Delete WardMaking a Public Comment
Council welcomes public comment before regular council meetings. Fill out the online form below for your chance to make a public comment at the next regular Monday Council meeting. Please read the revised rules and procedures.
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Public Comments
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Why are we not talking about decades of lavish property tax abatements for fancy hotels, swank office buildings, billionaire-owned sports franchises and luxury condos and apartments that effectively strip urban public schools of desperately needed revenue increases? Why are we not talking about gargantuan nonprofit land holdings in Cleveland and massive nonprofit endowments delivering huge income streams that are exempt from property and other tax?
LETTER
Taxpayer provided subsidies and tax abatements for property development like luxury condos and fancy apartments are especially heinous, encouraging powerful, well-connected developers and their well-to-do clients to evade their share of support for urban public schools, while making a financial killing on their property investments.
What do the billionaire-owned sports franchises pay in property tax? And what do the heavily subsidized hotels, office buildings and high-rises’ pay? And what about the massive non-profit industrial complex of hospitals and universities sitting on prime land here? Isn’t it time for them to step up along with other property owners and support our urban public schools?
Meanwhile, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) and the City of Cleveland engage in mind-numbing austerity talk with respect to the public schools as if it’s somehow a good thing, sounding like sadistic neoliberal business orthodoxy: cut the fat, tighten the belt, trim the deadwood; like this is an inherently healthy process. It’s anything but healthy. It’s deeply toxic. It’s deeply toxic because our kids are going to suffer as a result.
As property owners, my wife and I have supported every school tax levy posed to us in the last 50 years, but now on a fixed income, the ever-increasing property valuations, driven up by tax-abated luxury developments and higher ensuing taxes, are getting harder and harder to manage. It’s especially hard because we know full-well that the lion’s share of the tax burden falls on average people, while phantom “trickle-down” tax advantages favor the wealthy, corporations and huge non-profit institutions that do not pay their fair share, while our politicians coddle them because they are big employers or campaign donors.
When running for County Executive Chris Ronayne had suggested certain local nonprofits should step up and throw money into a pot to better support and improve community health, a great idea which should logically include support to urban public schools. The fact is our public-school funding mechanism is structurally inadequate, unfair, racist, and deeply corrupted. Isn’t it the right time to call that out publicly and do something about it?
My wife and I will of course support the Cleveland school levy, as we always do, because children need a decent education. We will also call out the powerful and privileged who do not pay their fair share. We hope you will too. Because sunlight is said to be a very good disinfectant, especially for moral rot.
Arthur Hargate
Cleveland
THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CONCLUDED THAT THE C.P.D. DEMOSTRATED A PATTERN OF " UNEASONABLE AND UNNECESSARY USE OF FORCE". C.P.D. USED GUNS, TASERS. PEPPER SPRAY AND FISTS IN EXCESS.
ONCE AGAIN CLEVELAND BLACK COMMUNITY HAS BEEN BETRAYED BY SO-CALLED BLACK LEADERS AND CLERGY BEHIND THE MAYOR ATTEMPT TO CIRCUMVENT POLICY OR RULE OF LAW.
IT IS REPREHISIBLE THAT MAYOR BIBBS WOULD ATTEMPT TO EMPLOY SOMEONE AS CHIEF PUBLIC SAFETY DIRECTOR WHO WAS CHARGE WITH A FEDERAL CIVIL RIGHT LAWSUIT FOR THE VIOLATION OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF (2) ELDERLY BLACK FOLKS.
WE NEED TO HOLD LAW ENFORCEMENT ACCOUNTABLE FOR MISCONDUCT ALONG WITH ITS BLACK POLITICAL COLLABORATORS.
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE,
We invite any and everyone to become a member of our "New" UNA-USA Chapter with monthly meetings at Burke Lakefront Airport. Membership can be obtained by visiting the UNA-USA website at unausa.org.
Our promotion of PEACE and Unity will include a PEACE Academy with multiple units of engagement for various age groups and Social designations.
Our BIG Picture agenda asks the question of EVERY Clevelander - Do We, as a geographical location, have a "Branding" beyond the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and our sports Teams? Yes, we have highly revered Health and educational institutions, but what is our Brand and what do wish it to be? We have a strong suggestion . . . . .
Thank you,
Gregory Johnson, Community Servant
The Cleveland, baseball team should be re-named because,
Guardians of people don't want to get assaulted from a bat or ball.
Concluding, Guardianship is for an honor of good care to & for people and
shouldn't be mistaken for violence from a bat & or ball (less battering).
The Request to re-name the Cleveland baseball team will honor guardians caring to & for people.
The renaming Cleveland baseball team can end violence mistaken from a bat & or ball.
Thank you for supporting the request of why Cleveland baseball team should be renamed.
The Cleveland football team has attention on the color of people.
The sport injuries are mistaken to injure brown colored people.
The request to re-name the Cleveland Browns football team could create less injuries
and people are glad to keep being drivers.
Thankyou for supporting why the Cleveland football team should be renamed.
A neighbor of - Council 15.
The Cleveland, baseball team should be re-named because,
Guardians of people don't want to get assaulted from a bat or ball.
Concluding, Guardianship is for an honor of good care to & for people and
shouldn't be mistaken for violence from a bat & or ball.
Thank you for supporting why Cleveland' baseball team should be renamed.
A Neighbor of - Council 15
Whether through misguided intentions backed by Matt Zone or plain ignorance Jenny Spencer voted to swap away a park in her ward, ward 15. Given how council politics work, her lack of objection provided cover for everyone else on council to vote it through.
If Council controls the way city funds are allocated it has to be Jenny Spencer needs to introduce emergency legislation to provide for more funds to change current design plans for Marion Seltzer school and save Cudell Park
Or it has to be her that introduces legislation directing the administration to TAKE BACK the park land from CMSD through eminent domain.
Jenny Spencer this is the only logical move you can make if you truly believe Cudell park can be saved and still design a new school.
While Mayor Bibb deserves attention I really think Councilwoman Spencer needs to be held accountable.
If she is “on our side now” then good. She needs to walk the walk and take some REAL action to remedy her mistake. Mayor Bibb washing his hands of the whole deal and passing it off to CEO Dr Morgan of cmsd is wrong.
Mayor Bibb if you can allocate money to build a 2.4 billion dollar stadium you can find $4 million to fix this debacle called Marion Seltzer School. The kids can be shipped off to another school while it's being built or built in another place. You all made a mistake with Watterson Lake and destroyed it as a swing site.
Do not tell us well we're sorry we'll do better next time , no do better this time.
The only people who like this design is the mayor the CEO Dr Morgan the teachers, some parents of students and the people getting paid for designing and building it. I am crying Foul!
The community does not want the school on the park. They were never engaged . But stomping on the little people seems to work for you.
mayor Bibb your climate conference will look like a fiasco by what will be exposed to the attendees on how Cudell Park was mishandled, called and treated like surplus land and devastated by a so called climate committee. Climate Mayor indeed.