February 03, 2025

Thank you. My name is Annie McEnany and I am an educator in Cleveland, as well as the volunteer coordinator at the Cleveland Liberation Center, a community center that provides educational programming and an event space for all of Cleveland.

I'm sure we are all devastated by the recent attacks on our immigrant community here in Cleveland. To my fellow educators, we are really, really lucky to be a part of a community that cares so deeply for our children that we would put our bodies in front of bullets for them. We would do anything to make sure that they are safe, that they are fed, that they are cared for, and we must protect them at all costs. Protect them from cages from flights to countries they have no security in, from going home to find that their parents have been taken from them. ICE has no place in our schools. We owe them nothing so we will tell them nothing. And I feel very grateful that I'm a part of a district that is setting such a strong example, a strong precedent, and not allowing any ICE agents into our classrooms.

To the City Council and to the mayor, this is the time for a concrete policy, protection for residents of the city. All our institutions including the City Council need to follow CMSD's example and take action to protect immigrants. We demand that the city passes legislation which prevents police in Cleveland from collaborating with federal immigration on arrests, detentions, or any enforcement of federal immigration law, and this includes preventing the use of Cleveland jails for immigration detention, prohibiting ICE entry into jails without a judicial warrant, and preventing the sharing of information on immigrants with the federal government. Many cities have stood up against federal immigration enforcement, and we should follow their lead and learn from their models. Make it clear where you stand by introducing legislation to make Cleveland a true sanctuary city and please engage the public in this process. And to my incredible community members who are in the fight, this is the time to be talking to our neighbors and building networks to protect each other. We need to know our rights, we need to train each other so that we know not to open doors when we don't legally have to, so that we don't accept any ICE warrants that are invalid, and so that we don't give these federal agents any information that they aren't legally entitled to.

This is a fight against the invasive encroachment of a police state and this is all of our fight, because my fight for better resources at my Cleveland school is tied to the fight for community control of policing, is tied to the Palestinian fight for divestment from genocide, is tied to the fight for immigrants to be safe in our community. We will not be divided, we will stand strong together to fight for immigrant rights. We will be meeting to organize community defense to protect immigrants on this Wednesday, February 5th, from 6:00 to 8:00 at the Cleveland Liberation Center at 9801 Denison, and you are all invited. We all care deeply about this issue and so I hope to see you all there on Wednesday and beyond. Thank you.

Sorry for some reason it is my comment is being weird. So yeah, in mere weeks since the inauguration of Donald Trump's second term as president, many members of our community's worst fears have already come true. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted indiscriminate raids all over our country and in Northeast Ohio, under the baseless and racist claims that immigrants and refugees are violent invaders that need to be expelled. Let me be clear, it is ICE and the mandate that President Trump has given them that are the source of terror in our community/

Now I do want to thank Mayor Bibb, Council President Griffin and members of council Howse-Jones, Conwell, and Santana for being outspoken in wanting to protect against unlawful deportations in Cleveland. Having said that, I do want to express my disappointment in councilwoman Santana for levying unwarranted criticisms against activists in Cleveland, and particularly the Palestinian community for not being in attendance at last week's council meeting, and baselessly taking that as a sign of apathy regarding this issue. Now I know this isn't true because I and hundreds of other people in a broad multinational coalition took to the streets on Saturday, January 25th to declare that not only do we not accept the billionaire agenda of Donald Trump that scapegoats the marginalized and divides the working class, but that we are also mobilized, organized, and already in motion to resist it. Immediately after this rally, organizers held a Know Your Rights training against ICE and we are continuing to organize for community defense, including a meeting this Wednesday at the Cleveland Liberation Center from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

I also know as well that Mayor Bibb and members of council that you have received emails and calls from myself and other community members urging you to legally prohibit local law enforcement from collaborating with federal immigrant authorities, and I hope that you understand the urgency that such legislation be passed. While I hope that we are able to count on you as public servants I would like to end by thanking and encouraging every community member who joins us in this fight, because at the end of the day it is only we that can keep each other safe.

kids have enough to deal with already. Cleveland can be a lot. You're talking to a guy that used to get beat up on the way to school on 55th, right, so we don't need to put these kids through something else. We know it in the past ICE has lost kids, right, people have been abused, and I don't want to see that happen again to another generation. If you don't know, this is how you create a terrorist, right. You find a young person that's vulnerable, you put him in the system, you put them through everything you can take them through, and then you flush them out on the street. So it's like what do we want. Where are we going as a city. Is it more violence, is it more crime, or are we going to look to help in and heal and love, right, and that's where where my little heart here I want you all to think about that is subconsciously, you know, is this going to be a city of love, you know, are we going to just oh I just love people that look like me, oh we got the same last name both our last names Ed The Vow, so you're my friends, but those guys no and that's a lot of what I've been seeing so if you're from an immigrant family, if your parents came to this, your grandparents came to this country under those same guys, you should be more than willing to accept and help residents that have contributed to this city. So I thank you guys. Thank you Jasmine Santana, Council Santana, councilwoman Howse for your comments. If wasn't for that note, I might not be here. So see my time's coming up, but thank you so much.

