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

Filter By

WCSB
Please return 89.3 FM to its former programming. The community is heartbroken over the loss of our favorite radio station.
John Grogan
WCSB termination
I’m appalled at the sudden termination of WCSB in the format we’ve grown to love & follow. I knew individuals that have devoted years & passion contributing to its format as the voice of their generation personally. It has networked into relationships with individuals that have spawned artistic collaborations in bands & other business associations for years. Certainly, this is something worth preserving for others moving forward. Long live WCSB.
Kenneth Morris
WCSB
WCSB 89.3 must be returned to the students. It is a community jewel and must be preserved. CSU and NPR were in the wrong on this one.
Jon Mack
Ideastream shutting down WCSB
Ideastream has taken a real treasure from our community and they did it in a sneaky and underhanded way with no input from alumni, students or the public. I'm pretty heartbroken about the loss. It really was a unique and special Cleveland thing with a deep history in the scene for what would've been 50 vibrant years. The city is worse off for the loss and an institution like that won't be replaced by anything like it. I really feel for all the musicians, djs and listeners. Please help keep fighting for transparency about what happened and what was taken from the city.
Graham Fox
Ideastream takeover of WCSB
A beloved community and cultural asset, student run WCSB, was recently obliterated by a murky partnership between Ideastream and CSU. I am a strong believer in the importance of a free press and public voices in a fully functioning democracy. The silencing of a community voice that served many cultural audiences is highly problematic. Put simply, WCSB was one of the many things that makes Cleveland interesting. If the City of Cleveland has supported Ideastream and CSU politically and financially, I ask Cleveland City Council to focus on the negative impact of a 49 year-old community and cultural institution being erased from Cleveland's airwaves.
Jim Ridge
WCSB/Ideastream
I would like to highlight what a terrible shame it was to close WCSB and transfer the station over to Jazz NEO.

I've lived in Cleveland for right around 8 years now, and I have always told people one of my top three favorite thigns here is our great local college radio stations and ;eading the way for almost 50 years has been WCSB. Any hour of the day there was something intersteing to hear, including many genres of music, movie scores, and even some world music. Additionally, WCSB was incredibily important to our local music scene. It gave increased access and promotion for many of our local bands and musicians, while also hosting some great events that really brought the community together.

The switch to a pre-programmed 24/7 jazz station is such a shame. Even though they may have some "paid internship" opportunities for CSU sturdents, the real world and diversese experience WCSB brought can never be reaplaced.

I don't know what caused this transfer to happen, but I feel like there was some behind the scenes dealings that we are owed and explanation for. The president of ideastream and CSU both are non-Clevlanders, and I feel like this new "partnership" is just a big checkmark for both their resumes when they no doubt lease Cleveland in the near future for "bigger opporrtunites," leaving the our city and our music scene worse off.
Jamie Kennedy
WCSB
I'm 61 years old. I've been listening to wcsb for the last 20 years or so. I work 3rd shift driving a truck, making deliveries to businesses during the night. 5 nights a week, WCSB is my home away from home. 40 hours a week they welcome me into their community and keep me company while working. I've been to a few of their events over the years, and they've welcomed me with open arms. They didn't care about my age or that I'm not an alumni (Ohio U grad). They just shook my hand and treated me like family. Losing WCSB is truly like losing an old friend. Everything about this "deal" between Idea stream and csu sounds and feels sketchy. It feels dirty. It feels wrong. And maybe that's because it is sketchy. It is dirty. It is wrong. I know it. The community knows it. And deep down idea stream and csu knows it too. I don't know what power local government has in reversing this decision, but I'm hoping that something can be done. College radio, especially wcsb, plays a vital role all across the country. College radio is a place that plays music that isn't found on corporate radio. College radio builds community, this deal tore down a community. Please bring back WCSB.
Jeff Dean
WCSB taken over by Ideastream
This comment is not intended to express a blanket hatred of the genre of jazz or the color gray, HOWEVER...

SHAME on CSU and SHAME on Ideastream. Nobody asked to kick one of the best student led stations off the dial. And it was really dirty to do it on World College Radio Day. Ideastream was given reign over one of the last vestiges of creativity, diversity, cultural enrichment that CSU offered and has painted it landlord gray. We don't need more monochrome radio. This smacks of an initiative to squash voices of dissent that may be speaking on particular current issues and appease wealthy donors.

This was one of three radio stations I actually liked. I can't stand commercial radio and after working in sheet metal, developed a loathing for the same 50 classic rock songs played ad nauseum. I told friends and coworkers about 89.3. I can't even stand NPR stations anymore since entities allegedly dedicated to cultural enrichment keep becoming tools for political propaganda and homogeneity. I listened to hundreds of hours of 89.3 while driving routes for work. I recorded bits of music to look up later if i didn't catch the name of the artist. I loved the Halloween themed programs. I could hear new but obscure music and vintage obscure music. These stations make listeners aware of local artists and promote under represented local cultural events. The students who ran the station gained far more practical experience than they would through internships and a very different skill set for solving problems live instead of making pre-recorded content.

Smooth jazz is a dilution of everything that influenced jazz in the first place. It's the musical equivalent of office wallpaper. CSU has been trying to sanitize its image for a while, ridding the place of any programs geared toward women and cultural diversity, and this is yet another step in that direction. We do not need more on-hold music on the radio.
Zenith
WCSB
Please support the EMERGENCY RESOLUTION to fully restore WCSB radio to its students.

Intervention is desperately needed. The students are getting a big education throughout this debacle. They have been repeatedly told that this was a Win-Win - but their autonomy was ignored and sacrificied. Please stand up for them, and prove to them that they matter. These young people have answers to questions that we don't even yet know how to ask.

Kevin Martin publically stated in the recent City Club forum "I would not put myself in the place to make judgments about what is important in terms of the values and the priorities of Cleveland State University. That is not what I do, and that's not what public media does," This was a bit disgraceful to hear, since educational opportunites were promised by Ideastream in this deal, and public media touts education as essential to their values! Mr. Martin also denigrated the value of clubs in having professional value... while sitting at The City Club! Is that cruel irony?

I work with CSU students, both as an instructor, and as a member of WCSB. They have intelligence, grit, and love for arts, and politics, and community. How I've seen them dismissed in this deal is a full tragedy.

Thank you for being involved!









Helen Schneider
WCSB
I would like to echo my support for the proposed emergency resolution to send to Ideastream and CSU. As both a longtime resident of Cleveland, a music lover and radio nerd, I have to say the sudden and complete loss of WCSB as it was as a student ran non commercial radio is a travesty that should be rectified. This topic has gained much support and it is a easy political win for all of city council to support the proposal.

When I woke up Friday morning on October 3 to being locked out of the radio station, I felt like a best friend had just kicked me out of their life without warning. I had no idea the community of my hometown would rally behind this cause as much as I can recall since Art took my Browns. For this I am grateful and I hope both my current outgoing councilman can see that before taking his leave to work to sell other city councils on AI surveillance technology.

Alex Howe
Formerly of Good Morning Metal on WCSB
Alex Howe