Making an In-Person Public Comment at An Upcoming Council Meeting

Council welcomes public comments at each regularly scheduled Monday evening Council meeting. 

If you are interested in speaking at a Cleveland City Council, please read the revised rules and procedures for public comments and fill out the online form below. 

Submitting a Registration to Speak

Anyone who is interested in addressing Cleveland City Council at a public meeting must register with City Council prior to that meeting.

Registrations may be submitted:

  • By using the online form below
  • In person at Cleveland City Hall, Room 220, 601 Lakeside Avenue NE. Paper forms are available to register.
  • By downloading this form, filling it out, and emailing it to publiccomment@clevelandcitycouncil.gov or dropping it off at Council offices.

Registration Periods

Registrations will ONLY be accepted between Noon on Wednesday and 2:00 pm on the same day as a regularly scheduled Monday evening Council Meeting.

Council allows no more than 10 people to comment at its regularly scheduled Monday night meetings. Registration will close as soon as the first 10 people sign up. Each registrant will be allotted 3 minutes to speak.

Registrations will only be accepted for making comments at the next regular meeting; registrations for any future meeting will not be accepted until the Wednesday before the meeting. Early, incomplete, or false registrations will be rejected.

Notice of Registration

If your registration is successful, you will be notified by email or phone.

Accommodations

If you need assistance due to a language barrier or disability, please let us know at least three (3) days in advance by going here to make a request.

Attending Council Meetings

Cleveland City Council meetings are held in the Council Chamber on the second floor of Cleveland City Hall, 601 Lakeside Avenue, East.

Visitors may park for free at the upper lot behind City Hall after 5:00 pm on days when Council is meeting.

Public Record

Please remember that all registration information and public comments are public records and can be subject to public record requests.

Decorum

Cleveland City Council must maintain orderly, efficient, and productive meetings to ensure the important business of city government is completed. Council has developed a set of rules and procedures that allow the public to be heard in a fair and orderly manner. These rules and procedures apply to all speakers, and Council does not discriminate based on the speaker's identity or viewpoint or the content of the speech. Please read Council's revised rules and procedures for public comments before you register and before you appear before City Council.

Please note: Anyone attending a Cleveland City Council meeting is prohibited from engaging in any action or behavior that substantially interrupts, delays, or disturbs the due conduct of the proceedings of the Council; such conduct includes but is not limited to: handclapping, stomping of feet, whistling, making other loud noises, yelling, or similar demonstrations.  Any person who violates any of the above may be immediately removed from the Council Chamber.

Rules for Speakers
  • Speakers may not yield their time to other speakers.
  • Speakers shall only address the topic they registered to speak about.
  • Speakers' comments shall not be frivolous or repetitive.
  • Speakers shall not use language that is obscene or likely to produce imminent unlawful action. 
  • Speakers shall address all comments to the presiding officer.
Prohibited Items
  • Signs, posters, banners, placards, or similar items
  • Food and drink

 

To sign up to comment in person or online, please scroll down.

Make a Comment In Person at a Council Meeting

To sign up to speak during the registration period (Noon Wednesday through 2:00 pm Monday before Council Meetings) click this button.

You will be notified by email or phone if you are one of the ten people who will speak.


Make a Comment Online

If you would rather submit your comments in writing, please fill out the form below. 

Written public comments will be published on this page and delivered to all Councilmembers before the next full Council Meeting after they have been submitted.


Public Comments

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The removal of WCSB from the student body of Cleveland state University.
Hello, I am an alum of CSU, and a citizen of Cleveland. On behalf of myself, my band, and our followers, I'd like to say I'm appalled at CSU's decision to rip the control of WCSB away from the students. It's clear that CSU, and Laura Bloomberg see the community, and the student body as an opportunity for profit. The removal of WCSB from students deprives the Cleveland area of an outlet of music, culture, speech, and community. I urge council members to support the WCSB resolution to have it returned to the students.
Johnathan Polace
WCSB The Power of College Radio
My name is Alexa and I am a freshman at CSU who recently started at WCSB. I was only able to do 7 shows before we were cut off and was looking forward to doing my show for the next 4 years. The only welcoming thing about CSU was the community and friends I gained from joining WCSB. Not only did I make friends, but I planned on using WCSB as a jumping off point for my career. I’m deeply saddened and frustrated by this decision because students like myself were clearly not taken into consideration. I strongly think that returning WCSB to it’s community is the best decision for CSU and Cleveland as a whole.
Alexa Howard
WCSB
My name is Adam Spektor; I am a Cleveland resident, an alumnus of Case Western Reserve University, a former programmer and general manager at fellow college station WRUW-FM 91.1, and have been active in local music on a number of levels over the last decade.

I did not grow up in Cleveland, but upon moving here for school, the very first thing that genuinely made me feel at home was WRUW, and soon after, Cleveland’s deeply-rooted college radio community. As I dug deeper into WRUW, I quickly grew to understand WCSB, and not to count out WJCU, as the friendliest rivals I’ve known in my life. Tuning in to these stations and bouncing around became a part of my daily routine, one that continued until earlier this month. The sheer amount of thrilling music I would likely have never heard otherwise were it not for WCSB was, frankly, among life’s reliant joys, and I’m proud to consider many of the programmers behind the airplay to be among the most brilliant, creative friends and peers I’ve known. And in my travels throughout the U.S. and abroad, Cleveland’s now-once-flourishing and historic college radio scene was one of my foremost points of pride when discussing my adopted hometown.

