Cleveland City Council Meeting Highlights—September 28, 2026
Sep 28, 2026
Today, September 28, 2026, Council President Blaine Griffin convened a Cleveland City Council meeting at 7:00 pm and adjourned it around 8:20 pm.
Good evening, everyone,
I hope you enjoyed Dolly Day, and I’m sure you enjoyed your weekend. A Browns winning streak, even if it’s just two games, always lifts people's spirits!
One other thing about Dolly Day—last Friday, the City of Cleveland relit the historic, newly restored, and outfitted Euclid Beach Park Archway on Lakeshore Boulevard. Check it out:
Not quite as sparkly as Dolly, but pretty close. How cool is that?
Despite how great the weekend was, tonight's Council meeting was pretty heart-wrenching.
Rainbow Terrace. During public comment at last week’s Council meeting, Ms. Keyana Bell, whose children were badly injured in the Rainbow Terrace Apartments explosion and fire in June 2025, made an impassioned plea for an update on the investigation into the incident and expressed her anger that former Rainbow Terrace residents were left out of the loop. You could hear a pin drop when she finished.
The Rainbow Terrace explosion had been off everyone’s radar for months—everyone, that is, except the victims and their advocates. To badly mix metaphors, Ms. Bell’s anguished appeal for information brought this issue off the back burner, and the story received region-wide attention.
Earlier today, Mayor Justic Bibb held a press conference announcing the results of the Rainbow Terrace investigation—while the explosion came from natural gas contacting an igniter, investigators could not find the gas leak or identify the igniter. Investigators concluded that the explosion's actual cause is “undetermined.”
Questions and comments about Rainbow Terrace dominated the public comment portion of tonight’s meeting. More than twenty people from Rainbow Terrace attended tonight’s meeting, and six spoke passionately about the explosion's impact on their families, their feelings of being ignored, and their anger that the cause was ruled “undetermined.” Councilman Starr took the unprecedented step of signing up a Cleveland resident to speak during public comment. Councilmembers expressed deep concerns about the report and investigation, and Council President Griffin expressed the body’s commitment to support Councilman Starr’s efforts.
Other items considered tonight included:
Bonds, Capital Bonds. Last week, Council heard 14 pieces of bond legislation. This week, Council and the administration topped themselves by considering 19 more pieces of bond legislation, all of which will be used to meet the City’s capital needs. This week, I’m not going to type out the links to each of these pieces separately. If you are interested in reading them, please visit this page and scroll down. The bond legislation headings are in all caps.
All the World’s Indeed a Stage. Through Ordinance 1182-2026, seven members of Cleveland City Council, Richard Starr, Blaine Griffin, Austin Davis, Kevin Conwell, Nikki Hudson, Tanmay Shah, and Charles Slife pooled resources from their ward casino funds to fund Cleveland Public Theatre’s 2026 Student Theatre Enrichment Program.
And We are Merely Players. Long-time arts advocate Councilman Kevin Conwell introduced, and Council passed Resolution 1161-2026, calling upon the Ohio legislature to adopt legislation acknowledging the essential role of arts for health initiatives in improving health and well-being and other lifelong benefits. The Resolution directed the Clerk of Council to send copies to all members of the Ohio legislature, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Presidents and CEOs of the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, MetroHealth, and the Cleveland VA Hospital.
The full agenda for tonight's meeting is available here, and the full meeting can be viewed here.
REMEMBER: City Council will hold its second public hearing on data centers tomorrow, September 29, from 5:00-8:00 pm, in the Council Chambers in Cleveland City Hall.
Talk with you next week!
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.