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
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 89.3
The abrupt and aggressive removal of one of Cleveland’s most beloved student-run radio stations is the tasteless removal of one of our community pillars, and a gutting of our sense of place. As a Cleveland resident and radio consumer, this station is the soundtrack of my human experience, it’s the weaving between the Monday’s and the Friday’s, the subtle art of human connection and the feeling of belonging to the fabric of this city. I’ve listened to this station for almost a decade, switching back and forth between Cleveland State and Case Western from one DJ to the next, always finding comfort in the idea that despite whatever was happening outside the four walls of a home, or a nation, we at least had college radio to hold us together in Cleveland. WCSB is my Sunday morning, my Tuesday afternoon, and my Friday evening; its connection, community and culture, and it was unfairly taken from the residents and the students. We are grieving a loss so profound in Cleveland. Please help restore WCSB student-led radio programming and ensure that nothing like this ever happens again in our community.
Kimberly Lessman
WCSB radio
The destruction of beloved, community radio station WCSB was a change nobody asked for or wanted. Neither party has ever expressed any reasoning as to why there was a need to cancel a Cleveland institution with almost 50 years of history and respected nationwide. WCSB was a student and volunteer run station featuring completely original, non commercial programming available nowhere else. It's as if CSU and Ideastream came and torched a museum without even asking what was inside.
Steven Mastroianni
WCSB radio station takeover by Special Interest Group
Sending out a S.O.S. - SAVE OUR STATION
The Germans, largest ethnic community in Cleveland just lost its only native language public radio program.
The familiar Sunday sounds of German melodies from the Cleveland German Radio Program (CGRS) at WCSB 89.3 FM at Cleveland State University, hosted by Ambassador Renate and David, gave way to the bland elevator music as Ideastream Public Media’s JazzNEO took control of the stations programming.
In an instant, on national College Radio Day, nearly 50 years of student- and community-run programming—not to mention ethnic broadcast legacy—vanished from Cleveland’s airwaves.
For half a century, the old WCSB (now going by “XCSB” as it remains in limbo/transition) had been more than a student organization. It was a independent radio hub, a beacon of Cleveland’s community - a place where punk sat beside jazz, talk shows mingled with esoteric late-night programs and under served ethnic voices. "Preserving the Past and Promoting the Future" as Ambassador Renate, the German Voice of Cleveland stated uncountable times on the CGRS.
WCSB promoted itself on the Cleveland German Radio Show (CGRS) as the "...Station with all the Nations". Ethnic Programs for the German, Polish, Hungarian, Arabic, Slovenian and Latin and many more had an audiences and culture flourished. Immigrants, Students, artists and outsiders found a home here where expression and opinion aired in their own language.
And now, without warning, it was all gone.
As shocking as it feels locally, what happened to WCSB fits a national trend: slow absorption of college radio stations by public/NPR affiliates.
CSU is the third American university in the last month-plus to remove students from their own station. Cleveland State University and Ideastream silenced independent ethnic voices by abruptly seizing control of WCSB’s student-run radio station — a move that columnist Leslie Kouba sees as part of a growing and troubling trend of suppressing free speech in America.
Public media relies on listener trust. Alienating those listeners can lead to donor defections, negative press and lasting reputational harm—or all of the above, something CSU and Ideastream are now confronting in real-time.
Peace Friends,
David and Ambassador Renate Jakupca
Cleveland German Radio Show (CGRS)
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17EmyhMZwL/
The Germans, largest ethnic community in Cleveland just lost its only native language public radio program.
The familiar Sunday sounds of German melodies from the Cleveland German Radio Program (CGRS) at WCSB 89.3 FM at Cleveland State University, hosted by Ambassador Renate and David, gave way to the bland elevator music as Ideastream Public Media’s JazzNEO took control of the stations programming.
In an instant, on national College Radio Day, nearly 50 years of student- and community-run programming—not to mention ethnic broadcast legacy—vanished from Cleveland’s airwaves.
For half a century, the old WCSB (now going by “XCSB” as it remains in limbo/transition) had been more than a student organization. It was a independent radio hub, a beacon of Cleveland’s community - a place where punk sat beside jazz, talk shows mingled with esoteric late-night programs and under served ethnic voices. "Preserving the Past and Promoting the Future" as Ambassador Renate, the German Voice of Cleveland stated uncountable times on the CGRS.
WCSB promoted itself on the Cleveland German Radio Show (CGRS) as the "...Station with all the Nations". Ethnic Programs for the German, Polish, Hungarian, Arabic, Slovenian and Latin and many more had an audiences and culture flourished. Immigrants, Students, artists and outsiders found a home here where expression and opinion aired in their own language.
And now, without warning, it was all gone.
As shocking as it feels locally, what happened to WCSB fits a national trend: slow absorption of college radio stations by public/NPR affiliates.