Beyond the personal anecdotes, as members of council have made mention, WCSB was a vital resource of local and regional community engagement, far beyond the campus of Cleveland State and provided a voice for countless ethnic groups in Cleveland for decades. The sheer history evades my comprehension, as a good amount of it happened before I was born. For all of it to evaporate overnight, for students to be perp walked out by campus police, for nobody on the ground to have notice or deliberation in the process, is insulting, sickening, disturbing, and dangerous. As the leery details of the ordeal continue to emerge, more salt gets dumped callously in the open, untreated wounds of those who volunteered themselves to freeform radio.

I am grateful to see members of council willing to speak out and take action on this matter. I demand full transparency from Cleveland State University and Ideastream, the immediate return of the 89.3-FM frequency to WCSB, and the reopening of its station to its staff and students.

As free speech is actively under fire on the national level, and as we continue to see endless institutions cow-tow in the name of shady financial interests, the sudden silencing of one of Cleveland’s - and the U.S. in general’s - truest outlets for free thought sets a dangerous precedent in dangerous times. I can at least write with confidence that history will continue to find favor in free speech, American college radio, and WCSB.
Adam Spektor
The city and Browns $100 million dollar deal.
As a resident of Cleveland, I urge council to reject this deal. The mayor has sold out the city and its residents.
After nearly three decades of Cleveland taxpayers financing the existing stadium, plus the $33 million the city owes, not to mention the interest, we deserve better. If the Browns can offer a player $250 million, why couldn't the mayor and his team negotiate a more favorable agreement? Furthermore, it's concerning that council was largely excluded from the negotiations. I urge council members to hold out for a better deal that truly benefits the city and its residents.
Vermonte
Hostile Takeover of WCSB Radio
I want to issue a formal complaint to Cleveland State University. The university removed the long-running WCSB student radio program from the airwaves, with no transition plan in place for displaced disc jockeys. As a Cleveland resident, I am ashamed by the university's decision to silence voices from what has been a broadcast institution for decades. I would like for the council to recommend CSU renegotiate their "strategic partnership" with Ideastream and work with the now XCSB group to return programming to terrestrial radio.
Nicholas Morris
$100 million from Browns
Cleveland is losing money on this agreement. The city should have agreed to $100 million and after 2029 the Browns would have to pay $100 million (as an example) each year to use the stadium. The longer we delay the redevelopment of the lake front, the longer we delay the lakefront becoming profitable.

If the Browns don’t need the stadium after 2029, the city can move forward with redevelopment and the Browns can move forward with providing its first winning season in Brookpark.
Jerald King
Dismantling of college station WCSB
College radio in Cleveland changed my life. Until now, no other city in the U.S. was lucky enough to have a number of excellent college/community radio stations that they could listen to and explore the many genres of music and the many communities cultures represented. A beautiful free flow of information and enjoyment.

I want to back up a previous comment by Dan Hird who puts the situation perfectly:

Independent and student-run media is important to our city and to our communities. CSU stripping WCSB of its programming not only silences the voices of the radio show hosts, but the voices of any artists that were played on those shows. Regardless of how the programming may change from its current smooth jazz focus, CSU students and Cleveland residents will never benefit from the current partnership the way they did with the student-run WCSB. Students having the airwaves means a great deal to many Clevelanders, and we see how seriously the students and independent hosts took on that responsibility. Independent and student-run media will always be more important and impactful than corporate media - where the purpose is to appease as many people as possible or risk hurting the bottom line.

In addition, the community needs transparency on what’s happening.
Shari Wilkins
Browns relocation
Totally against. I think the Haslams are terrible, self-serving owners who only care about themselves and their continued wealth. The make very little investment into this city, continue to deliver a sub-par performing team, the management needs to be gutted. They continue to raise ticket prices year after year but are providing no value of those tickets ... We are paying for year over year poor performance. Part of going to the Cleveland Browns game is enjoying the downtown experience and is being on the lake, weathering the cold storms, and supporting downtown Cleveland businesses. The move to Brook Park will be a traffic nightmare and is unnecessary.
Meagan Perkins
WCSB.
I miss WCSB & believe it should be given back to the students and the community. I listened quite frequently and did work there myself when a student from 1988-1992. I learned many things about the world beyond the west park neighborhood I grew up in by working there.
Thank you for considering taking action.

Jerry Crowe.
Jerry Crowe
WCSB
I'm not a CSU alum or a former WSCB employee, I'm just a 35 year old man that stumbled upon the station about 20 years ago trying to find the obscure form of music I was super into as a teenager at the time and I've been listening since. I can't put a price on any of the music that I've gotten from the show, or the entertainment I've gotten from the programs and I'm not going to echo all the other comments about the communities or the shady way the station was taken down; those are givens. Bring back the only damn radio station that was live in Cleveland late at night so people who work third shift can feel like they don't live in a ghost town. It was one of the few stations that also broadcast local events and concerts connecting the city. Which, if Cleveland's goal is to become a 15 minute worldly city, this is a step in the opposite direction. It's a detriment to Cleveland in so many ways to lose WCSB and to have it replaced by Ideastream smooth jazz, with hardly any local programming it's just insult to injury. In an era where we're growing further and further apart from differing politics and other nonsense, WCSB was a welcome change in the sea of non corporate radio and a bastion of unique voices and welcome distraction with things you wouldn't hear anywhere else. No political ads, no same 20 songs over and over, no messaging you'd hear from the other stations. Beyond that, it sucks getting old and sucks not knowing what's going on since I don't really use social media and without WCSB I have one less avenue left to me for knowing what's going on locally with concerts and events. Please give us back our station.
Stefan