Delete WardMaking a Public Comment
Council welcomes public comment before regular council meetings. Fill out the online form below for your chance to make a public comment at the next regular Monday Council meeting. Please read the revised rules and procedures.
Registrations can also be submitted:
* In person at Cleveland City Hall, Room 220, 601 Lakeside Ave. NE. Paper forms are available to register.
* If you don't want to fill out the online form below, you can download this form and fill it out, and email it to publiccomment@clevelandcitycouncil.gov or drop it off at Council offices. (Parking at City Hall on the upper lot is free on Mondays after 5 pm when Council is meeting.) If you need assistance, language, or disability, go here to make a request (at least 3 days in advance.)
Make a Comment in Person
Registrations to speak up to 3 minutes at a regular council meeting can be submitted between noon Wednesday and 2 pm on the Monday before a regular 7 pm council meeting. (Early, incomplete and false registrations are not accepted.) Only the first 10 are accepted.
Make a Comment Online
If you don't want to speak at a Council meeting, please submit your written comments below.
Public Comments
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I'm Sara, a concerned citizen of Cleveland Heights. Thank you for your service to the city of Cleveland and all the folks of surrounding areas who are impacted by your leadership. I am reaching out because I want to voice my support for the bus lanes on West 25th Street as part of RTA’s 25Connects BRT project.
As you may already know, the West 25th corridor is one of the busiest corridors in the city, and transit time for buses is often slow as buses must continually weave in and out of parked cars in an already congested area. A dedicated bus lane will improve transit time through this corridor.
Quick and reliable public transit is important to me because good transit brings economic and health benefits to communities, reduces road congestion, reduces gasoline usage and air pollution, and it makes Cleveland a more attractive place to live.
Young people especially prefer walkable communities over suburban sprawl, seeking to live among robust transit, shops, restaurants, libraries, parks, and a mix of housing options. Ohio City is already one of the most vibrant, walkable, livable neighborhoods in Cleveland, but it is lacking in effective, quick, and reliable transit. Filling this transit gap would not only make Cleveland a more desirable place to move to, but would make young Clevelanders more likely to stay instead of moving away in search of a more transit-rich city.
I recently moved back home to Cleveland after living in Chicago, where public transit is effective and well-funded, and it's been a grief to return to using my car to get around, waiting in so much traffic. I hope the W. 25th bus lane will be the first of an increase in funding and investment for our RTA system which serves so many and has the potential to serve so many more!
Thank you for reading my comment and hearing my perspective as a concerned Clevelander.
Sincerely,
Sara Pekar
I live in Cleveland Heights, but I rely on public transit to move throughout the area. I used the 51 route for many months to get to work in Parma Heights.
I am reaching out because I want to voice my support for the bus lanes on West 25th Street as part of RTA’s 25Connects BRT project.
As you may already know, the West 25th corridor is one of the busiest corridors in the city, and transit time for buses is often slow as buses must continually weave in and out of parked cars in an already congested area. A dedicated bus lane will improve transit time through this corridor.
Ohio City and Cleveland will be better off with better transit, and bus lanes on W 25th will be a good start. I know a few business owners are upset about losing a few parking spaces, and I find this hard to understand. Cars usually only bring one person to a business at a time, and once the car is parked in front of a business, it prevents anyone else from accessing the business via that parking spot for as long as the car is parked there. But a bus could bring 50 potential customers to the business every time the bus passes by, and the bus doesn't park in front of the business like a car does, preventing others from accessing the business. Furthermore, there’s a gigantic parking lot right behind the West Side Market.
I love Ohio City, I love the local businesses in Ohio City, and bus lanes will help these local businesses, not hurt them. The city can support these businesses by promoting them on social media, and the businesses themselves could promote themselves to transit riders through targeted signage and by offering specials to transit riders.
Cleveland is long overdue for more effective public transit. As it stands now, it’s almost always faster for me to drive than to take public transit. I choose to take public transit whenever I am able, but as a newly married person, it can be difficult to justify long transit times when my wife and I are both active people who work full time and have limited time just to be with each other. I shouldn’t have to choose between taking public transit or spending quality time with people I love. In cities like Chicago, DC, Boston, or New York, people don’t have to make that choice. And I’ve seen so many people leave places like Cleveland for places like Chicago for this reason. It’s time to move Cleveland forward and connect our city once again. We need bus lanes on West 25th Street as part of the 25Connects BRT project, and we need a lot more than that. Let’s get started making Cleveland a transit-friendly city it once was and can be once again!
I have a concern I would like to bring to your attention in the hopes that your administration can figure out the best solution to address the issue. Namely, the cost of water and sewer in Cleveland is by far the most expensive water/sewer bill I've ever experienced in my adult life. I have rented and owned homes elsewhere, including in cities like Tampa, FL, and my water and sewer utilities have never costed me more than $18 - 35 a month total.
Using my most recent bills as an example, I am being charged $64.31 by Cleveland Water and $81 by Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District for having used 0.5 MCF. That's $145.31 for 0.5 MCF of water used. Compared to other Great Lakes region cities like Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Buffalo, Cleveland's water and sewer rates have been found by independent parties to be much higher. Additionally, Cleveland has the 2nd highest concentration of lead pipes in the U.S., with an additional 43% of the sewer pipes being over 100 years old. Why are we paying so much when the American Society of Civil Engineers gave Cleveland and Ohio's water and sewer infrastructure a "C" grade? I understand that there is a lot of investment needed to improve our water and sewer infrastructure - but why pull the majority of the costs of these upgrades from the pockets of everyday citizens? Why not from Federal dollars provided by the Infrastructure bill that passed under Biden, or through taxes on large businesses and corporations like Amazon that utilize way more water and create more wastewater than Cleveland households, or other funding sources whether private or public?