Cool, thank you. Hello council members. I am a part of the Latino community and I'm here today because these stories of families being torn apart by ICE have left me devastated and worried for the future of my people. But by no means should this have come as a surprise to any of us, after all, Trump had made it abundantly clear even before his inauguration that he would be pursuing this racist policy. What did surprise me was seeing certain members of this Council come up here and use this tragedy as an opportunity to bash activists and organizers like myself, many of whom are part of this community, that had the gall to come here and demand that you condemn an active genocide in Palestine. Now perhaps had you done some more research, you'd have known that even your main complaint of us not making a statement isn't even true. For years, DSA's platform has included the demand for an end to detainment and unconditional amnesty for all immigrants regardless of current status, and our comrades in PSL and other CPAC partners also denounced Trump's policies in their own post and did the work of informing people of their rights. But even if we hadn't, let's be honest, it is you guys that set the policies. You are the ones who have the legislative power. It is your inaction that has failed us, failed my community, failed the people that are in detainment. Now this is barely the first month of a four-year battle. It's only a matter of time before Trump sets his sights on other groups, trans folks, black folks, women, and the poor. Now if the outrage that I saw up here is truly sincere, then I challenge you, members of this Council, Mayor, and anyone else watching to not be satisfied with empty statements of resistance but to join us on the ground doing the real work of building community, building grassroots power, because we're going to need it. Free Palestine.

My name is Sara Fadlallah and I'm here to connect struggles and highlight ways we can work toward actionable change.

The news of ICE raids within our city has emphasizes the urgency to protect those most vulnerable and valued within our communities. It's time for us to speak out and pass an ordinance within Cleveland to become a sanctuary city. Now more than ever we must challenge the jurisdiction fascist federal practices have within our city, hopefully inspiring or Bader shift to other major cities as well. Let's lead the way and create the safety we need to provide for our fellow Clevelanders. With safety in mind, a natural next step we need to take is defunding surveillance within communities. Oversurveillance predominantly in black and brown wards leads to overpolicing and greater harm, creating such a pervasive level of distrust both from law enforcement and community members alike. An example of ineffectual surveillance tech within Cleveland is Shotspotter, a tech that claims to reduce gun violence. Ironically, within Cleveland, Shotspotter detections lead to longer wait times for law enforcement arrival when humans actually make the distress calls, as Shot spotter alerts are prioritized. The accuracy of these types of technology is often unsubstantiated and grossly exaggerated.

This brings me into my next point. Cleveland should seek to invest in programs that strive to help and uplift the community, many of which organizations like New Era have spearheaded, rather than praise the work we do. People like councilman Joe Jones have villainized and slandered black leaders in Cleveland like chairman Fahiem. These struggles are connected. ICE raids are a weapon the state uses to instill fear in some of our most necessary community members. Surveillance tech mischaracterizes black and brown neighborhoods leading to over policing and a cycle of distrust. It also happens to to be the same tech used under the name of fusus to surveil and propagate the apartheid state of Israel and harass Palestinians daily. This is the same harassment we see locally in the forced separation of families by ICE and attacks on community leaders like Chairman Fahiem who only focus on cating necessary improvements within our city. In every one of these connected struggles, you, our elected leaders, have the capacity to accomplish tangible change. Examples of the actionable items for positive change are as follows: pass an ordinance to be a sanctuary city we claim to be here in Cleveland. Cancel Shotspotter's contract and avoid further surveillance tech that has proven ineffective and costly to taxpayers. Work to drop the charges trumped up against Chairman Fahiem and genuinely reflect on how his efforts and those of New Era have shown positive changes in our community worth pride. Stand with us as we unite to stop our complicity and genocide here and abroad. Within apartheid Israel. The sooner we learn that these crises are linked and noting that organizations citywide are already working toward these goals, the more successful we can build the future. We deserve and protect those most vulnerable. Let's all do our part, and sometimes your part will be to call out your colleagues who make flippant remarks, minimizing the gravity of abuse. Jones, Starr, and Hairston alike should face the consequences of their reprehensible words and actions and then we can get to work. Thank you.

