January 27, 2025

Council members, Mayor Bibb and members of the administration. My name is David Robinson and I'm the executive director of West Park Kamms Neighborhood Development. Thank you Council and Council President Griffin for the opportunity to speak tonight about an issue that profoundly impacts Cleveland's neighborhoods,` the allocation of funding for the community development corporation network here in Cleveland.

Currently about half of my operating budget comes from the city of Cleveland, sourced through federal community development block grants, or CDBG, funds. While these funds are critical to our work, they come with a structural limitation, poverty thresholds. These poverty thresholds are a fundamental requirement of HUD, not the city, but it places organizations like mine and the entire CDC network in a difficult position.

Here's why this matters. Defined service areas where these funds are utilized must have a 51% or higher poverty rate. Now let that sink in, if a CDC like mine does its job, if we attract investment, if we support residential needs, grow small businesses and help reduce poverty, we actually risk losing the very funding that makes that success possible. As CDCs our efforts should be linked to poverty reduction and fostering economic growth, but what kind of message does this funding model currently send to Cleveland as a whole, or to the nonprofits doing the work to reduce poverty in this city. It says fix the problem but don't fix it too well. It says poverty is a prerequisite for progress. It says we can't evolve or grow without compromising the communities we've built, and that's not the future I want for Cleveland or for West Park. Passing the neighborhood development fund legislation not only frees the CDC network from this restrictive funding model, it opens dozens of new categories of work to impact neighborhood needs. Many of you may be aware of the success of a group of volunteers in my neighborhood called Friends of Impet Park. The group worked with Councilman Slife recently this past year to fund the largest accessible playground in the city of Cleveland. To take it a step further, the group just worked with Mayor Bibb's administration to land an additional investment of $95,000 from the state of Ohio. But what you might not know is my CDC is the fiscal and administrative backbone for Friends of Impit Park. We shield them from having to find the capacity in dollars to launch an entirely separate nonprofit. Aiding residents to make the changes they want to see is exactly what our constituents want from us but the current model not only does not allow this type of work, it doesn't even measure the impact of the work. Reallocating CDC funds to the general operating budget is about trust and it's about accountability. These changes wouldn't just support West Park, it would support every CDC in Cleveland, giving us the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances without fear of punishment for that success. Thank you for considering the important step forward for Cleveland and all of the neighborhoods we serve.

I was going to come in here and talk about how gerrymandering our city the way that Republicans do at the state level dilutes trust, respect that the people have in the fabric of democracy. But then I realized that many of you may not know who I am. My name is Stephanie Thomas. I am the executive director of Shelter of the People Cleveland. We housed and were provided seasonal shelter for 209 unique individuals last fiscal year. I'm also the director of the pre-trial support team, which to date has 100% success rate of keeping or helping our clients to avoid additional jail or prison time. I sit on the advisory board for the Office of Homeless Services. As an architect with lived homeless experience, I'm also an elected representative of the Democratic Party and a poll worker.

We're planning to build homes in the North Broadway section of Slavic Village and we have assembled a serious team of contractors and builders who are ready to get to work building gorgeous, affordable, and sustainable homes. We intend to build these homes, these very same homes, all throughout the city.

A little over two years ago I was granted $10,000 for housing. This is a model which has been wildly successful. By the end of the month, of next month, I will be responsible for nearly $750,000 in property. None of that would have been possible if I wasn't trusted with amly $10,000. I, we, my team are hoping for the council's support. Thank you.

Council President Blaine Griffin, council members and honorable Mayor Justin Bibb. I stand before you to speak in support of ordinance number 11322, the neighborhood development fund, a new funding that will permanently transform community development work in the city of Cleveland for benefit of our residents. As the executive director of Famico Foundation, I have spent over 30 years working with CBG funding. I can summarize my feeling about it in two words, messed up. The process is long and can be daunting for residents waiting to receive service. Some gave up and for some, the help came too late, it no longer mattered. I have struggled with it and have seen my colleagues struggle with it, including go out of business because promise CBG funding too long to come. We as an industry have showed that the burden of paying for neighborhood services and waiting for unbelievable amount of time to be reimbursed for interest charges. We spend so much time chasing money or waiting for the mailman to deliver mail that never comes. This is not the way it is supposed to be. The proposed neighborhood development fund will create trust between the city's residents and City Hall, as well as infused predictability in the work we do. We all want what is good for our residents and for that reason I plead to you to replace CBG funding with a flexible source without the same strings attached at federal fund, and I ask you to use this ordinance to set standards for CDC work, allowing for specific metrics for holding CDCs accountable across identified activities that we all know what they are in advance. That will be different from today's system where only two activities are eligible without regard to the needs of each neighborhood. Mr. President, more than 25 years ago I have had the honor and privilege of working with you and L Reed Robins in the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood advocating to keep St Luke's Hospital open. While the subject matter is different today, the common thread is that it is about the quality of life of our neighborhoods. I am hoping in that same spirit of caring, you, the council members and the administration understand my plea to you this evening is from the heart, for the good of our great City so CDCs can continue to be the beacon of neighborhood rization in years to come.

