February 10, 2025

to send my condolences to the young man that was shot in the head it was 10 he passed away. I want to send the family my condolences for that.

Secondly I'm going to hold this up. Councilwoman Santana is not here today, but I want her to see Latinos for Trump, and you see this man is in handcuffs. I warn Kevin, do not vote for him. See Latinos for Trump and he's in handcuffs. Senator Moreno Senator Moreno comes into the black neighborhoods. wanted our support when he was running before front page of the paper. Moreno urges the DOJ to review consent decree. He want the consent decree to go even though they're still at 47% in compliance. I want us to start, see black people, we help everybody. But when it come time for us to get some help, we don't get it. I don't even see nobody walk with me when my brother Craig got killed by the police. I don't see people walking with us when you here fight with other people that got killed by the police, and it's been a hundred. I don't see that, but they always want us to help them. Damn it I want us to get help. Help us. Help us, look at his picture on the front page of the paper. Front page of the paper, and see how he played us. He came in our community just about a year and a half ago had a nerve to come to the Black History Month for Martin Luther King birthday and look what he doing, and this is for blacks that help blacks. Do you know blacks is low on a totem pole. When it comes to the federal government everybody got executive orders but us. We got the M thing, that's fine, but that it means nothing though. What does it mean. I'm glad they did it but what does it mean. Where's the enforcement at. It's two things I want blacks to do, I want us to stop killing each other and I want us to join together as a unit so we can stand up for our needs, economics, health, crime, mass incarceration, police brutality. My brother been dead 24 years. January 26 was 24 years. 24 years. He got grandkids now that he didn't even see. So at the end of the day, at the end of the day, I want blacks to help blacks, and I want you guys to reach out the blacks. Help us like you come in our neighborhood and want us to help everybody else. That's all I got to say.

Hi everyone. I want to thank Council, I really didn't get an opportunity to say that earlier at the committee meeting, for your openness to evaluating the fairness of the makeup of the community police commission, that I really feel like you have sought to listen to myself but also the community in general.

So many of the stakeholders that are critical to this work of having a safer city.

I want to talk about the importance of understanding how we define us. What does that mean, who is we, and about a year ago, a little over a year ago, I was very viciously verbally attacked by a public official. I recorded it, I told everybody I was recording it, and I contacted the Law Department about it. And instead of it being addressed I received a very angry phone call asking why did I do that, why did I send that, what was I doing. I don't understand that question. I was just a community member trying to participate and do what I think is right and I was attacked by somebody who works for you all, and should be working for us. I wasn't afforded any protection. There are so many people in the city who are not afforded protection who should be and the people who are afforded protection, I don't, they're people who have pre-existing power. These nominations, and what has kind of gone into all of this I think has been a very sad reflection to except for I actually really believe the way that Council has kind of treated this it's been an example of uplifting people who of pre-existing power and seeking to further disenfranchise people who are otherwise already disenfranchised, whether that be race, whether that's organized labor. I implore you to consider that, and to the Law Department to try to reconsider how you define 'us'. It's all of us and you guys as Council have the capacity to get outside Council if you need to, and so I recommend that if you don't feel like your interests are being represented to please seek that. Thank you very much.

Thank you Council President. Good evening everybody. I first want to thank the council members that have made a statement or have stood up for immigrants in this country. If you look at this room right now none of us are natives to this land. We are all immigrants, and we don't look at it that way. We're so privileged to look over time and point the finger at everybody else. Our mayor, the day after the election, and I'm going to address you now directly, after the election you posted a statement you will work directly with the Trump Administration. Do you will work to support and work alongside them? Two days ago you went with politician way because that's who you are. You're a politician and nothing more but a marketing geek that loves to do marketing and post things and statements, and decided to put a statement that you are for the immigrants, then you went on Google translate because that's exactly what happened and translated in the worst way you could and put a statement in Spanish.

This nation, the immigrants here are not only Latinos, let's just start there. There's many immigrants from all around the world that are coming here are being targeted right now. I'm not going to point the finger at any of you here in Council because I know some of you are doing your best to get immigrants protected in the city and to keep Cleveland a sanctuary city or make it one that will last forever for our people. This time my people are suffering. My people are the ones that are right now being taken by the masses and there are school districts who are releasing statements that are allowing ICE to jump into their schools.

