There are 17 members on Cleveland City Council, but only one, Charles Slife, has a front-row seat to Cleveland’s future.
Since taking office in November, Slife has served as City Council’s representative on the seven-member City Planning Commission. The other six members are appointed by the Mayor.
The Commission meets at City Hall at 9 a.m. on the first and third Fridays of each month. They review and approve plans for major new buildings. Here is how cleveland.com reported on the Aug. 22 meeting.
“The Cleveland City Planning Commission on Friday approved several apartment projects, including a new 23-story building that would replace a downtown parking lot. The projects come as demand for higher-rent apartments in downtown Cleveland has started to soften, along with the rest of the economy. However, developers think there is enough demand to keep building.”
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The Planning Commission plays a key role in keeping growth projects on track, Slife said.
“As members, we deliberate proposed zoning changes, public art, and large construction projects. We help to ensure that Cleveland neighborhoods benefit from development, and that new buildings enhance quality of life and encourage additional investment.”
Friday meetings can take up to four hours. Members also spend time preparing for agenda items.
“Developers and contractors are often eager to see a new building, or meet a construction timeline,” Sllife said. “What’s most important is that we get the best possible project for the city, and not something that has been rushed through.”
Projects west of West 85th Street are first reviewed by the Far West Design Review Committee. Members send their recommendation to the Planning Commission, Slife said.
“The projects we review create jobs for West Park and the entire city,” Slife said. “Even a project in University Circle affects the tax base for all city residents.”
Background
The Planning Commission prepares plans to guide the development of the city and its neighborhoods. Duties include:
Zoning
Design Review
Historic Preservation
Public Art
Maps and Data
Development Planning
Neighborhood Planning
Special Purpose Plans
Slife’s background made him an ideal candidate for a seat on the Planning Commission. From Cleveland State University, he has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration, focusing on Economic Development. He previously worked for Mayor Jackson, as a special assistant for Regional Development.
Slife was formerly a location consultant for corporate clients of The Austin Company. He was also a trustee for West Park Kamm’s Neighborhood Development, formerly known as KCDC.
Six Cleveland photographers will donate their time for free, providing on-site photoshoots to anyone who brings a new sock donation or cash donation at “The Sock Exchange” event from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 29.
All proceeds will benefit The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH). The event will take place at Fairhill Partners, a local community nonprofit located at 12200 Fairhill Rd.
The purpose of The Sock Exchange is to raise support for The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless. Each year, NEOCH’s street outreach teams provide thousands of needed humanitarian items to people experiencing unsheltered homelesseness in the Cleveland area. Sock and cash donations collected at The Sock Exchange event will support NEOCH’s outreach collaborative work.
Depending on the size of the donation, community members will receive anywhere from a 5 minute to a 20 minute photoshoot, as well as an offsite hour-long photoshoot for anyone donating $50. The six photographers who will be participating include Ernest Hatten, Jef Janis, Shemiah Woods, Julian Harris, Bridget Caswell, and Celena E.H.
The mission of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless is to organize and empower homeless and at-risk men, women and children to break the cycle of poverty through public education, advocacy and the creation of nurturing environments.
Traditional Oktoberfest festivities may be cancelled around the world due to COVID-19, but Clevelanders can still get their festival fix. The historic German restaurant is offering Oktoberfest To-Go packages that include a traditional meal that feeds 4-6 people and beer growlers with glass steins, available to pre-order and pickup just in time for what would have been the Cleveland Oktoberfest weekend. As an added treat, the restaurant has also curated a public Oktoberfest Spotify playlist for guests to enjoy their food or beer with the traditional sounds of the festival.
The food package features a classic protein of your choice (Schnitzel, Schweinshaxe or Roasted Chicken), 5 sausages, over 4 lbs. of sides, Bienenstich (Beesting Cake), Lebkuchenherzen (gingerbread cookies) and traditional German candies.
The beer package features 2 (64 oz.) growlers, filled with your choice of 8 exclusive Oktoberfest draft brews along with 2 half liter glass Paulaner steins. Add on an additional bottle/can variety 6 pack of Oktoberfest beer with an additional half liter mug.
“Oktoberfest is what we look forward to every year,” said Der Braumeister owner Jenn Wirtz. “After learning the festivals would be cancelled, we wanted to make sure our customers still got the opportunity to celebrate, even if it’s just from the comfort of their own homes!”
All packages can be pre-ordered, paid and scheduled for pickup online. Pickup dates will be available from September 3 – 5, between 4 – 6 p.m. Additional information, including full food and beer list, and the link to order are available here.
Last May, while the pandemic and recession sapped state revenue, Gov. Mike DeWine cut funding for education and health care. As policymakers prepare for the next budget year, a Policy Matters Ohio report shows how the cuts set a lower baseline for critical programs like education, mental health and public defense attorneys.
“Congress has yet to provide the kind of aid state and local governments need to protect the public,” said report author, Senior Project Director Wendy Patton. “That’s forcing state lawmakers to make cuts they shouldn’t have to make. However, years of cuts at the state level have left Ohio ill-prepared. State lawmakers have underfunded programs that make Ohio communities stronger and healthier in favor of tax cuts and tax breaks that benefit corporations and the wealthy few.”
In May, Gov. DeWine cut $776 million from the current 2020-21 state budget’s General Revenue Fund (GRF). Partly due to the pandemic, GRF spending came in $1.5 billion below appropriations. The cuts have established a lower baseline for 2021 appropriations. The Office of Budget and Management said spending on many public services should be held to 2020 levels. Budget cuts for FY 2021 have not been announced, but Patton confirmed at least $440 million in planned reductions: $309 million from K-12 schools, $89 million from higher education and $46 million to help counties fund public defenders. Also vulnerable are important programs that were scheduled to receive increased funding in 2021, like the programs to lower Ohio’s high infant mortality rate among Black communities.
With Congress unable to come to an agreement about the next COVID-19 aid package, Patton said it’s more important than ever for state leaders to leverage Ohio’s public revenue in ways that will support all communities.
“State policymakers have tools to help Ohioans keep the lights on, the rent paid and food on the table,” Patton said. “They can rebalance the tax code so the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share. They can stop unproductive tax giveaways. They can tap the rainy day fund. They can use different buckets of federal funds. During this unprecedented public health crisis and recession, everything must be used to help struggling families.”