I am not casting blame, except this system is broken. It needs change. Since the 1990s, the CDC industry in Cleveland has been A best practice, getting national attention on our CLE attitude, that no matter how difficult the situation, we will get it done. Help us continue to make our city proud.

Members of city council, thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Teri Wang. I am a former police commissioner. As you consider nominees for the new community police commission, I urge you to can prioritize three things, transparency, accountability, and most importantly, independence. The commission has final authority over police policy, training and discipline, and its independence is mandated by City Charter 1155, yet in a recent Ideastream article, Council President Blaine Griffin expressed a desire for more Council control over commission appointments. This raises an important question, is this increased control about strengthening the commission or is this another instance of political interference?

The commission's independence is not optional, it is required by law. Any city official who interferes with its work can be disciplined and removed from office. Due to persistent political interference, only six of the original 13 commissioners remain. Sadly all but one of these Commissioners have engaged in serious misconduct violating local state and federal laws. For example, in May 2024, I was unlawfully removed as chair of police accountability for advancing citizen police complaints, including the case of Mr. Antoine Tolbert.

In July 2024, commissioners John Adams and Shandra Bonito called police to arrest me during a public meeting to silence my descent. When police refused, Commissioners John Adams and Shireen Zahed retaliated with the slanderous 12-page letter published by Signal Cleveland.

Throughout 2024 commissioner, Audrianna Rodriguez repeatedly violated the Open Meetings Act by making secret decisions regarding the Police Inspector General position. November 2024, Commissioners Pete van Leer and Shandra Bonito physically assaulted me after I revealed that they had drafted a police drone policy targeting protesters, and your police officers then made a false report of the incident. Despite these incidents, Adams, Rodriguez, van Leer remain on the commission while Bonito and Zahed are being considered for reappointment. Neither the mayor nor Council has investigated this misconduct. With the federal consent decree in jeopardy under a new administration, the commission's role is more critical than ever. Without strong independent civilian oversight, the progress we've made will unravel, exposing Cleveland to the same systemic failures that required federal intervention. You have the power to restore for the commission's credibility, and I urge you to do so through the hearings that include the following witness testimony on mine's behavior and qualifications, cross-examination of nominees, and witnesses public transparency through broadcasted hearings and community input, independent reviews of candidates by outside experts, and full disclosure of nominee records applications, including misconduct. Thank you.

Thank you Council President Griffin, Mayor Bibb and members of the city council, especially Councilwoman Howse-Jones and Councilman Starr who represent the Campus District. Thank you for the opportunity to speak in support of ordinance 13-22 to create the neighborhood development fund. I'm Mark Lammon, executive director of Campus District, the Community Development Corporation representing the east side neighborhoods of downtown stretching from the lakefront to Orange Avenue, East 18th to East 30th, including Cleveland State University, Cuyahoga Community College, old Cedar Estates, the Superior Arts District, and the region's social service hub. Campus District is over one-third of the land area of downtown. Despite the fact that our neighborhood is home to some of the most vulnerable citizens, including over 500 men and women who stay at the 2100 Lakeside and Norma Herr shelters every night. In our 41-year existence, the Campus District has never been eligible for community development block grant funding. The design, the very urban fabric of our neighborhood, with our lack of single family homes and our transient population, has disqualified us for funding. The fact that I'm standing here in front of you today as Campus District's only employee is the perfect illustration that the current funding structure is not meeting the needs of all neighborhoods. How can CDCs focus on the long-term viability of our neighborhoods when we spend so much time on administrative tasks.

I know what our residents and stakeholders want to spend time on, rebuilding the inner belt to reconnect our east side neighborhoods back into downtown after they were cut off by redlining 70 years ago, by building caps and parks over the highway. We want to focus on the redevelopment of old Cedar Estates, the oldest public housing in the United States. We want to focus, we want to work with the Sisters of Charity Foundation to redevelop the former St. Vincent Medical Center into a place that still provides health and healing for our neighborhood.

Campus District is committed to working with the city and our community development corporations and our partners and leaders at CNP to ensure success and accountability for the neighborhood development fund. We strive to provide metrics and provide results both in physical development and the lives of the people we serve in our neighborhoods. On behalf of the residents, stakeholders, and the board of directors of Campus District, I urge you to support the legislation to create the neighborhood development fund.

