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Cleveland City Council
601 Lakeside Ave, Room 220
Cleveland, OH 44114
Dear Cleveland City Councilmembers:
As the City of Cleveland relaunches their community choice electricity aggregation program to procure 100% renewable energy for Cleveland residents and small businesses, we are writing to express our strong support for the program as originally presented within the SOPEC Plan of Operation & Governance and considered in the committee of jurisdiction (669-2023).
The Citizens Utility Board of Ohio (CUB Ohio) advocates on behalf of residential and small business utility customers to ensure cheaper bills, reliable service, transparency, consumer rights, and clean, healthy energy delivered equitably. With membership across the state, CUB Ohio works to address the climate crisis by cleaning up our energy systems and to combat systemic racism by working for environmental justice.
From experience we know that aggregation is a strong tool that local communities can use to deliver low-cost clean energy to residents and small businesses served by investor owned utilities (IOUs). Since the majority of Cleveland consumers are served by an IOU (FirstEnergy), aggregation is one of the most important tools available to the City of Cleveland to supply its residents with monthly cost savings together with affordably-priced clean energy and the reduction of risk and expense posed by future severe weather and other climate disruptions that clean energy provides. In fact, we can identify no option more affordable than aggregation to deliver all of these cost-savings to Clevelanders.
Based on our analysis of the public presentations and comments, we recommend that you implement this plan on a timely basis for the following reasons:
Low Cost:
• If consumers do not have access to the aggregation program, they will be subject to the First Energy default rate of $0.124/kWh. Once the aggregation program is implemented, consumers will be enrolled in a rate of approximately $0.069/kWh. As the average consumer uses approximately 1000 kWh/month, this represents a savings of $55.00 per month for at least twelve months. This greatly outpaces the cost of a delayed start of the plan, and locking in these savings ASAP is the most immediate and most effective tool available to the City of Cleveland to deliver savings to consumers.
• This bulk buying aggregation contract also provides access to low cost purchasing of clean energy that is already factored into the pricing and allow residents to participate in sustainability goals without having to directly purchase infrastructure (such as home insulation or solar panels) on their own property. However, since this program includes net metering, they can choose to invest in their own property without penalty.
Low Income Protections:
• City Cleveland of leaders are appropriately concerned about protecting low-income consumers from additional expenses. These consumers are currently served by the Percentage of Income Payment Plan (PIPP) and are not eligible for this program, so their monthly expenses are unaffected. PIPP is the program for low income residents who face a high monetary burden from paying their energy. While they will not receive the benefit of these savings, they will also not be impacted by the market fluctuations that have led to the high prices from the FirstEnergy default rate.
Strong Oversight:
• There is no long-term commitment to this current plan since pricing will only be locked in for 12 months. While this does open the residents up to the market in years 2 and 3, it also gives you flexibility to work with SOPEC to monitor the market and extend when the market is favorable.
• Council’s new authority to review the contract every 12 months ensures that you will have visibility into the performance of the contract and its track record of success or failure. Additionally, CUB Ohio is committed to offering counsel if and when desired by Council.
Savings Delivered ASAP:
• If this plan is passed without modifications, it will begin to deliver the $55.00/month savings as soon as possible. While we wish that this program was being implemented before the First Energy price increase, at this point the delays between City approval and the start of service result from rigorous PUCO regulations for implementing an aggregation program.
• If the City makes large, material changes to the program as proposed, it runs the risk of further costly delays. This would be detrimental to the City’s consumers because it risks both: a) a delay in the $55.00/month savings and b) the potential for the market price to rise, therefore lowering the $55.00 savings/month for the entire year.
Thank you for considering this letter. We appreciate your diligent oversight and advocacy on behalf of cost savings for Cleveland residents. Given that this plan delivers the greatest saving, both short- and long-term, to Clevelanders, we urge you to adopt 669-2023 as passed by committee.
Sincerely,
Daniel Gray
Citizens Utility Board of Ohio
Cleveland can create a more vibrant, people-friendly environment for Cleveland’s most important address, encouraging more shops and businesses to open, offering services to the public. Travel on Euclid Avenue, between Public Square and Playhouse Square, would be prohibited for cars, trucks and motorcycles, reserved for public buses, pedestrians, cyclists and micro-transit. Delivery vehicles servicing businesses would be eligible to use Euclid Avenue for deliveries between the hours of 2:00 am to 10am.
