the community, their body have a different way to utilize sodium so their body cannot keep the sodium they actually need to eat high sodium food. Majority of us, we probably need to cut it off. This is the reason why this will be very helpful to have all of us to eat delicious food we want and also have some healthy intake for our bodies. So we will not let the food, we will not let the stress to make our health compromised. Thank you very much.

I address the Cleveland City Council through the president. Good day councilmen. It is legally possible to prevent the Cleveland Browns from moving from the city. It is a judicial error, which is a result of what is, I allege best termed, quote, 'educational fraud', unquote, perpetuated in law schools which gives the team this power. Law schools in this country are accredited by the American Bar Association. This is a private organization.

I'll offer a few concrete examples of this error. This is the cell phone that I use to make phone calls. I allege that it has malware on it. The symptom is that it is not possible for it to be able to normally communicate by cable with any computer that I have attempted to connect it to. I took this phone to two AT&T stores. I was given a tech support number in one store, and the other said that it was not a problem they could fix, it was not a service that they offered. Thus I was refused service by AT&T. What enabled this unjust behavior? Freedom of contract did. It is freedom of contract which enables parking lots to extort crime under color of law those who need a place to park by raising the fee by 10 times when there's a major event in the city. I have a reference page to a book, a page in a book on legal history which expounds the way that business exchanges were acquired by law to work in the 18th century. This was just.

Personally I have been effectively blacklisted and become, quote, unemployable, unquote, due to the sins of detraction, slander, or both, by a previous employer. How many attorneys have helped me solve this problem so far? Zero. Freedom of contract is the means by which very serious evils are allowed to go unpunished. Thank you.