My name is Dane Vannatter and I reside in Ward 9 on Thorne Avenue in the great Cleveland community of Glenville with my husband Dr. Todd Bar and our dog, Stanley, and our cat, Sylvia. We lived in Cleveland for 6 years. We have a recurring problem on Thorne Avenue of drivers using our street as a convenient cut through between Parkside and East 97th. They're mostly speeding. On December 20th of 2023 at approximately 1:30 p.m., a Cleveland waste collection truck hit our dog Stanley in front of my house on Thorne Avenue and pinned him under the left front tire of the truck. This removed the fur and the flesh from Stanley's right front leg exposing only his bloody leg bone. Stanley's leg was was later amputated that afternoon at the great Metropolitan Veterinary Hospital in Highland Heights. The waste collection truck is caught on our Ring camera video speeding down our short street of only eight houses, going well past the 5 miles per hour that the driver states he was driving. In the December 20th police report, in the video you can see Stanley escape my hold on him from our front porch and run toward the truck on the video. The truck driver appears to be looking down and not at the road. After Stanley was hit, the driver stops the truck, does not exit the cab, and he rolls down the window and yells out that he's calling the police. While I'm wrapping Stanley up to take him to the ER the Ring video shows the driver attempting to leave the scene by scooting his truck in slow stops and starts toward the corner of Thorne and East 97th. The driver also states in the police report that he was collecting garbage on our street even though garbage had been collected hours before. On February 20th, I asked to file my side of the story to the complete Cleveland Police Department Fifth District but I was told by Officer Cummings there that it was not necessary for me to give my story to the police and instead he advised me to go to waste collection. They advised me to file a claim form with the city of Cleveland Department of Law and my claim was denied in a letter on October 8th of last year. I have to say I sent the Ring video to 'You alleged your dog was hit by a city garbage truck. After careful examination of your claim we determine that the city of Cleveland has no legal liability for your alleged damages.' The letter concludes by saying there is no appeal process when a claim is denied. I was then sent by Fifth District representative for Community Relations Board on behalf of the city of Cleveland, Miguel Booker. He advised me to contact Frank Williams and the Director of Public Works for the City of Cleveland. I wrote to Mr. Williams and stated that we were actually quite insulted by the language of the response, suggesting damages are alleged and that we are forbidden to make any appeal. We're not looking for money, we seek accountability, empathy, and civility where we believe that is in order. I'm a graduate a former

Council President, council members, Community Development staff and Cleveland Neighborhood Progress for supporting this process. I am Ashley Shaw. I'm the executive director with Midtown Cleveland. We have a full-time staff of 12 with CDBG supporting just one and a half of our employees. Thank you to Councilwoman Stephanie Howse. This funding supports our staff in working with our small businesses in Asia Town, providing language competency, overcoming cultural barriers, and connecting them to resources that sustain and grow their businesses. But our reach and the communities that we serve is far beyond what CDBG funds us to do. Midtown is one of Cleveland's largest employment centers and fastest growing residential neighborhoods. Our organization has recruited businesses employing thousands of people to Midtown in the city of Cleveland, supported hundreds of millions of dollars in investment into new commercial institutional and resididential developments. We are currently supporting more than 700 units of new housing, almost half of which are income- restricted. We are working with the city of Cleveland in advancing three major streetscape projects on our commercial corridors. Currently we're supporting $62 million of investment along Payne Avenue in Asia Town from new mixed income housing and retail, a new streetscape, public art in green space. We are the conveners of all of these projects, bringing them together to make sure that they are cohesive, that they reflect the community's vision and that we include community voice in this process. This is the work that our CDCs do that can be tracked and quantified, and this is the work that's visible when you visit our neighborhood. The impact that you can't track though, just a few weeks ago one of our seniors who we work with told one of my employees, one of our seniors in Asia Town told one of my employees that she was so isolated before Midtown started doing work in Asia Town that she believed she would not be here if it wasn't for the work that we were doing in the community, creating connection and joy and a sense of belonging in a place that she felt so alone in for so long. So I will leave you with that. It's hard to track all of our income but our industries are far-reaching and in making an impact in all of our neighborhoods in Cleveland. So thank you for consideration of the neighborhood fund.

