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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Local economy
We should bring Indycar back to Cleveland. This event will bring millions of dollars to our city. It will pack our hotels and restaurants. We need this badly.
Jim Buchanan
Ceasefire in Palestine
I support a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Palestine. I see genocide against the Palestinian people being committed in this war. Let us call for a ceasefire now.
Quentin White
Palestine ceasefire resolution
Israel is slaughtering Palestinians by the tens of thousands in many blatent violations of the Geneva Convention. Israel is commiting these war crimes primarily with funding and weapons provided by the United States. Many cities around us have evaluated these facts and determined it necessary and proper to voice their opposition of this genocide.

Cleveland has a large Palestinian population. Cleveland also has a large Jewish population. Both groups have banded together in condemning the Israeli genocide of Palestinians.

Cleveland city counsel has seen extensive citizen support of passing a resolution condemning this genocide and helping our citizens feel a tiny bit of peace knowing they live somewhere that will speak up for them. It costs us nothing.

Pass the resolution. Now.
Cassie Nahar
Cleveland's only 2024 USA Olympian
Morelle McCane is Cleveland's only current qualified USA Olympian 2024. She will be competing in Paris this summer. Glenville Alum. Tri-C Alum. Med-tech Certifications. Worked in retail, manufacturing and patient care. 9x USA National Champion. 4x National Golden Gloves Champion. It all started at the Glenville Recreation Center. Currently, she is the only qualified 2024 USA Olympian from the entire state of Ohio. Cleveland's Own!
Noel Salwan
Call a ceasefire and end the genocide of Palestinians
When I was in college, I had the opportunity to shadow Holocaust research in Lviv, Ukraine. My professor, Father Patrick Desbois, interviewed Holocaust witnesses to locate and document mass grave sites and local complicity. The Holocaust there looked different than what most of us learn in history books: Father Desbois’ work has found that millions of Jews, Roma, and other marginalized groups were murdered by firing line in broad daylight. That was his emphasis: the Nazis and local sympathizers were successful in genocide not in spite of, but because they worked in broad daylight. That is what I see happening now: the Israeli government is committing a genocide in broad daylight, and as long as we bear witness without action, our inaction makes us complicit. But, further, we cannot call our current policy “inaction” — our country is serving the perpetrator, and supplying the weapons that make continued genocide possible. To claim there are “two sides” in this moment that we should view as morally equal is willful ignorance and a poor excuse for remaining complicit in genocide. The question is not to call for a ceasefire or to remain neutral, the question is whether we will confront our own complicity and demand to change our course of action from the wrong side of history to the side of justice.
Emily Jaster
Ceasefire in Gaza
This has been going on for FAR too long. We NEED a ceasefire now. If we spent the money being sent to Israel on social programs, community outreach, etc., we would have a better America and a better world.
Isabelle
People's Resolution
Seeing that Cleveland City council has no spine/have financial interests tied to Israel, the people will pass their own ceasefire resolution for the children being blown apart in Gaza. We can see Bibb is too busy posing on Instagram with music stars while the school district sits in shambles with millions in deficits. You HATE children, demonstrably. Meanwhile, also expunging records of money launderers so they can continue to govern in Cleveland, and let old farts go on racist tirades from their office's phones. It's a racket and a joke. The more I learn about this city leadership, the more I realize how messed up it is.

What kind of inhumane, out of touch, self important, privileged know-nothing says no to a ceasefire? Says no to ending genocide? Says yes 13,000 children are dead, let's do it some more! People who get money from it, apparently. These representatives are, quite literally, enemies of the people and must have their powers and privileges stripped.
Anon
Ongoing genocide of Palestinian people
We demand a permanent and immediate
Ceasefire now!!!
Jena
Cleveland Public School Budget Deficit
Why are we not talking about decades of lavish tax abatements for fancy hotels, billionaire-owned sports franchises, luxury apartments, gargantuan nonprofit land holdings and swank office buildings that have effectively stripped urban public schools of desperately needed revenue increases?

All this austerity talk now with respect to the public schools is being treated as if it’s somehow a good thing, sounding a lot like idiot Neutron Jack Welsh’s sadistic business orthodoxy: cut the fat, tighten the belt, trim the deadwood; like this is an inherently healthy process.

It’s anything but healthy. It’s deeply toxic.

NOBODY is talking about increasing funding, only cutting expense. So immediately, half of the critical arithmetic is made irrelevant.

40 years in business taught me this essential lesson: you NEVER can cut your way to success. It's a continuous death spiral for the city when we refuse to invest more in public schools, and the city’s children.

Which is why we can expect only worse outcomes as a result, with no end in sight.

Very sad.
Arthur Hargate
Cleveland Missing the Mark
It is abhorrent to me that Cleveland city council can easily pass resolutions regarding Ukraine, but is unwilling to stand with the majority of Americans, including over 70% of democrats, that are calling for a ceasefire (https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/2/27/voters-support-the-us-calling-for-permanent-ceasefire-in-gaza-and-conditioning-military-aid-to-israel#:~:text=Around%20two%2Dthirds%20of%20voters,escalation%20of%20violence%20in%20Gaza.)

All this while council president is taking pictures with known harassers of the Palestinian community, and council members are spewing racist rhetoric about Palestinians in Cleveland.
Anonymous