By Malcolm Burnley and Rachel Dissell, The Fuller Project
(Pictured: Lynn Rodemann)
Lynn Rodemann walked up the driveway, a mask fixed tightly to her face.
A mother of five welcomed her into the backyard, where she was cleaning up the colorful, damp decorations from a child’s birthday party the evening before.
Rodemann, a community outreach specialist, is part of a pandemic response team traversing Slavic Village to check on residents and offers information on a rent assistance program – and an application to vote by mail in the upcoming November presidential election.
Working the overnight shift as a corrections officer at a women’s prison during a pandemic, coupled with limited child care options is a daily struggle, the woman said.
“You could see how tired she was,” says Rodemann, who broke social distancing protocol to give the woman, who started to cry, a hug. “I was so devastated for her.”
After that encounter, she wondered how a mom like the one she had met could have any energy left to worry about voting. A few days later, Rodemann returned to the home with a care package: masks, alcohol wipes and a thermometer.
“If there’s a possibility that they’re losing their house, they don’t give a shit about voting,” says 39-year-old Rodemann, who has worked for Slavic Village Development in the historic but under-resourced neighborhood for six years.
“They’re worried about keeping a roof over their head and still eating.”
And just as fears of evictions remain in thiscommunity 10 minutes south of downtown Cleveland, it’s a concern facing thousands of Americans nationwide.
Policy experts predict an “avalanche” of evictions to hit low-income renters across the country this fall. Women are expected to be the majority of the30 to 40 million Americans at risk of eviction by year’s end, according to findings from the Aspen Institute. If income-insecure women face losing their homes – and access to a stable address to receive voting registration, ballots, applications, and critical change-of-address forms – this could impact how many of them vote in the upcoming presidential election, experts say, adding this could also have a significant impact on the outcome of the November election.
“These aren’t issues that people look at together, but they should be looking at together,” says Shailly Gupta Barnes, policy director for the Poor People’s Campaign and the Kairos Center.
A recent NPR analysis found neighborhoods with higher evictions had lower voter turnout than the rest of the city, including other low-income neighborhoods. In Slavic Village, the worry is that voter turnout, which hasn’t rebounded from the last housing crisis more than a decade ago, could get worse. In 2016, only 38.5 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, thesecond-lowest among neighborhoods in the city.
Cleveland and Cuyahoga County have allotted $18.1 million in federal CARES Act and Community Development Block Grant money to help renters. As she goes door-to-door, Rodemann and others spread the word about the rental assistance program, administered by CHN Housing Partners, a housing nonprofit, which can cover rent for up to three months.
The neighborhood has followed the pattern of other industrial and urban communities: a booming population at the start of the century, then deindustrialization post World War II, urban flight, and declining populations,empty homes and increases in poverty and crime rates. By the Great Recession, the 5-square-mile neighborhood had more foreclosures in its 44105 zip code during the spring and summer of 2007than any other zip code in the United States. The housing market, then in crisis across the country, was devastated in Slavic Village. As it continues its climb to recovery, the community again staves off another wave of housing displacement wrought by COVID-19.
Now get-out-the-vote efforts are more difficult as coronavirus cases top 5 million in the U.S. and nearly 4,500 in Cleveland. That’s why a vote-by-mail application is included in the same handout packet alongside rent payment assistance information that Rodemann hands out.
Organizers are also helping voters navigate Ohio’s ballot request process through smaller hands-on events at places like Daisy’s Ice Cream on Fleet Avenueand Neighborhood Pets, a local pet food pantry and resource center.
Dozens of volunteers hand-wrote 2,000 postcards to new and infrequent voters in Slavic Village, encouraging them to vote this cycle.
I’ve been helping to coordinate the postcard packets. This is the pile in my living room and it’s still growing.
Women have consistently outpaced men in voter turnout across racial groups and education levelssince the 1980s. And because women, as a voting bloc, have historically leaned toward Democratic party candidates, evictions could mean a partisan impact. In 2016, then -Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton led among women voters by13 percent compared to President Donald Trump. That gap has widened in 2020, putting former Vice President Joe Biden ahead of President Trump by25 percent among women voters, according to recent polling.
For now, the anticipated surge in evictions hasn’t manifested. In July, there were 423 eviction filings in Cleveland,down 55 percent from the same month the year prior. But there’s reason to believe the data doesn’t yet reflect the situation to come.
The national moratorium on evictions — a 120-day freeze that applied to many renters and was part of the CARES Act — was lifted in July. On August 11, President Trump said: “We are stopping evictions. We’re not going to let that happen,” But the president’s top economic policy analyst, Larry Kudlow, walked back those comments days later.
Meanwhile, Congress has been unable to agree on further relief for keeping people in their homes, despite the success of CARES Act protections.
“Eviction and voting don’t go real well together. It becomes a form of voter suppression,” says Bill Faith, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio.
In the months leading up to the election, community groups in Cleveland have stepped in to register voters and recruit poll workers, canvassed door-to-door while passing out supplies like masks, bandanas and hand sanitizer.
One of those groups is Cleveland VOTES, a nonpartisan organization founded by two Black women. The group aims to get low-income residents involved in the democratic process in tandem with the board of elections. As of Aug. 17, the county elections board had received more than40,000 vote-by-mail applications.
“I know that people are getting the message, I know that more people are applying for vote-by-mail,” says Jennifer Lumpkin, civic engagement strategist for Cleveland VOTES.
The decline has been attributed to a confluence of factors, including fear of the virus, conflicting information about when and how to vote, slowed mail delivery and primary races that were less competitive than in 2016. Another factor was the two-step process to vote by mail, or absentee, in Ohio. Voters have to fill out and return a paper ballot application to their local board of elections before getting a ballot to cast.
Early and in-person voting will still be offered, though the state is limiting secure ballot drop boxes to one in each of the state’s 88 counties. Given health and safety concerns, particularly in the city’s Black communitydisproportionately hit by COVID-19 infections and deaths, groups like Cleveland VOTES are emphasizing mail-in ballots.
When it works properly, voting by mail can actually help to overcome some of the gendered barriers – like lack of transportation – that interfere with women’s votes, Lumpkin says.
That aligns with Rodemann’s conversations with women in Slavic Village.
“You can talk about voting and say, ‘I also want your voice to be heard. I want you to be counted,” Rodemann said. “Folks who don’t feel like they have a voice or they feel unheard, they feel unseen, then they don’t participate.”