Good evening. Allow me to thank, start by thanking Maurer and Brian Kazy for voting no on the maps. They knew the odds were stacked against them yet they voted their conscious. That's what vote means, conscious vote. I'm sure if Jenny Spencer was here she would have voted no too. As for the 14 who voted yes, though I have few friends among them, I have to tell the truth as I see it, as I feel it. I too apply my conscience and speak my heart out. The 14 members who voted yes collectively received around 30,000 votes in the last election. Cleveland has 250,000 registered voters, and thousands more unregistered that amount to 12% of the registered voters of this city and amount to 7% of the total population of this city. Yet the 14 members with all respect and nothing in person, they took liberty and ripped our community apart and slau that the sense of community in this city, communities that stood for over 100 years, Slavic Village, others. Those community crying today. They didn't expect this Council, their Council to rip them like this, but it happened. I just need to ask you, do you know why Democrats can't win statewide elections anymore, because the practices in this city and in this county. You guys wake up, Trump revolution is sweeping out everything, every establishment in the country from Washington to every city, because he went to the people, the source of power. People are the source of power, just come back to the people and if you come back to the people you won't lose. We all have, I mean I didn't vote for Trump. I vote for Kamala Harris because I didn't want the Trump to win. But the truth is, he had a person betting Sherrod Brown in Ohio person, but just because he endorsed them because come back to the people. You losing you losing so much, but I think I mean you have the power in your hands. The power is out there. Thank you.

Hi my name is Isabella. I'm from Puerto Rico, a nation colonized and occupied by the United States. I'm a volunteer coordinator at the Cleveland Liberation Center. We do community engagement, provide education, host cultural events. We also do community aid. We were one of the first locations available after the tornado to provide space, electricity, and meals. We also kept the center open as a warming center all three days of the cold snap. The Liberation Center receives no city or federal funds, it all comes from our own pockets. We're all volunteers with full-time jobs just trying to to serve our communities in Cleveland. We have also been leading a Know Your Rights campaign in our communities. We started the campaign weeks in advance of Trump's inauguration. We began by going door too. We've also written, produced, and distributed materials to educate people on their rights. Additionally we've run workshops on this same topic. This Wednesday, we are hosting a planning meeting to mobilize the network of organizations and people to enact a community defense strategy to protect our immigrant brothers and sisters. This is the network that we've been developing in preparation for combating what we knew was coming. We built this network to help keep Cleveland safe. We've been in the streets since before Trump got into office and will continue to be out in the streets supporting our communities.

But I have to ask, what are you as our elected officials doing to protect the communities you've been sworn to serve? You can say whatever you'd like at meetings or in interviews but what we need now is real action. Words are meaningless. As our brothers and sisters get detained and deported, you can make Cleveland safe by making it a real sanctuary city, not only in name but in reality. You can pass legislation to prohibit the use of city funds and city resources in assisting federal immigration enforcement. This also means prohibiting police and other law enforcement from collaborating on with ICE on arrest detention and any enforcement of federal immigration law. There's a tendency to view tragedy and violence across the sea as separate and distant from our struggles here, but it's not. The struggle for liberation in Palestine, the struggle for the liberation of Puerto Rico, the struggle for black liberation here and the struggle against the targeting raids and deportations in Latino communities, they're all connected, and you see that in the solidarity we show each other here in Cleveland and in the cities across the nation. So if you're interested in working with your communities, come to the meeting on Wednesday at The Liberation Center and help us keep Cleveland safe by making it a real sanctuary city. We will continue coming here to city council until that's a reality. None of us are free until we're all free.

Good evening members of City Council. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Teri Wang and I'm a former Community Police Commissioner. I appreciate last week's discussions on the new commission nominees during the appointments committee meeting. However it's essential to move beyond the narrative of dysfunction and infighting and address the structural flaws in Charter 1155 created by issue 24 that undermine the commission's effectiveness.

Three key gaps hinder the commission's success: a lack of competent executive leadership, the executive lead director should help commissioners develop and execute a strategic plan, not consolidate power for personal or political gain. A lack of independent legal counsel. The commission needed legal support free from political influence after I worked to secure Mark Wallach, a highly qualified municipal attorney. He was removed by other commissioners for his commitment to legal independence. A lack of skilled and committed commissioners. Commissioners should be selected not just for identity or life experience but for their abilities in strategic planning, critical thinking, creativity, dedication, and moral courage. Last week's appointment committee meeting exposed further flaws in the selection process. Council members had not read nominee applications. Before questioning them, one nominee admitted a personal friendship with Delante Spencer Thomas, the mayor's Chief ethics officer who selected the interviewees. All nine nominees supported police drone use, a statistically improbable outcome for such a complex issue. After finally obtaining and reviewing the applications, a clear pattern emerged. Candidates who gave brief, shallow responses were interviewed. Candidates with thoughtful, diverse answers including were excluded. I spent 5 hours on my reapplication knowing the mayor would retaliate and reject me due to my work on police discipline despite being the only commissioner to meet the Charter's immigrant and refugee requirement. I was denied an interviewed altogether and the category of immigrant and refugee was conveniently omitted from the application. I reapplied because my integrity and work ethic demanded it. The community deserves a record of a commissioner who fought until the end for real civilian oversight. The mayor does not want independent thinkers on this commission. If the council does not support this flawed process, it must act now. I urge Council to reject the mayor's nominees and reopen the application process. The commission exists to intervene on behalf of the public and now Council must do the same to protect its future. Thank you.

