Cleveland City Council Meeting Highlights—October 12, 2026
Oct 12, 2026
On October 12, 2026, Council President Blaine Griffin convened a Cleveland City Council meeting at 7:04 pm and adjourned it around 8:45 pm.
You can find tonight's agenda here and watch the complete meeting here.
Good evening, everyone,
I'm a little later than usual getting this out tonight. It's easy to get distracted when the Guards are doing their thing.
Before we talk about the Council meeting, I want to highlight one part.
October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month, and every October, Councilman Brian Kazy has Down Syndrome Awareness Day at Cleveland City Council. This year, he brought five teachers and three young women with Down Syndrome into the well of the Council Chamber to be recognized. You can see the presentation starting here.
All of it was moving. The young women's accomplishments were inspiring, and the teachers being recognized are changing people's lives. But the last part of the presentation took it to another level.
One of the young women recognized tonight was Brianna Kazy, Councilman Kazy's daughter. It also happened to be Brianna's birthday. Before reading Brianna's proclamation, Councilman Kazy started telling a story, "he'd been waiting to tell since 2009." I'm not going to try to recount their story. It wouldn't be right, and I wouldn't do it justice. But it starts with the sentence, "We are not taking that girl because of her disability."
Also, before we start, I need to go back a few days.
Busy Wednesday. On Wednesday, October 7, 2026, Council's Transportation and Mobility Committee held a marathon meeting that addressed only two topics:
- Ordinance 1042-2026, which would amend the City's lease with the I-X Center Corporation, which intends to phase out shows at the I-X Center over the next three years and begin leasing space to large manufacturing businesses.
- Testimony from proponents of keeping Burke Lakefront Airport open and making it a more effective economic engine. Witness materials are available here.
You can watch the committee meeting here. Fair warning, it's a five-hour video.
Later that night, Councilman Brian Kazy led Council's third and last scheduled public hearing on data centers at Gunning Recreation Center. People feel very strongly about data centers and have insisted on being heard. This includes the Lorax, who attended the last two meetings.
In case you don't remember, the Lorax "speaks for the trees."
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."
Ok, on to tonight's meeting.
Bernie, Bernie
In Cleveland, every day is Bernie Kosar Day. But especially tomorrow. Today, Cleveland City Council passed Resolution 1235-2026, sponsored by Councilman Brian Kazy, declaring tomorrow, October 13, 2026, Bernie Kosar Day in the City of Cleveland.
Tomorrow will mark the 41st Anniversary of Bernie's first NFL regular-season start for the Cleveland Browns on October 13, 1985. He led the team to a 21-6 victory over the Houston Oilers and began an illustrious career that no Clevelander of a certain age will ever forget.
Bernie attended tonight's Council meeting to receive his resolution and, as you might expect, was saluted by thunderous applause. Because how else should he be greeted? See for yourself...
More-atorium. Councilmembers Kazy and Slife introduced Ordinance 1246-2023 to exercise Council's prerogative under Ordinance No. 556-2026 to extend Cleveland's moratorium on data centers for another three months. Council has held three public hearings on data centers, and two different committees are working to sort through this complicated issue. The extended moratorium will run through January 29, 2027.
Getting More Lead Out. Tonight, Mayor Bibb, Council President Blaine Griffin, and Councilman Kevin Conwell introduced Ordinance 1244-2026 to update and strengthen Cleveland's lead certification program. The Bibb Administration collaborated with the Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition and the Lead Safe Advisory Board and held dozens of conversations with tenants, landlords, and advocates over the last year to develop this legislation.
The proposed changes will reward investment in lead safety by allowing landlords to qualify for longer certification periods and will incentivize them to focus on high-contact areas like porches, doors, and windows, where clouds of poisonous lead particles are most likely to form. The proposed ordinance will be heard by Council's Health, Human Services and the Arts Committee on Monday, October 19, 2026, at 9:30 am.
EVERYONE Counts and Needs to be Counted. City Council introduced Resolution 1247-2026, sponsored by Councilwoman Stephanie Howse-Jones, opposing proposed changes to the 2030 U.S. Census that would, among other things:
- Exclude all residents who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, removing not only undocumented immigrants but also those who are lawfully present, such as refugees, asylum seekers, international students, and temporary workers who live, work, pay taxes, and use public services in our communities, from Congressional district apportionment.
- Prohibit questions on race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation from appearing on the decennial census questionnaire, ending the collection of race and ethnicity data that the census has gathered in some form since the first count in 1790, and foreclosing data on LGBTQ+ residents.
Census data guides the distribution of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding for programs Clevelanders depend on, including Medicaid, SNAP, Title I education, highway planning, housing, Head Start, public health, and other programs. Also, removing race and ethnicity questions from the census would make demographic data for small geographic areas such as Cleveland's neighborhoods and wards less reliable.
Miles School. Council introduced for first reading Ordinance 1242-2026, which would grant the Mayor authority to purchase Miles School from the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and redevelop it into a new administration building for Fire, EMS, and Public Safety Administration offices. CMSD would also lease back several classrooms and ancillary spaces for thirty years.
Sometimes, you just need a lawyer. City Council passed Ordinance 1031-2026, allocating $750,000 to the Legal Aid Society to continue its program providing legal assistance to people facing eviction proceedings.
End the silence, stop the violence. Council passed Resolution 1239-2026 declaring October 2026 as Domestic Violence Awareness Month in the City of Cleveland, honoring survivors and victims, and recommitting the City to end domestic violence.
Cleveland City Council's next full Council meeting will be held on Monday, October 19, 2026, at 7:30 pm in Cleveland City Hall's Council Chamber.
Talk with you next week! Go Guards!
Mike
(Any errors are mine. Accuracies are likely someone else's.)
Please remember that the official record of Cleveland City Council proceedings is the weekly City Record, not this email.