Fuller Project reporter Jessica Washington contributed to this story.
Malcolm Burnley is a journalist withTheFuller Project, a global nonprofit newsroom reporting on issues that affect women. Rachel Dissell is a contributing journalist with TheFuller Project.
Kimberly Rodriguez is an accomplished veteran of Cleveland’s food scene. She has worked as a department manager at a grocery store, a personal chef for professional athletes, an event planner, and an instructor in restaurants, cafes and markets.
Yet, the last two weeks of March were the most stressful of her life. She contracted Covid-19 and lost her job. Like many restaurant workers thrown into financial uncertainty, Rodriguez now deals with federal and state unemployment systems ill-equipped to handle her plight.
She’d been working for nine months as a front-of-house manager at a local chain restaurant in Cleveland Heights when Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s shutdown order closed indoor dining rooms in March. The restaurant still provided takeout and delivery and Rodriguez continued to work there more than 40 hours per week as the pandemic spread. “Customers were just extremely demanding and not taking responsibility for their own well-being and care,” she says.
Then, on March 29th, she got a fever and called in sick. She ended up being out for two weeks because her fevers recurred every day or every other day, rising to 104 degrees and once even peaking at 107 degrees. After she’d reached her maximum sick time, she lost her job.
“I received maybe three lines in an email from my boss saying they gave me the maximum amount of paid time off, and that I was going to have to apply for unemployment now,” she says. She received a code to apply through the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services (ODJFS) and was given up to a month of paid healthcare.
After being diagnosed with Covid-19, Rodriguez found herself jobless, rejected from federal unemployment aid, and stripped of the employer-sponsored health insurance that provided medical care for both she and her wife, Alexia.
“It threw my life into complete chaos. I lost my job, I lost my healthcare, and I didn’t see my daughter for almost four months because she stayed with her father while I was in isolation; I mean it really just changed everything,” Rodriguez says.
Rodriguez applied for unemployment assistance from the state of Ohio, but her application was rejected. Although she’s now mostly recovered, she still suffers from fatigue. She recently landed her “dream job” as the part-time director of Meals on Wheels in Shaker Heights and works as a private chef on the side, but she is earning half the income that she made before – and she’s not sure when or if she’ll be able to get health care again.
“Now I am basically thrown back into the gig economy, going from gig to gig and supplementing it with my part time job at a nonprofit,” Rodriguez says as she lets out a laugh. “This wasn’t the way I thought this year was going to go.”
Kimberly Rodriguez photo courtesy Karin McKenna
Ironically, as Congress struggles to come to agreement on the next round of coronavirus relief aid, many restaurant workers say they didn’t receive the help they needed the first time. With ODJFS overwhelmed by applications, many are still waiting to receive unemployment. Additionally, the state’s fraud crackdown is harming those needing benefits, social service advocates say.
Bret Crow, a spokesperson for ODJFS, says the number of applications that have inundated the agency since the shutdown is unprecedented, more than the last four years combined. He says that the department has done their best to make adjustments to cope with the influx of claims, including hiring more staff, expanding call center hours, and improving their website. While more than 1.2 million Ohioans have received over $10 billion in unemployment benefits, more than 1.6 million people have applied and there are still thousands of applications pending, he says.
“The system was not designed to handle the historic influx of claims like we’ve experienced since March,” he says. “Before the pandemic hit, we had recognized that it was time to update the technology, and we were already working on that.”
An overwhelmed system
Rodriguez’s story is not uncommon, says Zach Schiller, Research Director at Policy Matters Ohio. Ohio’s unemployment system is “worse” than others around the country because part-time and low-wage workers, including many restaurant workers, often aren’t eligible for aid. Additionally, the massive influx of applications during the pandemic created a backlog. Even though ODJFS added more than 1,000 new workers to answer calls after the pandemic struck, there are still problems with the system.
Ohio’s traditional unemployment aid is regulated by an earnings test that is less generous than most states. It requires applicants to rake in a weekly income of at least $269. For restaurant workers that primarily rely on tips, and for many part-time and minimum wage workers, getting approved was difficult before the pandemic. When the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program expanded eligibility, hundreds of thousands of people applied. Advocacy groups including Policy Matters Ohio, the Ohio Organizing Collaborative and Ohio Association of Foodbanks have called on the state legislature to fix the system. They urged the Senate to take up House Bill 614, which recently passed the House, to study and reform the unemployment system.
“Now I am basically thrown back into the gig economy, going from gig to gig and supplementing it with my part time job at a nonprofit. This wasn’t the way I thought this year was going to go.”
— KIMBERLY RODRIGUEZ
“Our unemployment system was ill-prepared for the avalanche of claims that descended when these stay-at-home orders started in march,” Schiller says. “Even now, there are eighty thousand Ohioans who have pending claims for traditional unemployment that have not been getting processed. There are more than two hundred thousand Ohioans who have pending claims for PUA that have not been processed.”
Ohio’s system is confusing because individuals in Ohio must apply for either traditional unemployment aid or the PUA, but applying for one does not make you eligible for the other, adds Mason Pesek, staff attorney with The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland. PUA applications are automatically rejected if the applicant has a pending application for regular unemployment aid. As a result, some people have been waiting months on a determination of their aid eligibility, and a technical hiccup could mean they’re on their own.
“The reality of the current situation is that all these systems are so overloaded that people fall between the cracks, mistakes are made, and there are big issues on the backend,” Pesek says.
Rodriguez would have been eligible for payments of $1,000 every week for fourteen weeks if approved. However, after five weeks of receiving no response, she finally received one payment of $1,000. Then ODJFS notified her that her application was rejected and she would have to return the one payment she received. “I was not given a reason,” she says. “I submitted an appeal and I still haven’t heard back.”
Treading water to stay afloat
She’s not alone in facing the difficulties of navigating the state’s unemployment system in a pandemic, and even for those who are back at work, they’ve returned to an industry forever changed by Covid-19. More than 50 percent of restaurants are not expecting to make it nine months if the virus continues unabated, according a recent survey by the Ohio Restaurant Association, and restaurant workers not making as much money due to limited hours and lower tips from decreased business.
Veteran pastry chef Traci Morrison had to wait a month for her unemployment compensation after she was furloughed on March 23rd from her full-time job as a specialty baker with Campbell’s Sweets Factory. Morrison, who baked and decorated all of the cupcakes for Campbell’s and was in charge of cupcake displays at different locations in Northeast Ohio, was eventually called back to work part-time. However, this dissolved all of her employer-sponsored health benefits and unemployment compensation and slashed her hours from over 40 to no more than 18 per week.