ADVANTAGES:
Improving public safety and reducing pedestrian and cyclist fatalities. Drivers struck and killed an estimated 7,485 people on foot in the US in 2021, a 12% increase to the highest levels in 40 years, an average of 20 deaths every day (2022, Governors Highway Safety Association). The percentage of speeding-related pedestrian crashes involving children ages 15 and younger more than doubled in the previous three years (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2022).
Providing cleaner air, helping to meet our climate change goals, by reducing traffic emissions. Traffic is the biggest source of urban air pollution, creating risk of serious health conditions, such as cancer, stroke and heart and lung disease and premature birth and childhood asthma. Transportation is a substantial source of particulate air pollution, a substantial pollutant compromising the health of Cleveland residents. Pollution poses higher, specific risks to children and the elderly.
Supporting better personal and public health through cleaner air, walking and biking. Air pollution kills around 7 million people/year, while physical activity can reduce the risk of at least 20 chronic diseases and conditions and provide effective treatment for many of these conditions. An inadequate level of physical activity is associated with $117 billion in annual healthcare costs.
Increasing real estate values for downtown properties. Street closing will increase walking and cycling, supporting economic growth, with new shops and stores opening to serve Cleveland’s “Square to Square” residents and visitors. We can analogize to the value added for proximity to greenways, where studies confirm that living near trails and greenways increases area property value an average of 3-5%, sometimes as high as 15%.
Helping to create Cleveland as a “fifteen-minute city,” where residents can meet their most frequent needs, such as work, school, shopping, child and medical care, in their neighborhoods, without driving a car or personal SUV. While Cleveland's population has steadily declined, stagnating at approximately 350,000 residents, the fastest growing neighborhood is downtown, with office to apartment conversions growing more common. Residents enjoy life in the center of the city. Helping meet the needs of this growing group is important for the life, vibrancy and fiscal strength of the city.
Source: Kevin Cronin, Attorney; The Brown Hoist Building, 4403 St. Clair Avenue, Cleveland 44103
216.377.0615; kevin.cronin.ohio@gmail.com
Cleveland made its mark as one of the very first Ohio cities to transition all residents to 100% renewable energy with its community choice aggregation plan. We encourage City Council and the Administration to steward a swift and successful launch of the City of Cleveland’s next community choice aggregation program for customers in FirstEnergy territory.
It is critical Cleveland embrace the long term savings and environmental and health benefits 100% clean energy aggregation provides. As we are seeing across Ohio, aggregation is proving to be one of the most effective tools to both save money for residents and address our collective impact on climate change by reducing emissions. Other communities achieving cost savings through 100% renewable aggregation include:
Cincinnati ($.0495/kWh, 51% savings)
Columbus ($ .0799/kWh, 33% savings)
Dayton ($.0965/kWh, 11% savings)
Lakewood ($.06875/kWh, 45% savings)
Shaker Heights ($.0771/kWh, 38% savings)
Worthington ($.06935/kWh, 41% savings)
The City of Cleveland aggregation program is projected at $.0696/kWh, a savings of 44% over FirstEnergy’s Standard Service Offering.
Clevelanders are concerned about climate change and the most vulnerable community members will bear the brunt of the consequences unless we act now. One cost effective way to take action is with a 100% clean renewable energy aggregation program. It is the most impactful and immediate action Cleveland can take to address climate change. Implementation of a program that prioritizes support of existing renewable energy generation and development of local/regional renewable energy generation can immediately eliminate 20-25% of a community’s carbon emissions.
Additionally, due to the volatile fossil fuel market, electricity prices are rising this summer for FirstEnergy customers in Cleveland. Moving forward swiftly with renewable energy aggregation will limit financial hardships of customers facing rising utility costs and provide longer-term cost savings.
We ask that Cleveland City Council pass Ordinance No. 669-2023 as considered in the committees of jurisdiction, ensuring 100% clean, renewable energy in its community choice aggregation plan.
We applaud the leadership of the Bibb administration, Office for Sustainability, Public Utilities Committee, Finance Committee, and the entire City Council, and other city staff for relaunching the city of Cleveland’s community choice aggregation program. We urge you to stay the course and to see this effort through to fruition. This letter is an indication of the many stakeholders in the city of Cleveland that are behind you in this effort.