So now I'm going to ask the mayor to work with the Director of Education to make sure that our CMSD schools are not allowing ICEto walk into private or public property and attack our immigrant children. If you have some decency think about that. I am a week away to be a father and I do not want my child to be born into a world where he is going to be targeted because he's Latino. I do not want my child to have to hide who he is because he will be targeted and maybe deported though he's a citizen. So I do ask for you directly Mr. Mayor to work with the CMSD officials to make sure that every single CMSD school is protected and our city is acceptance of immigrants and protect immigrants. I also ask you work with CPD closer there those if any executive orders pass for the federal level, CPD does not get involved in any way shape or form in the deportation of immigrants. That is not their job. I again repeat, please work with CMSD, the police, and this body here to make sure that our immigrants are protected, safe, and can live in a city that they can call home away from home.

Yes sir thank you, I'm happy to be here, and it's the most disrespected and unprotected. I want to start by saying thank you directly Councilman Blaine, I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for you not only as the president of City Council but as a father and as a black man.

First I know your sons and so I thank you. Secondly I want to send my love and condolences to that family that lost that 10-year-old child. All of you know my stance when it comes to gun violence in our community, especially when it comes to protecting our children and our babies. I have no limitations on doing whatever is required. Secondly this administration, the mayor's administration, Mayor Justin Bibb, you need to come up with a comprehensive plan for violence prevention and intervention that is serious, because the amount of children that have died in the last four years is ridiculous, not only in the city of Cleveland but the surrounding suburbs. If you believe that violence in Maple, in Bedford and in Garfield is not directly correlated to Cleveland you are confused. Now when it comes to black women right, the backbone of the black community is our women. The foundation that I stand on today, the core values that I've developed has been given to me by black women. Now I think it's a nice sentiment for Council to talk about equity and inclusion and opportunities for black women, but what are we doing to ensure that they're protected when they get these opportunities. What policies are we developing to protect black women in these spaces and to see the conduct being condoned. It's sickening. Now a few years back we found a young missing girl in the Lee Harvard neighborhood. I remember reaching out to a particular councilman and going to his office with the mother of this sad child who had been missing for 11 weeks. Now this mother was living in a house with no water no lights no gas, and the home had just recently been riddled with bullets. This 11-year-old girl was raped by her sister's fiance. This mother's oldest child was birthed with her grandfather, and this council member scolded this mother for the child's behavior and said that the mother should discipline, physically discipline this child. I watched that mother break down in tears. Year to date that mother overdose on Fentanyl, that girl that was 12 then is now 14 going on 15, and is still actively being sex trafficked in this same community. It's sickening and it has to stop. And I'd be remiss like to not say this, the makings of a man is not just defined by our anatomy, having a little thing flapping between your legs is not necessarily make you a man. You are a male yes, but are you doing what is required to be a man, integrity. And I'll close with this. This is like national love week we all know what's approaching on Friday, and to my Queen at home that's taking care of our sick child and that's sick with the flu, I want to tell her that before I knew you I prayed for you, and she is a constant reminder every day of God's grace, mercy, and love for me, and I don't take any of these opportunities for granted. And I'm grateful for Shout out to the black queens. Thank you.

A few years back we responded for a female in labor and when we got there, we found serious complications. And when the baby was born he was not breathing and had no pulse, and we were able to resuscitate that baby in the hallway of his apartment building. That's why I love being a paramedic, we literally get to save lives.

But in order to save that life, hundreds of things have to go right. It takes a system, an EMS system, and in Cleveland we have historically invested very little in our EMS system. Of the 50% of the general fund that goes into public safety, only 5% of it goes into EMS, and with that 5% last year the men and women of Cleveland EMS responded to 17,652 calls and transported 774 people to the hospital. Our paramedics, EMTs, and dispatchers are the hardest working, highest educated Public Safety workers. But we're not just resting on our laurels, we're working on new cutting edge medicine like blood transfusions for gunshot victims and people who crashed their car. And we're also working on ventilators for respiratory patients. But we can't do it alone. We need the help of this body. During the October operational review, Commissioner Wheeler came in here and he told this body that he needs 315 EMS employees for 2025, yet he's been told that he's only going to get 304. Our ask is that you amend the 2025 budget to add 11 EMS positions to the budget. And the good news is there's an easy way to pay for this. Over the past few years we've doubled our billing rates and brought in a new claims company. Our ask is that we take some of that money and reinvest it back in EMS so that we can have more good outcomes. Thank you.