“The number of cupcakes I’m baking just keeps getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller,” says Morrison, who is looking for a rare full-time job with benefits in the restaurant scene. “It’s hard. I feel like my depression is just kind of creeping in because my schedule changes day to day and some days I just wake up and think ‘what’s next?’”
Morrison reapplied for part-time unemployment aid, but is still waiting for a determination on her application. “It’s just a waiting game and all of my savings are basically going towards everyday expenses,” she says.
Like Rodriguez, Anthony Gregorio contracted Covid-19 in late March and is still waiting on his unemployment determination from ODJFS.
Gregorio, who has worked in the Cleveland restaurant scene for twenty-two years, quit his job as a server at the beginning of March for personal reasons. Right when he started applying for jobs at the end of the month, he became ill. On March 27th, he tested positive for the coronavirus. Because he has asthma, he ended up having to go to the hospital because he couldn’t breathe. It took him three days of constant oxygen and steroids to finally recover.
Because he had Covid-19, he can apply for PUA benefits, but he didn’t find out about the program until after he’d already applied for regular unemployment benefits. Now he has to wait until after his application comes back to apply for PUA. It has been seven weeks since Gregorio applied for regular unemployment. When he was finally able to get through to someone at ODJFS, they told him that it was unlikely his application would be approved, but he probably wouldn’t get approved for more than $150 a week or barely enough to afford groceries.
“It’s ridiculous,” he says. “The only way I’ve made it through not having unemployment aid during quarantine is through the stimulus check — I don’t have any money.”
Gregorio is now working part-time at Planet Fitness, but is making “peanuts.” Rodriguez is also grateful to be working, but she’s still catching up from her months of being unemployed. “It’s just a really difficult spot to be in,” she says. “If I had just gotten a few weeks of that unemployment money, I would be fine — I would be totally set and not worried about anything.”
However, she still does not have employer-sponsored healthcare. Her wife is working full time as a chef at a restaurant where other full-time workers are offered spousal coverage, but Rodriguez says the employer declined to offer it to them. The couple has yet to talk to a lawyer.
In the meantime, she’s trying to stay healthy until she’s able to access healthcare again.
Rodriguez and Morrison both say they did not consider buying their own healthcare plans because of how expensive the market options are, applying for Medicaid instead. “I need to have some kind of healthcare in place, but without a steady cash flow right now, there is no way that I can search for something more substantial (than Medicaid) on my own,” Morrison says.
Schiller says Ohio’s problems should be a wake-up call for lawmakers, and force the necessary changes that would make the system sustainable in the long run. “We need a permanent system in which workers who work 20 hours a week can qualify for unemployment,” he says. “PUA needs to be institutionalized and made a part of the regular unemployment system. It would require an overhaul of the entire system on a long-term basis, but hopefully the extremely high levels of unemployment that we are seeing now will lead to a rethinking of the system.”
Rahaim Stubblefield, 16, right, and David Warner, 16, center, both of Cleveland, use the computers in the teen room after an afternoon playing basketball at the Boys and Girls Club on Broadway Avenue in the Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio.The computers are placed at more than 6 feet apart to accommodate the new distancing rules.
Photo by Tim Harrison for ideastream
For some parents of school-age children, the decision of most area school districts to start the school year with remote and virtual learning came as a relief, as uncertainty about increasing cases of COVID-19 and possible outbreaks loom.
But for many Cleveland-area parents, the news sparked worry.
Parents who can relate to the following scenarios now balance concerns over the coronavirus and fear that their children are falling behind in school or are unsafe at home:
Parents who cannot work from home.
Those who do not have a reliable internet connection.
Those who do not have the necessary virtual-learning technology.
Those who live in neighborhoods with rising levels of gun violence.
Community after-school programs and some area churches are stepping in with plans to offer safe, digitally equipped, socially distanced places for students during school hours beginning in September. The hope is that they can help parents keep working and students keep up with studies this school year.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio accelerated plans to expand its programs as soon as Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Eric Gordon announced in July that students would learn remotely for the first nine weeks of the school year, a decision followed by many other local districts.
One of many concerns was the well-known “digital divide” in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, said Jeff Scott, president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio. More than 40% of Cleveland households don’t have regular access to broadband, according to a digital inclusion study and U.S. census data from 2018.
The clubs normally serve about 2,000 youths, ages 6 to 18, daily at 39 centers in Cleveland, Akron, and Lorain and Erie counties. The arts and recreational activities and tutoring and career-readiness programs traditionally are provided after school.
The idea that students, through no fault of their own, might lose academic ground, “It just makes your stomach churn,” Scott said. “That’s why we are so committed to figuring out a model that allows us to operate during the [school] day.”
In April, a CMSD survey of parents led to estimates that as many as two-thirds of families did not have electronic devices needed for learning at home. The district scrambled in the spring to distribute more than 10,000 computers and WiFi hotspots to students. Local foundations and businesses have contributed millions of dollars and donated hotspots for the fall, though it is unclear how many students still lack adequate computers and high-speed internet access needed for remote learning. CMSD schools last week were conducting parent surveys about technology needs.
A challenge for churches
Local pastors will also offer support to working parents and their children by opening up as many as 20 churches to school-age children in September.
The Cleveland Clergy Coalition hopes to offer safe places with digital connections and adult supervision during the nine weeks or longer of remote learning, said the Rev. Aaron Phillips, who leads the coalition.Some of the congregations provided after-school programming and tutoring before the pandemic, Phillips said, but the demand is expected to be greater this fall, especially for parents who must work.
The churches that will open to students, mostly on Cleveland’s East Side and in the inner-ring suburbs, face a litany of logistical issues to get their spaces ready and to make sure proper health protocols are in place for children who would come during the daytime hours to learn.
The project, Phillips said,won’t be easy. “It’s a huge undertaking and we don’t know where the funding resources are going to be to help us with any of this.”
The challenges of opening to students are also compounded by the higher rate of COVID-19 infections in Cleveland’s Black community, Phillips said. As of July 15, Black Clevelanders made up 73% of the hospitalizations for COVID-19 and 57% of the deaths attributed to complications from the disease, though they make up about half of the city’s population.