Hi Council President. I think it was a mistake. Citizens for Safer Cleveland, Kareem is going to speak. Citizens for Safer Cleveland that's what I put on. Miss bigger staff I I have you down and I have w nine if I start breaking routine then I start running into breaking our own rules. I really want to adhere to that. I've actually had to do that say it again I'm sorry, ago, I had to do that a few weeks ago with Mr. Houston, turn over time I want to be consistent with the rules of Council, so you have the floor. I will um encourage Mr. Henton to make sure that he's up next week because next week is probably going to be the time that he wants to speak on that topic, but as of today you are on the floor.

Okay so there's a couple of things first I want to encourage everyone to go to channel 20 and look at the whole meeting of the selection of the people that was going to be on the commission. I'm going ask the public to look at the whole issue of what is going on so the public would know and they could see for themselves. A couple of things I want to say, this time the people that's been selected have been vetted vetted vetted. There's one issue that we had with this election is the Black Shield. Richard Jackson, Sheila Mason is with Noble, that's a national organization for police. My sister who's the deputy chief of police and Pa was the president of Noble at one point in Pittsburgh. That's national. We need the Black Shield because the Black Shield is local and the Black Shield is community affiliated. We need the Black Shield representation on that commission. That's one point. The second point. Councilman Santana, I'm not here to beat you up but I'm appalled and offended of your comments which you was talking about the activists not standing up for your people. Let me tell you something, when you were running for Council, I went around this whole city promoting you because you was going to be the first Latino council person that we've ever had in this city. I promoted you and when I contacted you to come in your city, for the commission board to come in your city, to this day you have never called me back. Never. Now let me go to the third point about the text messages and the article that I read today concerning the incident that happened here in Council pertaining to Mr. Jones. Councilman Jones, I'm going to direct this at Councilman Hairston and Councilman Starr. These are black men who want to speak up on the things that they feel about you know what I've done. 159 rapes I've investigated and lost four. I've gotten people out of prison for rapes they didn't commit and they come home and they are discombobulated, they have PTSD. Councilwoman Spencer, Councilwoman Howse, Councilwoman Santana, they have PTSD. I just got a guy out a year and a half ago that did 23 years for something he didn't do, so please. I'm not going to say forgive them, they have a right, Richard Starr and Mr. Hairston, to speak up from a black man's point of view. We got to have these black men speak up for the way they feel and the way they see things coming to the criminal justice system, they got that right. They should not be silent, period.

Good afternoon everyone. There are some clear things that I would like for everybody to consider when they go home tonight, is that we all live in this community together, and the one thing I want to point out to Councilman Conwell, to Griffin and the mayor and the rest of the council is, the reason our city looks the way it looks as far as dapid and everything crumbling, most of the houses that's undesirable in our communities are not owned by no residents in the city of Cleveland. We have out of town investors investing in our communities but we don't have no guard rails to protect the citizens and the people that live in the city of Cleveland. So I want you guys to come together and put some type of legislation together to stop all of these out of state investors buying properties, buildings, and not taking care of them or not being held to landlord tenant responsibilities. I think we can do a better job with that.

Okay second thing I want to talk about, and I'll throw this up to the mayor and blame him, I want you guys to sit down and really figure out what's going on with that water department and the utilities, okay. I'm asking y'all politely. There's a serious issue in the city water department and there's a lot of business owners in this community that's ready to take action, okay. It is election time, so I'm going tell everybody, hey man, come out with your best game and I'm going hold you to it. That's each and every last one of y'all. What you campaign on this year is what I'm going hold you to. Legally Mark Griffin I'll be dealing with you in a minute because I'm tired of asking for public records and I'm tired of y'all playing games with me. My law person just got off a plane two weeks ago and I'mma begin to systematically break this trash down here and I mean it. I'm a clean house if you're doing something wrong, you're not following policies and procedures, I will be the person that's going to burn you, and I'm promising you that all I want for my city is for my city to flourish. We have an opportunity, Cleveland, the mayor, Council, everybody. We have an opportunity to put something in front of this country that they follow. We can put a blueprint for our residents from the city of Cleveland to the rest of the world. Y'all got opportunity to make this change, man, either y'all going to make it or y'all, not and if you're a man and a woman and you have integrity and you don't feel like you can fulfill the job, remove yourself, that's all. Because these people voted for y'all. We believe in y'all/ That's why y'all sitting here because we believe in y'all.