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
I am in full support of CSU/IDEASTREAM returning the operation of WCSB to the student body. As a two-time graduate of Cleveland State and a high school counselor in Cleveland, I cannot, in good conscience, continue to encourage my students to apply to an institution that has dealings like the recent partnership with IDEASTREAM, which complete lacked any integrity or transparency and then furthered the personal/professional agenda of Laura Bloomberg.

This current administration does NOT have the best interest of its students (or MY students) in mind, or the local communities they represent. What reprehensible behavior by both the president of CSU and IDEASTREAM Public Media. We will not tire in our efforts. We will continue to demand the return of WCSB to the students.

Lisa Ellis
WCSB
I am writing to strongly and wholeheartedly support the resolution to urge CSU to rightfully return WCSB to student management and terminate their ill-conceived and sloppily implemented arrangement with Ideastream/JazzNEO. The decision to unilaterally destroy a vibrant and vital source of free and diverse public creative expression and intellectual discourse that provided such immense value to students while serving such an important role in the Cleveland community for fifty years—replacing it with such a tone-deaf and boring alternative—shows a profoundly concerning lack of vision and basic good sense on the part of CSU’s administration. Further, the manner in which this “transition” was handled with virtually no notice and sudden police involvement is unprofessional and plainly coarse, bordering on violent. As a community member, alum, and (until recently) instructor at this university, their conduct has not only been disappointing, it is embarrassing. The administration absolutely knows better, as does Ideastream, and they can easily make it right by returning WCSB to student hands. CSU knows what they need to do. The city for which they are named will remember their choices.
Zach Peckham
WCSB
WCSB is a Cleveland treasure. For decades, it has celebrated and exposed people across our region to a massive diversity of musical genres and cultures -- all through the sweat equity of deeply committed DJs. It's been an invaluable community, a training ground on how to run a real-life radio station and a source of pure joy and exploration for so many across our region. The people who have invested their time, musical knowledge and administrative skills into making WCSB such a valuable station deserve to be on the air. They deserve Cleveland's appreciation and support for offering such a truly valuable public asset. I urge you to do what's needed to get WCSB back on the air!
Kate Sopko
WCSB
Please do not underestimate the role that WCSB played in providing news and entertainment to a variety of communities in Greater Cleveland. All of these communities lost an important cultural institution when Ideastream and CSU colluded to rob us of WCSB. All of which took place behind closed doors. They must be held accountable for what they have done.
Eric Schulte
CSU 86’d WCSB, we want it back
The three current highest-paid salaries at Cleveland State University: the current president and the last two former (disgraced) presidents, totaling over $150 million.

But ok, let’s kill a five-decade shining star in radio — one paid by general fund money and donors; that fed the rock radio revolution in Cleveland and was a pilgrim of online streaming?

Make it make sense.

CSU didn’t care to know what they had and Ideastream bilked them for it — in exchange for radio ads and a board seat!

Worst trade since the ol’ Cleveland Indians days, when they’d trade all-star players for cash and “players to be named later.”

And so very on-brand for them both.

To have jazz music — a quintessentially Black American art form — being used to silence marginalized community voices is “next-level terrible,” a slap on the face.

Especially when you consider that the jazz musicians making it had trouble finding clubs to play and were once persecuted (and much worse!) just to be heard?

You mean to tell us that NO ONE thought about the optics of THAT before they made their decision? That would have been the very FIRST thing to ask all the parties involved in the room:

“Uh. You SURE about this?”

There aren’t enough hair shirts for the two marquee “urban institutions” involved.

And these are highly educated leaders?

Sure. But they’re not FROM here, or they would have pulled the emergency brake on this harebrained idea before it ever got out of committee. Now. Give back WCSB.
peasea
Wcsb
I’m writing to express my opposition to the format change at Wcsb. Illegal radio is an important and vital asset to the community. Taking the station away fro the students limits their opportunities to learn about broadcasting and represent the communities from which they came. Please reconsider the change and give the station back to the students.
J Delfs
Resolution 1324-2025
Hello,

My name is Jarett Theberge and I'm writing to implore city council to support resolution 1324-2025 and restore 89.7 WCSB back to it's student run programming.

As a former college radio host for Black Squirrel Radio at Kent State, I can confidently say that being a part of college radio was not only the best thing I did in college, but also paid dividends for my professional development. As a content creator and professional communicator, college radio gave me the confidence to find my voice and audience. Additionally, college radio provides a platform for unbridled creativity and diversity in programming.

But since Ideastream took over the frequency, we are all left without these voices. A true sense of community and tradition up-rooted for the sake of a single genre of music. I worry that future students and community members will never have the opportunity to enjoy the gift that is being involved in college radio the way it was meant to be. Avant garde. Informative. Eclectic.

Since I was in high school, tuning into WCSB at any given time of day allowed me to discover new genres of music and voices from the community that wouldn't have otherwise. A true stream of ideas, if you will.

I would like to thank my councilman, Kris Harsh, for supporting this measure and once again implore the rest of council to do the same for the students and the community.

Thank you,

Jarett Theberge
Jarett Theberge
WCSB
I’m writing in support of reinstating WCSB as a public station with the former staff to retain their positions. This radio station is our young people’s voices, commentary, love of music and direct connection to the people of cleveland and its surrounding suburbs. Removing it and replacing it with a generic format goes against all that makes listening a pleasure and cuts into our community at its base.
Teresa Duke
WCSB ideastream takeover
I think the way this situation has been handled is so disrespectful to the CSU students, alumni, supporters and the Cleveland community. CSU student run WCSB was a beacon of the Cleveland community. Being able to tune in and listen to actual people that live here, playing music by people that live here (and much more) for the people that live here is so important in a time where most music platforms are dominated by pre programmed shows and songs are selected by an AI algorithm.
Joseph Arceneaux
WCSB
WCSB was a vital community resource and a huge part of my everyday life. Ideastream's callous takeover of the FM signal was a crime. The things that make this city beautiful and worth living in need to be protected and when they are threatened we have to fight back in any way we can.
Solomon St Clair