Other organizations, such as YWCA of Greater Cleveland, charter schools and youth development programs, are also looking at operating small learning centers for school-age children.
A test run
The Boys & Girls Clubs estimates it might be able to serve 500 to 700 students at its standalone centers, three of which are inCleveland, where 37,000 kids attend district schools and more attend charter and parochial schools.
Churches are still gauging demand and figuring out how many students each building can accommodate.
With a small number of students using the facilities each day, Boys & Girls Clubs believes it can operate safely. The organization already had a test run of sorts, Scott said. In June, it reopened nine of its Northeast Ohio locations to provide meals and safe gathering places to kids dealing with stress from the pandemic, social and racial unrest, and community violence, Scott said.
The first time a club learned of an exposure to the virus, which has happened a handful of times, it shut down for several days to clean. Leaders personally made sure front-line staff were comfortable with reopening, Scott said.
The organization activates a task force within the hour of learning of a positive coronavirus case involving a club member. It uses a process similar to the one when a club member or family experiences community violence: Learn what happened, find out how staff and families are feeling, make a plan to respond to concerns and plan for next steps, he said.
The effort includes balancing both virus-related health issues and the other safety issues some kids face daily. In July, the week the decision was made for Cleveland schools to open remotely, the city had recorded 83 official coronavirus deaths, five more than the 78 reported homicide deaths.
“It really is about the nuances of all these situations,” Scott said. “And you’re in a tactical battle on a day-to-day basis and make the best decision that you can based on the information that you have. But the inputs are many. The inputs are about the virus, the inputs [are] about our kids’ safety and all of the social unrest and the racial equity issues that we’re dealing with,” he said.
Violent crime in Cleveland neighborhoods is up. Homicides have increased about 20% from last year and shootings have jumped nearly 40%, according to Cleveland police crime statistics.
Four kids involved with Boys & Girls Clubs in Cleveland have been killed or had a family member killed by gun violence since the beginning of May, Scott said. Pre-pandemic, a single such incident might have happened once every couple of months, he said.
Attendance at the King Kennedy club on the East Side was down recently following several shootings, Scott said. Children were afraid to walk the 200 yards to the club from theKing Kennedy Estates, where many of the members live.
National effort
Efforts similar to those in Cleveland are emerging across the country, particularly in urban areas, where concerns about COVID-19 have to be balanced with the realities of keeping children fed and safe from violence and other risks where they live.
Higher-income families are creating “learning pods” by hiring educators to help with instruction for small groups of children while schools are closed or operating virtually, said Jen Rinehart, vice president for research and policy at the Afterschool Alliance, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C.
But those endeavors will need public policy support and funding so that all young people have access to a safe, supervised place that offers technology support, access to food and additional enrichment,she said.
One obstacle is that current federal funding, through child care and education grants that support before- and after- school programs, only allows money to be spent when school is not in session. The Afterschool Alliance and others have asked the U.S. Department of Education to relax those rules so money can be used to serve children who are learning virtually during the school day, Rinehart said.
Planning for school
Over the next few weeks, staff from the Boys & Girls Clubs will prepare each site that will open to students, working with school districts from Cleveland to Sandusky, Scott said.
Staff members are trying to answer a long list of questions, including:
How many kids they can safely serve?
Should gyms be used to spread kids out?
What hours should they be open?
What infrastructure — from desks to power cords, fiber-optic cables and hotspots — are needed?
How long will it take to ramp up and how much it will cost?
Ideally, the clubs will create distance-learning pods where children can set up to do school work and the center’s youth development staff can monitor and help them with their work.
Depending on the club, the plan is to serve ages 6 to 18 and group them by age, like the old schoolhouse model, Scott said.
The centers hope to also continue to offer after-school programs by closing to clean for a few hours each day and then reopening, Scott said.
The churches that will open to students, mostly on Cleveland’s East Side and in the inner-ring suburbs, also face a litany of logistical issues to get their spaces ready and to make sure proper health protocols are in place for children who would come during the daytime hours to learn.
“It’s a matter of safety as well as providing the tutoring and educational piece that we know our students are going to need during this virtual period as well,” he said.
The Boys & Girls Clubs and the clergy coalition both said they were working closely with CMSD to reach families that might need help the most. They are also learning how to use the district’s new online education software, and discussing whether district transportation might be available for some students.
Cleveland Metropolitian School District officials did not respond to questions sent last week about the community efforts to support students’ learning.
Bullet points for possible info to pull out in a box:
More than 40% of Cleveland households don’t have regular access to broadband, according to a digital inclusion study and U.S. census data from 2018.
Some 37,000 children attend Cleveland Metropolitan School District schools, not including charter and parochial schools.
The district distributed more than 10,000 computers and WiFi hotspots to students this spring. Local foundations and businesses have contributed millions of dollars and donated hotspots for the fall, but it is unclear how many students still lack adequate computers and high-speed internet access needed for remote learning.
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio, which has 39 centers in Cleveland, Akron, and Lorain and Erie counties, estimates it might be able to serve 500 to 700 students at its standalone centers, three of which are in Cleveland.
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio reopened nine of its 39 clubs in June, including this one on Broadway Avenue in Cleveland. The clubs are working on a plan to serve school-age children during the day at multiple locations so students can learn safely and have access to needed technology for remote learning.
Photo by Tim Harrison for ideastream
As many as 20 local churches plan to open to school-age children in September to support working parents, though funding is an issue.
Other organizations are considering small learning centers for school-age children, including YWCA of Greater Cleveland, local charter schools and youth development programs.
Contact info for parents seeking help:
Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio: (216) 883-2106
The Cleveland Clergy Coalition: clevelandclergycoalition@gmail.com.
Native Americans demand more recognition from universities they funded, sometimes unwillingly
By Caitlin Hunt
This story was funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism. Please join our free mailing list or text us at (216) 867-6327 as this helps us provide more public service reporting.
Growing up in Cleveland, Cherokee tribal member Nicole Doran said Chief Wahoo always made her uncomfortable.
“I remember growing up and seeing this caricature of Native Americans that I knew wasn’t true,” Doran said.
Later she earned a biology degree at the Ohio State University. Doran loved the campus and appreciated the opportunities given to her, but she was not happy about the lack of Native American acknowledgement on campus. Instead, she found the university took pride in their status as a “Land Grant” university. The school sits in the heart of Columbus, home to the best-selling Land Grant beer.
