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Where Am I: Resources / Public Comment

Making a Public Comment

Council welcomes public comment before regular council meetings. Fill out the online form below for your chance to make a public comment at the next regular Monday Council meeting.  Please read the revised rules and procedures. 

Registrations can also be submitted:

* In person at Cleveland City Hall, Room 220, 601 Lakeside Ave. NE. Paper forms are available to register.

* If you don't want to fill out the online form below, you can download this form and fill it out, and email it to publiccomment@clevelandcitycouncil.gov or drop it off at Council offices. (Parking at City Hall on the upper lot is free on Mondays after 5 pm when Council is meeting.) If you need assistance, language, or disability, go here to make a request (at least 3 days in advance.) 

Make a Comment in Person

Registrations to speak up to 3 minutes at a regular council meeting can be submitted between noon Wednesday and 2 pm on the Monday before a regular 7 pm council meeting. (Early, incomplete and false registrations are not accepted.) Only the first 10 are accepted.  


Make a Comment Online

If you don't want to speak at a Council meeting, please submit your written comments below. 


Public Comments

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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
WCSB
WCSB is a cornerstone for the many communities of people who call Cleveland home. Please return the station to the students. Follow the money. This deal reaks of corruption. There is no student benefit. Ideastream and CSU’s President benefit. The people of Cleveland loss. The people are lossing too much in this deal. We are loosing rock and roll, blues, reggae, Hungarian music, Asian pop, metal, Aribic music, Irish music, folk music, noise, and most importantly the support from WCSB helps countless musicians.
Please stop this hostile takeover.Return WCSB to the students.
Joe Whisman
WCSB
I want to back up what Dan Hird put really well!:

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.
Laverena Wienclaw
Ideastream Takeover of WCSB
I was a current member of the college-run radio station WCSB up until 10/3/25. I was in class when I saw the email from the university saying that the station, the community I only had the privilege of recently experiencing, had been dissolved and replaced with Jazz NEO supposedly for my benefit. Like many others in the community, I see this as a tragic loss for free speech and independent media. As a student I feel as though the people who run the university I attend, certainly do not have my best interest in mind.
T Ramirez
WCSB
Prior to October 3rd, WCSB was a radio station that served a wide variety of communities here in Cleveland and beyond our city. The deal that took place between Ideastream and Cleveland State University denies service to these communities in exchange for serving one group of people - mainstream jazz fans who don't have HD Radio. This is an unacceptable deal for the thousands of Clevelanders who tuned in to hear diverse voices and a plethora of music genres. This is an unacceptable deal for the Clevelanders who keep up with their friends and family over the four line phone system that stayed busy during every late night talk show. And this is an unacceptable deal for the students of Cleveland State University who are losing out on true ownership of an artistic endeavor and learning the skills needed to pull off future projects. My hope is that this deal made for the purposes of Ideastream board membership for someone who is not even from Cleveland will be made null and void.
Jeremy Sager
WCSB / XCSB
My name is Liam Main, and I am a student at Cleveland State University as well as the former business manager of what was formerly WCSB 89.3FM - CSU’s student-run, freeform, non-profit radio station that has served Cleveland for nearly 50 years.

I’m writing to express how disgusted and disappointed I am with the recent actions taken by Cleveland State University and Ideastream Public Media. Without warning, consultation, or transparency, CSU handed over our station’s signal to Ideastream, effectively ending decades of student and community broadcasting. This was done under the label of a “strategic partnership,” but it was never about partnership, it was about control.

The implications go far beyond losing a frequency. CSU and Ideastream’s actions represent the silencing of a vital student and community voice, one that amplified independent musicians, artists, and activists across Cleveland. WCSB was a space that represented creativity, diversity, and authenticity. That has now been replaced by corporate branding and bureaucracy.

CSU has betrayed the trust of its students, alumni, and the larger Cleveland community. What they’ve done undermines not just WCSB, but the idea that public universities should protect freedom of expression and student media.

CSU and Ideastream should terminate their agreement and return the station back to student and community members.
Liam Main
WCSB Radio's silent takeover by IdeaStream
The fabric of the Cleveland arts and culture scene is underwritten by a deep musicality. The underground forms the infrastructure for the mainstream. WCSB is an important part of what makes Cleveland cool in that undeniable but indefinable way.

I truly don't think people understand how much cultural and arts infrastructure WCSB provided to the community. And not just that, but WCSB provided community to people who otherwise may have difficulty accessing community.
As a terrestrial radio station with extremely diverse programming, WCSB was a Cleveland organization that exemplified accessibility and inclusivity.
The citizens most likely to not have Internet access in their homes, or have computers or smart phones, are poor people and disabled people. A terrestrial radio station is so important!

As Cleveland develops, I had hoped we could side-step some of the problems of conformity. I don't think doing the same thing that every other city is doing is good for us. We're worth doing better! We are worth not making the same mistakes other cities may have made with their irreplaceable FM cultural and arts jewels. I want better for us than to just throw away 50 years of community and student led programming for 1000 add slots and a board seat for the president of CSU!

I'm also extremely dismayed that a public university and a public media company did not seek any public comment or feedback before finalizing this very large and consequential deal.

WCSB is very important to me personally.
Listening to good music that I've never heard before is one of the greatest joys of my life! For over 30 years WCSB has done it for me!

WCSB is the radio station I listened to the most. I buy inexpensive old cars so I only have the radio in them.

While I didn't attend CSU, the college or university I chose to attend having a cool radio station was a "dealbreaker" for me. Back then, I simply wouldn't apply to any college or university that didn't have a student-led radio station. And I feel like, growing up in Euclid, a suburb of Cleveland, WCSB may be partly responsible for that, lol. But I'm so thankful that WCSB set that expectation for me!

Just last month I heard a band from Zimbabwe that I had never heard before on a WCSB radio show. I liked them, and they were playing at the Beachland the next week, so I went to see them! I don't want to be deprived of that type of immediate joy!!! And I don't want to deprive artists of revenue!

I want full return of WCSB FM radio station to the students and to the community. Students built WCSB starting 50 years ago. It simply wasn’t CSU's to give away, not really.



As a local Realtor I believe that WCSB is a historical institution that adds immeasurable value to Cleveland and Cleveland communities and it deserves our action to protect it. Thanks for your time!
Kate Andrews