What's even more ridiculous, is that both Cleveland Water and NEORSD bill residents for the exact same services related to cleaning the water/pollution control and waste/sewage collection or cleaning. Why are they both charging me for the same things? That is duplication of services and even after speaking with representatives of both Cleveland Water and NEORSD, it is unclear how anything they are doing is different than what the other entity is doing and charging for.
With costs of living growing rapidly, every dollar counts. Honestly, I am frustrated and concerned that I am paying so much for so little and for what are clearly duplicative services. I welcome a chance to speak further and would encourage the administration to consider hosting town halls to get feedback, concerns, and suggestions for improvement from Clevelanders. So many of my neighbors and friends are struggling with this exact issue as well and I know they would welcome a chance to learn and to find an equitable solution. We Clevelanders are proud of our city, but to remain proud we need to be able to afford to live here and have infrastructure that allows us to live and thrive here.
Sources:
1. https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2019/02/why-have-cleveland-area-water-sewer-bills-doubled-in-a-decade.html
2. https://uswateralliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/An-Equitable-Water-Future-Cleveland_roadmap_final.pdf
3. https://neorsd.medium.com/report-ohios-infrastructure-is-mid-but-our-regional-work-is-major-d3cbdb36d08d
4. https://www.asce.org/publications-and-news/civil-engineering-source/society-news/article/2025/06/25/ohios-infrastructure-grade-improves-to-a-c-grade
5. https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/researcher-says-40-of-cleveland-water-mains-more-than-100-years-old
My name is Ericka H.
I am speaking today as someone who is directly impacted by the decisions you have made — or allowed to stand — regarding the reduction of funding for homeless assistance and nonprofit services in Cuyahoga County.
I am not speaking in theory.
I am speaking from first-hand experience.
The programs being reduced or destabilized are not abstract line items to me. They are the difference between safety and danger, stability and chaos, survival and crisis — not only for me, but for the people who live, sleep, worship, and seek help in the wards you represent.
The Reality You Do Not Have to Live With
You return to stable housing after these meetings. You do not have to figure out where to sleep when services disappear. You do not have to navigate trauma, illness, hunger, or fear without support.
But we do.
The people making these decisions are not the ones who absorb the consequences. The consequences land on us — in the neighborhoods surrounding Norma Herr Women’s Center and St. Paul’s Community Church, in hospital waiting rooms, on sidewalks, in shelters stretched beyond capacity, and in families trying to survive systems that are being dismantled around them.
When funding is reduced:
Shelter access shrinks
Case management disappears
Mental health crises escalate
Outreach stops before people stabilize
People are pushed back into unsafe conditions
This does not reduce costs.
It moves suffering into public view and shifts the burden onto emergency responders, hospitals, faith institutions, and neighborhoods.
We are already living with the fallout.
To the Councilmembers Representing These Wards & To the Governing Boards and Leadership of These Organizations
You represent areas where the impact is immediate and unavoidable.
Norma Herr exists because women need a place to go when systems fail.
St. Paul’s exists because faith institutions are forced to fill gaps left by policy decisions.
When you approve or remain silent on cuts that affect these places, you are not making neutral choices. You are deciding who bears harm and who does not.
And right now, that harm is being placed squarely on the backs of people with the least power to absorb it.
Your missions are supposed to be rooted in service, dignity, and protection of human life.
Yet the communities you serve are being destabilized by decisions made without our voices at the table — decisions that assume someone else will pick up the pieces when funding disappears.
We are asking you to do more than manage a decline.
We are asking you to advocate publicly, to challenge policies that undermine your missions, and to stand with the people whose lives give meaning to your work.
What We Are Asking — Directly and Clearly
We are not asking for sympathy.
We are asking for accountability.
We are asking you to:
Acknowledge publicly that these reductions disproportionately harm people who already live on the margins
Engage directly with impacted residents before further cuts are implemented
Advocate for restoration, reprogramming, or pilot funding rather than passive acceptance
Support community-based stabilization models that prevent crisis instead of reacting to it
Stop making decisions about us without us
This Truth Must Be Said
Policies made at a distance feel clean.
Their consequences are not.
We are the ones who live with the aftermath — every day, every night, in every season. If these decisions truly made communities safer, healthier, and more stable, we would not be here pleading to be heard. But the opposite is happening, and it is happening in the Wards you are responsible for & obviously don’t reside in.
In closing, Leadership is not measured by how well budgets balance on paper.
It is measured by who is protected when systems are strained. Right now, the people absorbing the cost of these decisions are not the people making them.
We are asking you — as elected officials, board members, and community leaders — to step closer to the reality you govern, to listen to those of us who live it, and to choose solutions that do not sacrifice human stability for short-term accounting.
We are here.
We are affected.
And we expect to be part of the decisions that shape our lives.
Respectfully,
Ericka H.
Directly Impacted Community Member / Resident / Service User /Tax Payer
Wards 7/8 & Ward 3 Communities