“There’s nothing really on campus that signifies the Native American history of the land,” she said.
In recent months, outrage over racial injustices has sparked protests across the country. This outrage has helped uncover hidden histories and spark new conversations regarding the treatment of minorities in America. One area of discussion has been the place of minorities in higher education, particularly as many states created renowned public universities from the proceeds of land sales from Native American cessations.
In Ohio, land grant funds went to one of America’s most prominent schools, The Ohio State University. According to research conducted by High Country News, the 1862 Morrill Act redistributed nearly 10.7 million acres from nearly 250 tribes, through 160 land cessions, the legal term for giving up territory.
Eye on Ohio mapped all lands that supported Ohio schools, a total of 4,411 parcels spread out over 14 states. (Though only 4,060 could be mapped. Click here to see our code and methodology.)
The Morrill Act and Ohio State University
Starting in 1862, the federal government gave Ohio 630,000 acres of public domain land to sell to establish Ohio State.
All of this land was out of state and included parcels in Mississippi, Michigan, Missouri, Florida, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, South Dakota, Oregon, Colorado, and Washington.
The U.S. paid $35,410 for the land and land sales raised $340,818, creating a return nearly ten times the purchase amount. When adjusted for inflation, the U.S. would have paid $1,015,519 in current dollars for 614,165 acres of land with the university raising $6,849,131.
(The Second Morrill Act of 1890 supplemented funds from the original law and provided for the nation’s black colleges, which were not part of the 1862 act. Central State University near Dayton, Ohio started in 1887 as a publicly-funded department within private Wilberforce University, a historically Black college. So CSU is a land grant school but the lands sold to support it were not included in the survey.)
The United States government paid less than $400,000 to remove Indigenous titles from all Native lands, usually obtained through force or by treaties that the government never ratified, said Robert Lee, a lecturer in American History at the University of Cambridge.
Lee traced 97.5% of the land sales for Ohio under the 1862 law. Much of the land sold came from several tribes, including several Chippewa, Ottawa, Osage, and Sioux bands. Out of the 162 lands listed in Lee’s research, 96 were taken by unratified treaties, 53 were ceded by treaties, and eight were taken either by executive order or without a treaty. How the other four pieces of land were obtained is unknown.
Michael Charles, a member of Navajo nation and a doctoral student at Ohio State, said data like this continues a narrative in Native communities that universities are not for them or in support of them.
“These universities can be seen as the evil system that keeps taking and taking,” he said.
But, Charles said research like this can help universities acknowledge more of their history and help them to become allies to current and future Native students. He also said this data could help higher education better understand why Indigenous youth may not consider pursuing a college degree.
“I think this is a very specific way that universities can start to understand kind of the conflict between Native people and universities,” Charles said.
OSU and Columbus Area Today
Today, Ohio State University has taken steps to create an inclusive environment for all, including American Indians.
“Today, the university’s commitment to diversity and inclusion has never been stronger,” Benjamin Johnson, Director of Media Relations at OSU, said via email.
Part of that commitment has been to create groups and programs on campus centered on Native culture. Native American student groups on campus include the Native American Indigenous Peoples Cohort and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society. OSU also offers courses in American Indian studies, including a minor.
The university also operates the Newark Earthworks Center. The center researches American Indian cultures and their contributions to architecture and other scientific achievements in the Midwest. Like other universities, OSU is responding to recent concerns of racial inequity with a task force. Johnson said the school’s intercultural specialist for American Indian/Indigenous, Melissa Beard Jacob, serves with the group.
Charles said that an effective way for OSU to recruit more Indigenous students would be to send Native faculty out to the reservations and other large Indigenous communities. He also said the university should initiate a “bridge program” that would help the students make a successful transition into university life.
“It’s going to have to take initiatives on both ends at the same time to make sure we recruit,” Charles said. “And make sure we have people responsible for making sure they’re coming into a community set-up that’s going to set them up for success.”
Former OSU student Nicole Doran also said she thinks the university could do more outside of the land acknowledgment to address Native American history in Columbus and on the Ohio State campus.
“I think the land acknowledgment is definitely a first step, but it can come off as very performative,” she said.
Doran spoke of the Society of American Indians, the first American Indian activist group, on campus. They first met in 1911. But, Doran said there was nothing on campus that marked this historic event.
Groups like Land-Grant Fierce still celebrate the legacy of Ohio State’s beginning, though in April they called High Country’s expose the land grant university’s “original sin.”
Off-campus, the history of OSU’s land grant pride still prevails.
Land Grant Brewery, run by two OSU alumnus, Adam Benner and Walt Keys, first opened its doors to the public in 2014 after a successful 2012 Kickstarter campaign. After discovering their original name, Oval Brewing, was already copyrighted, Benner said they decided land-grant gave the same feel and gave a nod to their beloved alma mater.
“If you didn’t understand land grants or what a land grant college came from, then the name still had a strong feel to it,” Benner said. “And then we could still tell that story of what happened with the land grant act and how it established higher education throughout the country and that whole history.”
Benner said he was now aware of the history of where the Morrill Grant’s land came from but said the brewery takes pride in its name for how the grant made higher education more accessible for those outside of the upper-class and minority races.
“What we talk about every time we give a tour and why we are proud of the land grant heritage is that it was a law that was written right around the time of the civil war and was signed by Abraham Lincoln and the way it was written was that it couldn’t preclude race,” he said.
Benner acknowledges that the Morrill Act could have added to America’s history of mistreatment of American Indians and that there is more to uncover of our nation’s history.
“There’s a lot to look into from our entire nation’s history,” Benner said. “I think our entire nation’s history unfortunately has a red stain on it from how the Natives were treated early on.”
A Growing Recognition of Native Rights and Representation Beyond Grants
In a landmark decision in July, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a defendant who asked for a new trial because he said his alleged crime had taken place on land owned by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma. The ruling is significant because much of eastern Oklahoma, including most of Tulsa, is historically Native land.
John Low, an OSU at Newark professor and member of the Pokagon band of the Potawatomi tribe, said the Supreme Court’s decision to honor Native treaties is a big win for the Native American community.
“It’s an important victory for tribal sovereignty and honoring treaty rights,” Low said. “It’s a watershed moment.”
While this decision calls for celebration, Low said there is more that needs to be done by the government to allow for tribal sovereignty.
“It’s time for Indians, as an expression of their sovereignty to arrest and prosecute felonies,” Low said.