Thank you, Council President, thank you to the esteemed members of City Council, Mayor Bibb and team. I'm Joy Johnson and I have the honor of serving as the executive director of Burton Bell Carr Development. As Council President Griffin stated, our organization serves, in alphabetical order, Cleveland's Buckeye, Central, and Kinsman neighborhoods on the east side of Cleveland. I'm here today to express my heartfelt support and thanks for the CDC funding ordinance. This ordinance will be a game changer that our community has been looking forward to for a long time. I want to thank Council President Griffin and council members Richard Starr and Deborah Gray as well as Mayor Bibb for their leadership and dedication to the neighborhoods that we serve. Burton Bell Carr has had a tough year this year, and this ordinance gives us hope. Changes to CDC funding rules and complicated reimbursement processes were some of the challenges that led to us having to cut eight positions in 2024. This means fewer resources for residents like financial literacy programs, youth development initiatives, and community engagement support. This proposed ordinance is crucial because it clearly defines 15 categories of eligible activities and makes them law. This allows Community Development Corporations to plan with certainty alongside elected officials and residents. I had the privilege of serving on a neighborhood working group that helped to inform this process. We started on this work back in 2023 and I got a chance to work closely with City Council, Mayor Bibb's team, community development funding partners and CDC leaders. It was great to see the perspective that councilman Hairston, Councilman Harsh and Councilman McCormack brought to the process, as well as Chief Epstein and Director Hernandez, and I'm excited to see the results of this committee's work represented in this ordinance.

In conclusion, I urge you to support the CDC funding ordinance. This is the change we've been waiting for and it's a vital step towards a brighter future in our community. Thank you to everyone who has tily work to make this

Good evening Council people, my fellow advocates. I think now more than ever I would like to utilize this platform to talk about the importance of unity, diversity, inclusion, and community. This is definitely a pivotal year where most of you will be running for reelection. And I want to also take a moment to say Jenny and Rebecca, you guys will both be missed. However I do not want that to be the only focus this year. Essentially seeking reelection just for the sake of being reappointed for the seats next year there. It means so much more than that. Please utilize this time instead to advocate for your constituents, amplify the voices of those in your communities who will need it most continue to keep your word and promises and listen to the needs of those in your community, and implement the steps needed to ensure that these can be delivered. People are overwhelmed, feeling uneasy, dealing with unprecedented anxiety, and some may even feel helpless. I don't want my speech as well as the speeches of the other speakers here to just be a time where we may zone out or check our notifications on our phone, but rather I would like us to absorb what all of us here are saying tonight and listen to what we are all asking for. If you want us to be there for you in November, which we will turn out, and be please make sure you're there for us, then the rest of this month, come spring, come summer, coming into fall. If reelection weren't on the line, still be present and within reach because that's exactly why you guys are in these awesome positions that you are and your constituents means so much more than just something that means, you know, securing a seat next year. But it's giving us hope that there are people that do represent us, listen to us, advocate for us, and are here for us even before during and after your terms. Thank you all so much and I hope you all have a great

Good evening council president, fellow councilmen Bishop, Griffin, Jones, Councilwoman Gray, and all council members. I'm Mickey Smith, Board President of New Point Community Development Corporation. I'm here tonight to speak in support of the proposed ordinance that will bring significant and positive change to how our CDCs like yours effectively serve our communities. Councilmen Bishop, Griffin, and Jones and Councilwoman Gray, I especially want to thank you for your continued partnership and support for New Point's work. Your dedication to our shared goals is invaluable. President Griffin, we understand the importance of the legislation and appreciate your tireless efforts on behalf of all CDCs. I also want to acknowledge all of the council members I've had the pleasure of working within the past. Your commitment to our city is truly commendable. As many of you know New Point Community Development Corporation, formerly Union-Miles Development Corporation, has expanded its reach. We're now not only serving the Union-Miles community but we have also been entrusted to serve the Mt. Pleasant community. Mayor Bibb, I want to express our sincere gratitude for your trust and New Point's to carry out your vision for the southeast side and the Marshall Plan it will take and make it happen. We take this responsibility seriously to ensure transparency and accountability in fulfilling this vision and to best serve our constituents. We strongly believe in the passage of this ordinance. This is the best way to ensure the Bibb legacy and the southeast side Marshall Plan continue to move forward with strategic planning and intentional change, allowing every CDC to effectively address the needs of their respective communities. Our current funding model presents significant challenges. We often find ourselves subsidizing payments for over 6 months while awaiting reimbursement. This is simply not a sustainable model. Imagine any business operating on a net 180 terms. I am a businesswoman and I know I can tell you it's not feasible. This current system hinders our ability to be as effective as we could be. The proposed model of pro-rated quarterly payments received in advance within accountability, it's a game changer. This allow us to report our work we actually doing and crucially, it allows us to assist in areas we previously couldn't do, reach cash flows, constraints and restrictions on what eligible CDBG activities CDCs are allowed to do. This new model is not just be better for the CDCs, it's better for the communities we serve. It's always good to be proactive and not reactive, and as Board Chair of New Point you will have thank you