CSU is the third American university in the last month-plus to remove students from their own station. Cleveland State University and Ideastream silenced independent ethnic voices by abruptly seizing control of WCSB’s student-run radio station — a move that columnist Leslie Kouba sees as part of a growing and troubling trend of suppressing free speech in America.
Public media relies on listener trust. Alienating those listeners can lead to donor defections, negative press and lasting reputational harm—or all of the above, something CSU and Ideastream are now confronting in real-time.
Peace Friends,
David and Ambassador Renate Jakupca
Cleveland German Radio Show (CGRS)
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17EmyhMZwL/
Ambassador Renate Jakupca
WCSB
Thank you for hearing this issue. WCSB has been an asset to the city of Cleveland for 50 years. It is a resource like no other. The short sighted decision to turn it over to a narrowly delineated market robs the station of the cultural richness it has provided our culturally diverse city. It also robs the citizens who for fifty years have volunteered their time, energy and resources to keep the station alive. It needs to be returned to and remain in those hands.
Debra Weita
WCSB
WCSB ran by students is part of the fabric of Cleveland as is the West Side Market, as is The Cleveland Museum of Art, as is Tower City, obviously the authors of the take over don't understand or know much of our city, what they did is equivalent to replace a fine art painting with a print they just bought from a discount store on sale for $5.99 this is extremely detrimental for the Cleveland people, WCSB was the vibe of the city, we never took it for granted, this move by CSU/Ideastream is an assault to all Cleveland residents and beyond, please help in restoring sanity and reverse this outrageous aberration made by CSU/Ideastream, I put my trust in you, thank you.
David Fernandez
WCSB radio station takeover
WCSB's original sin was that it was dreamt up by students. Students with enough foresight realized that in order to maintain their mission statement, to provide an alternative source of radio programming to its listening audience, they would have to integrate their community into their programming.
For almost 50 years, record labels, bands and alternative media groups from different backgrounds have contributed to WCSBs library. A library the president of the university thinks she can just take away from its community.
The shady action of the university president and her idea stream counterpart, speaks volumes to WCSBs value to the community.
It speaks volumes when the president wants to constantly remind the idea stream audience that WCSB was just a so-called student run organization. WCSB was composed of all members of the community dedicated to the same goal.
The president's constant use of undermining language tries to discredit station members as simple budget processors and not as active members of the WCSB family.
A student, in the eyes of the president and its board members, has no voice in university.
When interviewing the president of CSU on idea stream all she could produce was a so called “win win” strategy with absolutely no substance, no time tables or actionable items, while her idea stream counterpart was peddling jazz like it was fentanyl on the streets.
The president talked about an audience of students where they seemed excited about her new non existing program. Did she let the students know what it was replacing?
I think if she had been a little bit more honest to those students, they would have realized that the president is filled with terrible business decisions that only serve a minority that is already quite well served.
Let's be clear, this deal does not serve students in any shape or form. To be perfectly frank, if you are “preparing students for the career of the future” radio ain't it.
This is a corporate takeover where the “win win” goes to the board and executive members involved.
CSU, like Idea stream, would like to remind everyone they are public institutions. That does not equate that they are stakeholder driven.
CSU has a history of increasing their student headcount at the peril of its programs and organizations that were actually serving its students and community.
If this deal is allowed to continue, a few executives will get some cushy jobs and something for their legacy, a handful of students will get some training and experience just to justify the budget, all this at the expense of one of the most realist and honest representations of what it means to be from Cleveland.
If the president and idea stream get their “win win”, Cleveland and the world will lose one of its greatest gems with nowhere else to go.
I already lost my respect for CSU and Idea stream. All that's left is my respect for Cleveland and its community. Don't make me lose that too.
For almost 50 years, record labels, bands and alternative media groups from different backgrounds have contributed to WCSBs library. A library the president of the university thinks she can just take away from its community.
The shady action of the university president and her idea stream counterpart, speaks volumes to WCSBs value to the community.
It speaks volumes when the president wants to constantly remind the idea stream audience that WCSB was just a so-called student run organization. WCSB was composed of all members of the community dedicated to the same goal.
The president's constant use of undermining language tries to discredit station members as simple budget processors and not as active members of the WCSB family.
A student, in the eyes of the president and its board members, has no voice in university.
When interviewing the president of CSU on idea stream all she could produce was a so called “win win” strategy with absolutely no substance, no time tables or actionable items, while her idea stream counterpart was peddling jazz like it was fentanyl on the streets.
The president talked about an audience of students where they seemed excited about her new non existing program. Did she let the students know what it was replacing?
I think if she had been a little bit more honest to those students, they would have realized that the president is filled with terrible business decisions that only serve a minority that is already quite well served.
Let's be clear, this deal does not serve students in any shape or form. To be perfectly frank, if you are “preparing students for the career of the future” radio ain't it.