Respectfully,
SeMia Bray, Black Environmental Leaders
Dan Gray, Citizens Utility Board of Ohio
James Burton, Institute for Market Transformation
Rachael Belz, Ohio Citizen Action
Melissa English, Ohio Consumers Power Alliance
Brian Siggers & Emily Bacha, Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund
Joe Flarida, Kwame Botchway & Elena Stachew, Power A Clean Future Ohio
Tristan Rader, Solar United Neighbors
Don Bryant, Utilities for All
LINK: https://www.theoecactionfund.org/s/Cleveland-Aggregation-Coalition-Support-Letter-6523.pdf
It appears as if a relatively small number of large property owners are imposing their will on a large number of smaller ones. It’s not at all clear that the community will benefit much from the SID, but it is crystal clear that certain UCI member institutions will.
One wonders how UCI will expand the SID in the future, both in terms of imposition of costs for other services and projects, and in terms of the areal extent of the SID.
It worries me that there is little determined questioning of potential underlying motives and future implications of an SID that may not be transparent to the community now. Many people that live in host neighborhoods to UCI’s members institutions, based on their history, are correctly skeptical that all is what it is being sold as with the proposed SID. It feels very much like the camel is just getting its nose under the tent.
I suggest City Council defer a vote until UCI’s new leadership is in place, has an opportunity to assess the SID and can be thoroughly and vigorously questioned by UCI’s host communities that are entitled to a complete understanding of the future implications of the SID. Appropriate restraints and oversight must be in place with any SID to assure that the University Circle institutions’ host neighborhoods are properly informed, listened to and respected.
Thank you,
Arthur Hargate
Edgehill Rd., Little Italy, Ward 6
State your name, affiliation and note that you are a Cleveland resident
Acknowledge the historical nature of tonight and 2023 City Council’s leadership and role in the realization of CentroVilla25, a long time vision of the Hispanic residents of Cleveland
Directly thank Council President Blaine Griffin and Councilwoman Jasmin Santana
Recognize City Council members (as a group not by name) for sending a clear message to the Hispanic community members in the City and region that nuestra gente están presente and add your eloquent comments
Tonight City Council stands as partners with a broad array of individuals and institutions who have embraced and invested in CentroVilla25. These include but are not limited to: Hispanics and host committee members who have contributed time, talent and treasure; corporations that have donated; other public sector entities such as County Council representative who contributed; a nonprofit that invested and challenged others to participate; and philanthropic entities that stepped up to recognize the local and regional benefits and wealth creation opportunities brought forth by CV25 through culture, community and commerce.
Gracias for … add your closing
A ve
But always we must ask these questions of their positions: Who benefits? And who pays?
This much we know: the cosmic lie of “trickle-down” economic development decisions the last 50 years here is one very good reason why Cleveland remains one of the poorest big cities in the United States, with underfunded public schools, a devastated urban tree canopy, high rates of urban infant mortality, deep racial segregation and discrimination, crumbling infrastructure in certain neglected neighborhoods, a lack of living wage jobs, many dangerous streets, declining population and an affordable housing crisis.
If the business and property development community’s approach to economic development had worked, we would have made much more progress on these intractable problems the last 50 years. They have held considerable sway and dictated their policies and preferences to the Mayor’s administration and City Council for decades, and look at the results.
Why would we listen to them yet again and expect different outcomes? The people that live in Cleveland can no longer allow private interests to continue to gorge themselves at the overflowing trough of public money while poor people remain poor and the middle class in this City can’t catch an even break.
City Council needs to stand its ground and promote economic and property development that benefits ALL Clevelanders, not just the region’s posh, powerful and privileged.
Thank you.
While I know there are numerous issues that the city faces I am writing about one that affects me daily. The public health crisis of noise pollution. Specifically the noise coming from the park behind my home. I know it may not be a concern to many who don't have the same issue. Believe me I could not fathom it before I had to live this nightmare. I live on Reservoir Place Drive behind Luke Easter Park and year after year as the weather warms up the car stereos and bass systems get louder and louder. My windows and glass table have actually vibrated from the sound. They park right behind my house and turn it up as loud as they can. Even if they are further away at the rec center the bass carries to my house. It is truly distressing. I cannot concentrate, I have migraine headaches and find myself being nervous and on edge due to lack of rest and just anticipating the noise.
The park is not even a safe or welcoming place for the children and families it is intended for as adults take over and blast music with explicit lyrics that can be heard far and wide right near the playground portion. These persons have no concern for the obvious disruption to the people living in the homes that are clearly visible to them and just feet away. The police do not respond to the phone call complaints of the noise. They simply do not come. I have to endure it until they decide to leave the area. I've heard it even while the little league teams play their games back there. They stay even after the dark, after 9:00pm when the park closes with the noise blaring. I need help and am asking for a reprieve from this torture. If there's something I can do short of approaching one of them again please let me know. I don't have peace in my own home. I plan to move soon, but of course the elevated interest rates and inflated housing prices make it a poor financial decision and a tough time to do so and it's sad that I am being forced out. I cannot understand why this type of behavior is acceptable.
