November 04, 2024
prev: October 28, 2024 next: November 18, 2024Public Commenters (25 min)
Juan Collado Diaz Diab Dar Issa Shawn Weiler Mark Schumann Faouzi Baddour Chairman Fahiem Terrence Upchurch Daniel Gray Delores Gray
Diab Dar Issa
I want to start off my speech by saying that I work nights. You might wonder why this is relevant and you'll soon see why. I worked late Tuesday night and I slept in Wednesday afternoon. Well imagine my surprise when I got an email confirming I have a slot to speak. I was sleeping and did not sign up. Now if you recall there was public comment back in May where somebody used my name to call me off, and now I think they're just having fun at it, and they're randomly signing people up. I don't know who it is but were they hoping I'd be a no call no-show. Were they trying to embarrass my group? I'm not sure but I definitely think public comment needs an overhaul with security measures put in place.
With that being said, I'll gladly take advantage of this free slot I've been given. With it being November this is definitely a time where I can reflect on how grateful I am and to show gratitude and appreciation. I think back of the fights we have had this year with Cudell Park, as well as ensuring the former CVS's new development is going to be the highest and best use and the utmost benefit to the community. While we have made tremendous strides in both of these fights, it's not over until we can celebrate the respective ribbon cuttings for both of these sites. With me given this slot there are other things I'd like to talk about. Maybe how grateful I am that I'm able to work with such amazing, generous, thoughtful and diligent, like-minded people who have been an amazing group of friends and activists. They have definitely made my 2024 memorable. We also need to ensure that the city prioritizes community engagement and not people such as those advocating for the gas station trying to use intimidation tactics, also those trying to manipulate council. And for those who are trying to silence others. I also think that we need Justice for Fahiem, and I also implore everybody to fight for what's right. Surround yourselves with those who will amplify your message and echo your sting. And in closing, make sure you don't start seeing yourself through the eyes of those who don't value you. Know your worth, even if they don't. Thank you, and that's my time. And again I am not being paid, I don't know where you got that from. Thank you.
2:26 Permalink
Shawn Weiler
First, the fact is that Kamala Harris is a doubtful eligibility to become president of the United States. She has not to my knowledge been proven to be, quote, national, natural I should say, a born citizen, unquote. To be a natural born citizen according to law means to have been born to US citizens. I have seen no proof that presents her, that her parents were both US citizens at the time of her birth.
Second, former president Trump was guilty of complicity with the crime of murder during a January towards the end of his presidency. I'm talking about the date January 3rd, 2020 when according to his unlawful order, an Iranian General was murdered in Iran. This was a war crime. So Kamala Harris is reasonably ineligible to become president, and former president Trump is guilty of complicity with the crime of murder.
Third, an elected official must be given, elected office should say, must be given to a person of above average virtue. Even if she was eligible, Kamala Harris supports the murder of unborn children, and she has the blood of many murdered children on her hands, because she was the Attorney General of California. The attorney general has the duty to enforce the just laws of the state. Fourth, everyone show that for president and other national offices or any office I should say, it is almost certainly futile, except as a protest, to vote for any candidate who is not either a Republican or a Democrat. That being said, he may be the best candidate from a moralist perspective. The candidate on the Ohio ballot most deserving the presidency of the United States is Peter Sonski of the American Solidarity Party.
Fifth, between Republicans and Democrats, it would be morally impossible to vote for a Democrat who stands with his party platform. Democrats support evil to a much greater extent than Republicans. One example of this is the Federal Reserve. In case you didn't know, the Federal Reserve is the current cause of inflation. This year there was a bill sponsor introduced in the US House to, among other things, abolish the Federal Reserve. The sponsor and every single co-sponsor are Republicans.
Finally there are a number of other facts that ought to be known. One is that researchers have found that having an abortion increases the risk that a woman will develop breast cancer by an average of 800%. Two is, the nature of money is not wealth. Money is artificial wealth. Paper is not money, it's fraud. Thank you.
2:58 Permalink
Mark Schumann
Mr. President, council members and all my friends in the public, I'm just some guy in Dearborn Avenue. I live in technically ward 3, you know, where it's got that little sawtooth bit at the end of Clark Avenue where it's kind of ward 14 but it's kind of ward 15, and I know you got to draw the line somewhere, but you sort of drew the line everywhere, and that's what I'm here to talk about. Everyone knows there's a big election tomorrow, right? And you got to come out for the things at the top of the ticket. But it's also really important to vote on issue one to end gerrymandering, and one particular council member is asking what more can we do to get people out to vote. And I'm saying stop gerrymandering, all of you. Because as we have a ballot measure to try to eliminate gerrymandering at the state level, and you all want me to vote for it, you're working on a gerrymandered map for yourselves. What you can do is look in the mirror and see yourselves as the problem.
By far the single most important thing Cleveland politicians can do to get people to vote is stop canceling our votes. People do the things that matter to them. People do things that result in good things, so if you go to work and you don't get paid, you stop going to work. If I go to vote and I keep having majority and I keep having it undercut, I'm going to stop voting. So let me say that again. When voting doesn't matter people are going to stop voting.
So when has our vote not mattered? I've only got 3 minutes, but let's talk about 2017. Huge grassroots effort to undo the Q deal because it was a ripoff, and this Council snuck in legislation to sign a contract. It was, it's a long legal story but basically you made it so it was illegal through actual crap legal tactics, made it illegal for us to undo the Q deal. So our votes mattered so much to you that you had to shut them down.