This is a corporate takeover where the “win win” goes to the board and executive members involved.
CSU, like Idea stream, would like to remind everyone they are public institutions. That does not equate that they are stakeholder driven.
CSU has a history of increasing their student headcount at the peril of its programs and organizations that were actually serving its students and community.
If this deal is allowed to continue, a few executives will get some cushy jobs and something for their legacy, a handful of students will get some training and experience just to justify the budget, all this at the expense of one of the most realist and honest representations of what it means to be from Cleveland.
If the president and idea stream get their “win win”, Cleveland and the world will lose one of its greatest gems with nowhere else to go.
I already lost my respect for CSU and Idea stream. All that's left is my respect for Cleveland and its community. Don't make me lose that too.
Felipe Amunategui Rivera
WCSB
The councilpersons addressing the debacle of Ideastream abruptly taking over WCSB have my thanks, and my hope that this will be opposed directly by our city.
I have listened to WCSB for most of my life, and it informed and enriched this life as it has for so many. The oblivious reasoning from Laura Bloomberg and Kevin Martin reflect an utter disregard for the community at large, and the many spaces of public life and public thought contained in community radio. WCSB provided direct connections to music that would be otherwise difficult to hear, events in our various forms of community, voices, ideas, challenging views that lead always to enrichment. What does not lead to enrichment is the silencing of everything but the most sterile community forums.
This has left a palpable emptiness in each day as my hand naturally heads to the left of the dial at 89.3
Everybody can use a little weird.
Thank you,
Rebecca Green
I have listened to WCSB for most of my life, and it informed and enriched this life as it has for so many. The oblivious reasoning from Laura Bloomberg and Kevin Martin reflect an utter disregard for the community at large, and the many spaces of public life and public thought contained in community radio. WCSB provided direct connections to music that would be otherwise difficult to hear, events in our various forms of community, voices, ideas, challenging views that lead always to enrichment. What does not lead to enrichment is the silencing of everything but the most sterile community forums.
This has left a palpable emptiness in each day as my hand naturally heads to the left of the dial at 89.3
Everybody can use a little weird.
Thank you,
Rebecca Green
Rebecca Green
WCSB
As a CSU student born and raised in the Cleveland area, WCSB was a part of my life long before I even started at CSU or joined the station. It was a staple of culture and community in our city. As a student, it was so imperative to my experience developing my own voice and a place within a community of people like me. I support the WCSB resolution being brought forth to city council because I want students to have the opportunity to find their voice and community in the way that I did. I support the resolution because I am devastated the university I attend made the decision to rip this away from myself and other students without any acknowledgement or consult with students, only 4 months after I had started my radio show, and 5 months before my graduation. It was special and important to me. I was learning so much. So many people needed WCSB. It mattered to so many students, different communities... College radio matters and is integral to Cleveland.
Nicole Wloszek
WCSB
I was on WCSB as a student in the 80s. My time at WCSB taught me that I didn't want to get into commercial radio as I thought I'd wanted - and it also taught me the skills that I have used throughout my career. I learned how to present, think quickly on my feet and fix mistakes rapidly, how to interview people. In other words, I learned fantastic communication skills and management skills. WCSB provided a lifeline to so many people throughout Cleveland - it had something for everyone, from the public affairs programming to grindcore in the middle of the night - and everything in between. It was a radio station known around the country - and the world - not just in Cleveland. Pre-programmed smooth jazz is not going to fill the unique spot that WCSB has held for decades, nor will it help students to learn the real skills they need for a career in radio or in anything else.
Shelley
WCSB Radio
hello,
I am not a citizen of Cleveland, but have listened to WCSB for many years and have had friends who have been impacted by its shutdown.
WCSB was a cultural beacon of the community and a voice of the students of CSU. Taking it down is not only a great loss of culture (of which being a mixing pot of cultures makes Cleveland great), but also shows that the voice of Cleveland students can be bought and sold
Student organizations should be able to speak on behalf of eachother and speak freely without fear of being sold to the highest bidder or lose their voice to some corporate entity.
Do what’s right, return that voice to the hands of CSU students.
Thank you,
Layne Stitzlein, Concerned Citizen
I am not a citizen of Cleveland, but have listened to WCSB for many years and have had friends who have been impacted by its shutdown.
WCSB was a cultural beacon of the community and a voice of the students of CSU. Taking it down is not only a great loss of culture (of which being a mixing pot of cultures makes Cleveland great), but also shows that the voice of Cleveland students can be bought and sold
Student organizations should be able to speak on behalf of eachother and speak freely without fear of being sold to the highest bidder or lose their voice to some corporate entity.
Do what’s right, return that voice to the hands of CSU students.
Thank you,
Layne Stitzlein, Concerned Citizen
Layne Stitzlein
Submissions are accepted up to 5 hours before a hearing if time slots are available