We, the undersigned organizations, ask for your support for an ordinance that ends the sale of all flavored
tobacco products including menthol and establishes a Tobacco Retail License (TRL) in the City of Cleveland.
For decades, the tobacco industry has targeted communities of color with flavored tobacco products. Products
such as menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars were intentionally developed to mask the harsh taste of
tobacco, allowing more frequent use, and resulting in higher addiction rates. The industry’s predatory
behavior has had a devastating impact. Black communities suffer the greatest burden of tobacco-related
death, with black adults 32% more likely to die from heart disease and 45% more likely to die from stroke.
Now the tobacco industry is using the same tactics to addict our children. Kid-friendly flavors like gummy bear,
grape crush and cotton candy, often used in non-combustible “e-cigarettes,” are designed to hook a new
generation of tobacco users. Nearly all (97%) youth e-cigarette users report using flavored products, and the
overwhelming majority point to flavored products as their starting point.
In addition to ending the sale of flavored products, the City of Cleveland needs better tools to enforce existing
tobacco laws. While the minimum age for tobacco sales was raised to 21 in 2015, enforcement efforts
continue to be inadequate in deterring sales to underage youth. In 2019, only 28% (176) of Cleveland’s 618
tobacco retailers received a compliance check. Of the 176 inspections performed, 66 or 38% failed inspection.
And of the tobacco retailers that failed inspection, 78% received only a warning letter.
A comprehensive Flavored Tobacco and Tobacco Retail License ordinance is needed to:
• End the sale of all flavored tobacco products, including but not limited to menthol cigarettes, flavored
cigars/cigarillos, flavored e-cigarettes, flavored smokeless tobacco, flavored shisha/hookah, etc.
• Require every tobacco retailer in Cleveland to get a license and renew annually so the city can know
how many tobacco retailers are operating in the city and more effectively enforce local, state, and
federal tobacco laws.
• Use the annual tobacco retail license fee to fund robust enforcement efforts, including at a minimum
one compliance check per retailer per year.
• Hold retailers accountable for unlawful sales to youth through graduated penalties and license
suspension or revocation for repeated violations.
Ending the sale of flavored products addresses decades of predatory marketing on behalf of the tobacco
industry directed towards communities of color, as well as recent efforts to hook a generation of youth users
with flavored e-cigarettes. Establishing a Tobacco Retail License will allow the City to better enforce laws that
keep tobacco products out of the hands of youth. Taken together, these policies give the City the tools needed
to lower Cleveland’s startling high smoking rate of 35.2% (a rate significantly higher than state and national
averages), prevent future tobacco addiction and tobacco-related health outcomes including heart disease,
lung cancer and stroke, and reduce the health disparities that confront Cleveland’s Black and Brown
communities as a result of decades of racial targeting.
Please put the health of our kids and community first by passing a comprehensive Flavored Tobacco and
Tobacco Retail license ordinance that ends the sale of ALL flavored tobacco products in Cleveland and ensures
tobacco retailers aren’t selling to underage customers. This policy will go a long way toward addressing racism
as a public health crisis in the City of Cleveland.
Sincerely,
American Cancer Society - Cancer Action Network
American Heart Association
American Lung Association
A Vision of Change
Better Health Partnership
Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids
Care Alliance Health Center
Case Western Reserve University
Center for Black Health and Equity
Center for Health Affairs
Center for Community Solutions
Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Office of Minority Health
Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority
First Year Cleveland
Healthy Cleveland BreatheFree Committee
Hospice of the Western Reserve
MetroHealth
Midtown Cleveland Inc.
Mt. Sinai Health Foundation
National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) – Cleveland Branch
National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc.
Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition
Northeast Ohio Neighborhood Health Services, Inc.
Ohio Public Health Association
Old Brooklyn Community Development Corporation
Parents Against Vaping E-Cigarettes
Preventing Tobacco Addiction Foundation
See You at the Top (SYATT)
Signature Health
Slavic Village Community Development Corporation
The African American Tobacco Control Leadership
Council
The Gathering Place
University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's
Hospital
Urban League of Greater Cleveland
Young Latino Network
YWCA Greater Cleveland