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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WCSB Takeover
I strongly urge Cleveland City Council to do what it can to return Cleveland State University students and community programmers to the airwaves on WCSB 89.3FM. The decision to automate programming on the campus radio signal will have a measurable impact on already marginalized communities across our city, in addition to undue harm to arts & culture programming and, of course, the economics surrounding it. Our namesake public university and local public media are meant to operate in the interest of the greater good of the community in which they serve, and what Ideastream and CSU have done with WCSB-FM, a volunteer-run public service, is reprehensible.

So please return Cleveland State University students and community programmers to the airwaves on WCSB 89.3FM
Kent C Stricker
WCSB
Give the radio station back to the students. Brunch jazz 24/7 is a preposterous use of this community asset
L.S. Quinn
WCSB / Ideastream
Return WCSB 89.3 FM to the CSU students. They were an asset to both the university and community. CSU president Laura Bloomberg made a horrendous deal with Ideastream and needs to be held accountable for her misguided and questionable actions. This statement from Chris Quinn at cleveland.com echoes my thoughts exactly and is something Bloomberg and CSU's board of trustees need to be respond to.

Chris Quinn: "I don’t understand the CSU side of it. They are a school, they are about education. And a student-run radio station trains kids to do all sorts of things. It’s the engineering, it’s the on air, it’s the music, it’s the running it, the managing of it. And it’s all gone now.”
Bill Peters
Save WCSB
As a resident of Cleveland’s Ward 6, I’m urging the City Council to pass the resolution supporting WCSB, a vital part of our city’s culture. WCSB has always been a reflection of the diversity and vitality of our city, and an important opportunity for real learning for CSU students.
Julie Burrell
WCSB 98.3 Cleveland
WCSB is a local treasure and part of the reason most other cities are jealous of Cleveland. The diverse voices that existed on this radio station must be reinstated. We are a better city for having them and City Council should do anything in its power to help the students and community members who poured their blood, sweat, and tears into WCSB to make it the vibrant and thrilling thing it was. Please help.
Brian C Hare
The hostile takeover of WCSB
The way WCSB was taken over was wrong. There should have been a community poll or study. Many immigrant groups rely on the international programs that supply information about goings-on in their communities and important updates - especially in these times. Also, there wouldn't be any student intern positions for training - because IdeaStream is streamed in from somewhere else. So basically the radio station and all the equipment and the library will just sit there. Please give back WCSB to the thousands of listeners who rely on this station for their enjoyment and information about goings on in their community.
Denise M Miller
WCSB
I am commenting personally and as the President of Progressive Urban Real Estate on the loss of WSCB.  Personally there is a hole in my heart that was once filled with music and programming from the student programmers at WCSB.  My love of Cleveland, its uniqueness and diversity, was represented by the different, strange and sometimes wild programming of WSCB.  There is something that makes Cleveland special, different from the chain filled, generic America   The WCSB community embodies that special sauce that makes Cleveland, Cleveland.  Professionally I have been selling Cleveland to anyone who will listen, my entire career of 32 years and counting.  My passion for the City is evident and on October 3rd when Cleveland State University, my alma mater, shuttered WCSB and escorted its student programmers out with a police escort part of that passion was quelled.  I started questioning; is Cleveland actually different or are we going to be like everywhere else?    The answer to that question is no; we will not be like everyone else and I implore Council to help reverse this terrible decision made by the leaders of CSU and ideastream.  These leaders are not Clevelanders and do not understand what community is or what Cleveland is all about.  The City of Cleveland should take a stand against outsiders who are chipping away at our unique personality and help return WCSB to the student programmers and the whole creative and arts loving community.  Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
David Sharkey
Student/Community run WCSB loss
I have been reading the comments left regarding the takeover of student/community run radio 89.3FM WCSB Cleveland. It is amazing to see all the heartfelt comments and commentary on this takeover from Ideastream and CSU leadership.
Leadership is meant to empower students, and fulfill a pledge to those students attending CSU and the greater community. This leadership took away voices, took away empowerment, and took away a community.
I know that many are grieving and this resolution is a solution that many can get behind. I may not live in Cleveland proper anymore, but I support free radio that empowers students with management skills, learning on the fly, and finding their voice within a society that is squeezing freedom into one neat little package (24/7 jazz).
Personally, the 50th Anniversary would have been my 20th year at the station. Its a small number compared to many, but when I was a student at CSU and a member of WCSB (2006-2010) I found a voice I never knew existed. I was introduced to so many people, I learned so many skills, and I learned to be apart of something greater than individuality.
Adam R
The WCSB takeover
I attended CSU in the 80s. I have personally witnessed the effect it has had on community decades after my time at csu. Even though its a student organization it has continued to bring people together long after their college years. Its a creative outlet that is necessary in this time of uncertainty and censorship. Please consider how the abrupt end of WCSB might effect the confidence that we have as a free society. Mainstream 24/7 jazz and commercial and corporate goals do not reflect what students (and the public) need right now. Those selfish goals send the wrong message to the student body and the community. We need to double down on messages of hope, freedom and diversity. That is the essence of college run radio. I stand with XWCSB.
Barbara Merritt
WCSB Takeover
CSU and Ideastream have done a great disservice to our community in silencing this unique and diverse station, and for no good reason. Thank you Councilman Polensek for your support.
Mike Uva