All right, good afternoon everybody. I just want to point out a few things to give y'all a little food for thought, because everybody here supposed to be intelligent. I noticed that we got 17 city council members, and out of the 17 city council members only four City Council members have offices in their wards. I would suggest that the rest of you guys get offices in your wards because if you have offices in your wards then you can engage with your community in a lot much more better fashion.

Sitting here, I've been down here since 10:00 this morning, it is very interesting in this building, very interesting. Sitting down here today, I was at a community meeting, and some things came up about development in over there on I believe Hough area, ward seven. Fannie Lewis. I'm a product of Fannie Lewis. I have two properties over there in that ward. Okay I have a property on dible, and I also have a property on line. We were able to play in that Lee Park. Right now Lee Park is chained up and only used by permit. There's not one black person using that facility, and it was open free when we grew up over there okay. Fannie Lewis fought hard to keep certain things connected to that community such as Legacy Village. It took her a while to get that done because she wanted it done in a special way, affordable for the people that live in that area. Right now I would ask City Council to reconsider that proposal to tear down Martin Luther King because it was done by another city councilman that's not there, and also brought up on criminal charges. So I think that you guys should pull back on that, redo it to make sure that it's being done properly. And one thing I would like to say to Miss Jones, please make sure if we're putting $2, 200 and $300,000 houses in that area where the only high income is $30,000, then that's a problem okay. You're outsourcing people that's grew up over there, okay. Fight for it to make it affordable. Don't outsource that community in that type of way for new developments, because developments is always going to be for us, the people that's in that community, black people, okay. So I'm asking you guys to start paying attention a little more before you vote on certain things because you have to do due diligence, and I don't see a lot of due diligence on what's being done in the city of Cleveland. We need more accountability. We're not getting a fair shake for our tax dollars, and it's on you guys, and it's going to get deep. And I'm asking you guys to pay attention, that's all I'm asking, pay attention and do the right thing. Thank you.

Good evening everybody, Matthew Ahn, current ward three, future ward five. I ran for office last year, not the only one here who's done that, but I bet not too many of you were called a, quote, 'illegal immigrant' on the campaign trail. Surrogates voters there several folks who wanted to say that based on how I looked I could not have been born in the US. It must have been my glasses or something. I've been keeping this from my mother for a year, not that she as a naturalized citizen hasn't heard the same about herself, but I knew the weight that it would saddle her with to have to confront it, not for herself but for me. But I can't stay silent, not after this week. On Monday I sat in this meeting as folks asked you to protect our neighbors, echoing comments to County Council by Clevelanders. Two weeks ago on Wednesday, the state legislature advanced HB26 to committee. The bill would reduce funding to cities if they don't enact harsh immigration policies to target anyone who looks or acts different enough. Calculating based on this year's mayor's estimate, Cleveland might lose out on 0.3% of its revenue. Even Mayor Bibb's video statement on the 28th May violate the text of House Bill 26. Even though it still follows the mayor's use of the pejorative term, quote, 'illegals', twice in an interview. Two weeks prior both that and quote, 'illegal immigrant', have been disfavored by the Associated Press style book since 2013. On Friday at the City Club I heard Chief Todd say two relevant things to this conversation. First, there is plenty of work to do for police to rebuild trust in the community, and second, regardless of the cost of the consent decree, which was the topic of the event, there is no price that she or any of us can put on a person's life. And so my request, put a sanctuary policy in writing so that those already on the margins of society do not feel like they'll be targeted when asserting their rights as a crime victim, a taxpayer, a resident, or a worker. The 0.3% which we may already lose anyway cannot be made up through other means, and as co-chair of America is All In, Mayor Bibb should know that private grants may be able to offset a budget shortfall and 0.3% is not worth the people's lives who will be upended by a deportation, held up by an ICE detainer, or even just baselessly questioned about their status because of their glasses. On Saturday I tabled at a resistance fair put on by the Cleveland Heights Democratic Club. This mayor has said that Clevelanders are tired of the resistance, but over 1,500 people showed up to that event, including many Clevelanders whose singular goal was to resist more over the next four years. We know that Clevelanders want to get local. We know that we are not going to ever speak with the fancy consultants running national campaigns in DC, and when these folks tune into this fall's elections, elections that can be easily swung by a few per turnout increase, will they find leaders who put 0.3% of their money where their mouth is to resist and advocate for the least of us, or will they find leaders who talk a big game but focus on moving TIF money around for billionaires. I urge this mayor as well as Council to formalize sanctuary policy in a legally binding manner as soon as possible. And to my mom, if you're watching this, I'm sorry, we can talk about it later. Thank you.