We voted for many other things, but you need me, you need everyone to vote so hard in these even numbered years, but where are you in the odd numbered years? Where are you in the years when you are on the ballot and you want low turnout because low turn- that's right, y'all looked up- you want low turnout cuz that benefits incumbents. 13 out of 14 incumbents got reelected and the turnout there was no- Mr. President- .
3:02 Permalink
Faouzi Baddour
Council President, with your permission I like to focus on something on the east side. Chairman Fahiem is a community activist, he's not extortionist, he's not, he never threaten anyone. He said that and I believe him. Community activists don't lie. I've been a community activist for 45 years. We do work to, all we do day and night, to protect the community, to make sure kids in the communities are safe from drugs, from gangs, from violence, and in some cases there are business owners, they running their business corrupt, in corrupt way. They trade sell gas for food stamps, they sell cigarettes for food stamps, and when a community activist catch that, then they threaten, actually they threaten the community activists. They don't want the community activists to go anywhere with those, with whatever they find.
Chairman Fahiem is a person of integrity, and I know Councilman Jones is a person of decency. He told me he had nothing to do with Chairman Fahiem problem and Chairman Fahiem is, and Councilman Jones, they both part of that community. And I ask you to sit and talk together because you both important to your community.
I also think, President Griffin, people when they come here to speak because they respect you, they respect this Council, and if we get blocked then we can take to the street. Whoever blocks us can't prevent us from going to the street. We don't want to go to the street, we come here because we- Thank you.
3:07 Permalink
Chairman Fahiem
With every breath in my body I stand on that courageously. And so, things that we experienced during this past summer, I came out here and make public comment five times last year. 21 weeks we spent touring communities, every neighborhood from East Side to West Side, from West 53rd to Union Harvard to 71st in Fleet. A gas station where three people have been shot in a two week span of time, a 15-year-old young man lost his life. Amsbury projects, a 12-year-old girl hit with a stray bullet. Hough Heritage, King Kennedy out wve and the the premise of this engagement was to, one, build relationships in community because that's the most important asset that we have. That's the most important tool and resource that we have, relationships. Number two, showing up at some of these businesses, right. Human trafficking is our number one focus. Violence prevention is our number two focus. So we are hyperfocusing on the businesses in the neighborhood, is for one of those two reasons, and if a business is taking issue with us showing a presence at that business, it's for one or two reasons, and it's just concerning to me to see members of this body protecting predators in our neighborhood.
3:07 Permalink
Terrence Upchurch
0:44 Permalink
Daniel Gray
By the numbers, CPP is consistently outperforming our investor owned utility, CEI, across the three most important categories we track: the number of outages per year, the total minutes of missed customer service, and the average outage duration per customer. The federal reporting shows that across the past 5 years, CPP has had less outages, less minutes of outage per customer, and shortage outer duration. On 14 of the 15 metrics that we're tracking additionally, CPP has scored better on six out of the six reliability scores versus CEI for the first two years of this administration. It's a rolling number, so we only have through 2023 and to put a final data point on the strong performance in 2023. The last year of numbers that we have, CPP actually outperformed all of the other investor owned utilities across the state from a reliability standpoint. And then finally to put a real life example of what this means in practice, we can look at the recent storm outages, the tornadoes in August. Based on our research, 85% of CPP customers had their service restored within 72 hours, while at that same point more than 50% of CEI customers were still without service for more than a couple days afterwards. And this is not surprising because CEI has to take care of hundreds of thousands of customers outside of the city of Cleveland. I think that actually proves the point here, which is that we need a utility that's focused directly on the residents of Cleveland, does not have a profit motive, and is regulated by the folks here in this room and not the folks in Columbus. In short, we need a healthy Cleveland Public Power and we hope you all do the right thing to support that.
2:09 Permalink
Delores Gray
And I just want to put it out here with this asset mapping, me because voting is coming up. This is our vote and this will be your vote as well if you need the support of your community. Thank you.
2:19 Permalink
Yesterday I had the chance to go canvassing with many of my friends for issue 1, issue 55, and issue 49. It was amazing. Today I had a chance to meet Sherrod Brown and talk to him about the amazing issues and things that we have done for Cleveland in the past four or five years. But now all that can be undone with just one vote wrong or one vote and goes higher than the other. This is the first time in forever that I am going to go to the post and vote like I really really really mean it more than ever. Because my girlfriend at home needs that vote, my mother needs that vote, my sisters need that vote. Almost every woman in this country need me to vote. They need every single one of you to vote also. So I remind everybody if you're registered, take the time to get out and vote. It's so important, and I know we keep saying it's so important every four years, but this year is so important. When we elected Barack Obama, we elected the first black president of the United States. This year we have the opportunity to elect the first black woman president in the United States, which is so important for our history, it is so important for diversity, but most importantly to keep this country in line, keep justice to this country, and keep the people of this country safe. Think about this, for everybody who has a child, who will your child remember you vote for, will you vote for the right candidate, will you vote for the one who's going to destroy us slowly?
This past week I was in Kamm's Corners with some friends to where there was a rally, and the rally was full of far-right fascists, cuz there's no other word to describe them, screaming racial slurs at me. On top of that, they were screaming and just chanting horrible things about many things. My eyeline in the past weeks has been called trash, cash has been degraded, and our people has been degraded for many many centuries by the United States. It is time for us to stand up together and vote for a better America, for a better Cleveland, and for a better world. So I encourage you again tomorrow to vote. If you need help or assistance, there's many places you can go, and RTA will be free from 3:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. the next day for all those that need a free ride. And if not you can find me online and I will find you right if you need to get to the polls and back home. Thank you so much.