For years, American Indians and American Indian groups have fought against the use of racist Native American names, logos, and mascots, with many stating the harm these images do for the Native American community. According to the National Congress of American Indians, “derogatory ‘Indian’ sports mascots have serious psychological, social and cultural consequences for Native Americans, especially Native youth.”
Even with these concerns for stereotypes and Native youth, these negative images of Natives persist, and Low says they remain for one reason.
”The only reason why they have gotten away with it is because people know nothing about us or our influences,” he said.
Low said the removal of these mascots would help distinguish stereotypes surrounding Natives.
“The sooner we get rid of the mascots, the sooner we get rid of the stereotypes,” Low said.
State Reps. Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Cleveland) and Jeffrey A. Crossman (D-Parma) will host a virtual town hall at TODAY, August 10 at 6:30 p.m.
The event is a part of the Ohio House Democrats’ Ohio Promise Virtual Town Hall Tour, a series of digital events this summer where local lawmakers give a Statehouse update and provide their constituents with the opportunity to ask questions and offer input on ways to address the issues facing their communities.
The event is education-themed and includes special guests Eric Gordon, CEO of Cleveland Metropolitan School District, and Dr. Charles Smialek, Superintendent of Parma City School District.
The event will be free and open to the public, with member availability for media following the event.
A new poll that shows President Donald Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in Ohio also reveals that Mr. Biden’s “strong” supporters here outnumber Mr. Trump’s, a snapshot of the state less than 100 days from an election that will determine whether Ohio continues its unmatched swing-state streak.
The poll also revealed the issues motivating each candidates’ backers: Mr. Biden’s identified coronavirus as their top concern, while Mr. Trump’s said it was the economy in a year defined by a global pandemic, economic uncertainty, and a reckoning over racial justice.
Conducted online between June 24 and July 15, the survey of 1,037 registered voters showed Mr. Biden leading Mr. Trump 46 to 42 percent, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The poll was commissioned for Your Voice Ohio’s Election 2020 project, which explores the complexity of the state’s nearly 12 million residents through community engagement, data analysis, and collaborative reporting. It was conducted jointly by the Center for Marketing and Opinion Research in Akron and the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron.
John Green, director emeritus of the Bliss Institute, said the results reinforce that Ohio is still attainable for Democrats and shouldn’t be written off as a battleground just because Mr. Trump in 2016 came away with an 8-percentage-point win in Ohio, which for decades has mirrored the national vote.
Ohio has the longest winning streak in the nation, picking the victor in every presidential election since 1964.
“No Republican has ever been elected or reelected in American history without carrying Ohio, so there’s a particular burden on Trump and his allies and supporters to compete effectively in Ohio,” Mr. Green said. “These numbers forecast a very competitive race in the state.”
Your Voice Ohio’s poll is consistent with recent surveys from other organizations that show a close race here as both campaigns enter the final stretch with a playbook rewritten by coronavirus. But researchers caution against reading too much into Mr. Biden’s early lead.
“With this much happening in our society, the numbers go back and forth, especially with Ohio,” said Michelle Henry, president of the Center for Marketing and Opinion Research. “In some states it’s going to be clear. In Ohio, it’s just not going to be.
“Even though 2016 went widely for Trump, there was quite some time when it went back and forth until it became very red.”
The researchers said the survey offers two main views: a snapshot of candidate preferences subject to change over the next three months, and insight into what issues are top of mind for voters, a metric that’s more likely to remain consistent until November.
Voters who backed Mr. Trump ranked the economy as their top issue, followed by coronavirus and health care. For Mr. Biden, it was coronavirus, the economy, and health care for all respondents besides the strongest supporters, who ranked health care second.
The 6 percent of undecided voters surveyed aligned with Mr. Trump’s backers on their top issues. Another 6 percent who said they are likely to vote for a candidate other than Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden cited the economy, coronavirus, racism, and social services.
Mr. Biden’s strongest backers also cited racism, criminal justice, and the environment as priorities, while Mr. Trump’s chose education, foreign affairs, infrastructure, and immigration.
Strikingly, the poll also revealed an enthusiasm gap between Mr. Biden’s and Mr. Trump’s supporters. Nearly 31 percent said they strongly supported Mr. Biden, versus 26 percent for Mr. Trump. The percentage of moderate and weak support for both candidates was roughly the same.
Mr. Green attributed the result to greater support in general for Mr. Biden, saying it bodes well for the former vice president in the long run.
“People with strong preferences are much less likely to change their preference … so the strength of preference really matters,” Mr. Green said.
This particular survey didn’t offer respondents the opportunity to explain their preferences, he said, or the ability to cite anti-Trump sentiment as a reason for backing Mr. Biden.
“Some of the other polls in Ohio and elsewhere have shown that a lot of people say their primary reason that they’re backing Biden is because they don’t like Trump. And some people take that to be evidence of a lack of enthusiasm,” he said. “For some people, maybe it is. But you can be really unhappy with Trump and still have a strong preference for Biden.”
Your Voice Ohio’s poll also broke the results down by region.
Mr. Biden leads in northeast Ohio (51 to 35 percent), the state’s most Democratic region, and by smaller margins in central (48 to 39 percent) and southwest Ohio (46 to 42 percent).
Mr. Trump is ahead in the northwest (53 to 35 percent), where Toledo is firmly blue but the surrounding rural counties are heavily red, and the southeast (53 to 33 percent).
Another finding that researchers noted is Biden supporters reported following the 2020 campaign more closely than Trump supporters.
Kyle Bozentko, executive director of the Jefferson Center, a nonprofit that promotes civic engagement and sponsors Your Voice Ohio, said based on several voter engagement sessions conducted across the state, people appear more concerned about issues than the 2020 horse race.
“While the presidential campaign guides everything in what we see and consume, there is so much else happening that the urgency and level of importance of the presidential election itself kind of falls out of the picture,” he said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the results were outside the margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Liz Skalka is politics reporter for The Blade of Toledo. She can be emailed at lskalka@theblade.com.Your Voice Ohio is the country’s largest statewide media collaborative with a mission to represent the diverse voices of the state and the issues people identify as important. More than 60 news outlets have participated since its founding in 2015. Funding for the election project comes from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Democracy Fund and Facebook.
The West Park Times is a partner in the Your Voice Ohio media project — the largest statewide media collaborative in the country.
Calls Republican inaction on commonsense gun safety unconscionable
SUBMITTED
State Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Cleveland) today issued a statement on the one-year anniversary of a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, which left nine dead and 17 wounded.
“My heart still aches for the souls we lost in Dayton last year from senseless gun violence. When the victims’ families and countless others demanded that we do something, they didn’t mean just anything: they meant real, commonsense gun safety reforms,” said Rep. Sweeney. “I heard those calls for change and introduced HB 316 to create an Extreme Risk Protection Order that respects due process while stopping preventable gun violence. While other states have shown that this measure saves lives and the majority of Ohioans support it, it’s deeply unfortunate that the Ohio Legislature is so insulated from public opinion that the GOP Majority has refused this legislation a single hearing in the 363 days since I introduced it.”
HB 315 (Liston): Provide mental health and suicide prevention information at the purchase site;
HB 319 (West/Miller): Restore local control so that everyday Ohioans can decide what commonsense safety solutions work for their community;
HB 320 (West): Prohibit the sale of a gun if the background check is pending;
HB 335 (Lepore-Hagan/Boyd): Require subject of certain protection orders to surrender firearms;
HB 348 (Miller): Prohibit a person subject to a protection order from purchasing or receiving a firearm for the duration of the order;
HB 349 (Weinstein): Ban possession of high-capacity magazines;
HB 647 (Strahorn): Prohibits manufacture/sales of high capacity magazines;
HB 658 (Galonski): Train school employees if authorized to carry firearms in schools.
None of the Democratic gun safety bills have been called for a committee vote.
Meanwhile, House Republicans have prioritized legislation opponents say will make Ohioans less safe, including the kill at will bill and legislation to eliminate the duty to notify law enforcement of a concealed weapon, which passed the House in June.
Cleveland Lead Advocates for Safe Housing (CLASH) is distributing a new brochure on Lead and Nutrition through local hunger centers this summer. The brochure gives simple, clear information on how a child’s diet can help mitigate the damage of lead exposure.
While there is no safe level of lead exposure, caregivers can select foods that are high in calcium, iron and vitamin C to strengthen a child’s body against environmental lead from paint dust or soil.
The brochure also reinforces the message that children under the age of six should be tested for lead exposure on a regular basis. Routine testing during pediatric visits only reaches about half of the “at risk” children in Cleveland. Caregivers are urged to ask for lead testing at least by the first birthday and again at age 2 checkups. Cleveland’s Lead Safe Certificate law won’t begin to require landlords to make rental properties until March of 2021 and there’s no plan for enforcement of the law until 2023.
In the meantime, wise dietary choices can make a difference.
CLASH president Yvonka M. Hall expresses thanks to Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH) Mutual Aid Fund for paying for printing the brochure. NEOCH is a member of the CLASH coalition. CLASH also thanks the hundreds of volunteers who are putting the brochure inside of emergency food bags being supplied around the Cleveland’s neighborhoods.
From Mayor Jackson’s newsletter covering the City of Cleveland:
“”The City of Cleveland will continue to partner with federal law enforcement agencies to combat violent crime in our neighborhoods within the realm of constitutional policing,” said Mayor Jackson. “Residents and their families have a right to feel safe and be safe in their own communities. Coordinated efforts between local, state and federal law enforcement agencies will allow us to more effectively address and reduce violent crimes in Cleveland neighborhoods to build a safer Cleveland for all.”
City of Cleveland Statement on Upcoming Presidential Debate
“The City of Cleveland was informed that Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) were looking to host the first presidential debate and received confirmation of the selection prior to the announcement. While we were informed, we were not a part of the planning process and refer all requests regarding the details to both the Clinic and CWRU. The City of Cleveland looks forward to working with its partners, the Cleveland Clinic and CWRU, on the next steps in hosting the first presidential debate in Cleveland. When we have more details to report, we will share those in our daily media update.”
The City of Cleveland Releases CDPH COVID-19 Non-Compliance Report
CDPH continues to monitor COVID-19 non-compliance complaints. Since March 20, 2020 through July 29, 2020, CDPH has received 2,512 COVID-19 non-compliance complaints. To date, CDPH has received 1010 mass gathering non-compliance allegations, 794 mask non-compliance allegations and 430 social distancing non-compliance allegations in the City of Cleveland. To view and download CDPH’s COVID-19 non-compliance report, click here.
Note: The City of Cleveland will begin to share this report each week in its daily media update.
Middle Neighborhoods Presentation Released
In 2019 the City of Cleveland partnered with the Cleveland Foundation to launch the Middle Neighborhoods Initiative (MNI). This work focuses on communities within Cleveland that are historically stable but teeter on the edge of distress. These “middle neighborhoods” are areas with unique challenges that must be addressed with specific policy interventions, new mechanisms for investment, and efforts to promote the high quality of life families or individuals can find locally.
In 2020 the MNI partnered with Case Western Reserve University to develop a citywide analysis tool capable of showing practitioners and policymakers which areas in the city will see the greatest impact through investment. Using this tool, MNI continues to develop a toolkit of policies and interventions that can stabilize and grow the middle neighborhoods of Cleveland.
Recently, the presentation here was shared at a Cleveland City Council Committee meeting.
Calls Regarding COVID-19 Complaints With the passage yesterday by Cleveland City Council of an ordinance authorizing penalties for non-compliance with Mayor Jackson’s mask mandate, enforcement is now in effect.
There are two numbers Clevelanders should call regarding non-compliance:
· Business complaints: CDPH hotline at 216-857-7165
· Individual or private residence complaints: Cleveland Police non-emergency line at 216-621-1234
Cleveland City Council recently approved the mandatory use of masks in public spaces as well as certain penalties for individuals and businesses that do not comply. On July 3, Mayor Jackson signed an amended order mandating the use of masks in public in the City of Cleveland to slow the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus. This includes mandatory use in bars, restaurants, shared office settings, rideshares and other shared spaces.
Citations may be issued with fines for the following:
· Any business or person violating the mask or safe-seating order (which maintains social distancing of at least six feet between patrons) is subject to civil penalties. In accordance with Ordinance No. 556-2020, specifically chapters 602 and 236.
· Any business in the City of Cleveland with an employee who becomes ill with the coronavirus is required to immediately disinfect and sanitize the premises. Following a warning, they may be subject to a civil penalty of $1,000 for the first offense and a civil penalty of $3,000 for each subsequent violation.
