The ideas expressed in city club forums are those of the speakers and not of the City Club of Cleveland Ideastream Public Media or their sponsors.

Production and distribution of City club forums and ideastream Public media are made possible by PNC and the United Black, Fond of Greater Cleveland, Inc.. good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to having conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

I'm Robin Minter Smyers.

I'm the past President of the City Club Board of Directors and a proud City Club member on behalf of our current Board President Mark Cross, who wasn't able to be here with us today, and all of my colleagues on the board, I welcome to the 2025 State of the City.

Today's forum is presented in partnership with PNC.

We are so grateful to PNC for its consistent support of the City Club.

Today's forum is taking place in Cleveland's public auditorium, home of the Cleveland Charge.

We are so grateful to the Cavs and to the Auditorium's in-kind production support for this event.

This year is the fourth state of the city for Mayor Justin Bieber.

It's the final address of the mayor's current term.

For any mayor seeking reelection, the end of the first term is a critically important time to take stock of accomplishments and of the work remaining to be done.

Right now, this moment in this moment of significant economic and political change, taking stock feels especially appropriate.

At last year's state of the city.

The mayor touted a more modern and responsive city hall.

He put public safety at the forefront and vowed to crack down on predatory out-of-state landlords.

Since his last address, the mayor has made notable progress on several initiatives, including the restoration of the West Side market, which closed on 53 million in financing last week.

The engineering of the core to shore to shore tax increment financing district enabling bedrock catalytic investment in the restoration of the Cuyahoga Riverfront and the creation of a new lakefront master plan.

When Secretary of Transportation Pete Buda Judge spoke at the City Club last December, he spoke of Cleveland's lakefront plan as visionary and worthy of federal support.

And the mayor has launched the Site Readiness Fund, which is designed to create jobs and revitalize neighborhoods.

Looking beyond Cleveland, the mayor has also assumed a new prominent role as president of the Democratic Mayors Association in ensuring Cleveland is part of a larger national conversation.

Today, we are pleased to provide this opportunity for all of us who have a stake in Cleveland's future to hear directly from the mayor and dig into some of the initiatives driving Cleveland's growth and transformation.

Joining us on the stage to lead this conversation with Mayor Bibb is Russ Mitchell.

You know him well.

He's the anchor and managing editor at WKYC.

Now, neighbors, members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Russ Mitchell and the 58th mayor of the city of Cleveland, the honorable Justin and Beth.

Thank you.

Well, you know, my middle name is suave and good afternoon, Mayor Bill.

How are you doing?

I'm doing okay.

I'm doing okay.

Thank you so much for inviting me to lead this conversation today.

Glad it made it up on stage safely.

You wanted to take a minute or two to begin and give some give an opening statement?

Absolutely.

Well, welcome, everybody, to Cleveland Public Auditorium, home of our amazing Cleveland Charge and our great city.

I really can't believe that it is my final state of the city and my first term in office.

And there have been so many people who have made our progress and success possible over the last three years.

First, I want to thank my tribe, my family, Mama bibs in the house.

The first mother in Cleveland.

Thank you for your support and my Aunt Deborah as well.

And it was so important for me to have Reverend Hageman give the invocation today because Reverend Hagin was my late grandma, Sarah's pastor.

So thank you, Dr. Hageman, for the invitation.

Really appreciate it.

Also want to thank City Council and First Council President Blaine Griffin for your leadership.

Blaine has the other hardest job in Cleveland, and because of his leadership and the great work of city Council, we've been able to get so much done as a city over the last three years.

I want to thank my cabinet as well.

Great things can't happen in Cleveland without a great leadership team at City hall.

Appreciate all that you do.

And last but certainly not least, I want to shout out every single worker at city hall, because as as we see this attack in Washington on our federal workforce, we need to show the nation that Cleveland believes in government, that government works and we have to always have the backs of our public sector workforce.

Let's give a big round of applause if we can.

So let's do it.

All right.

Mayor, you have been mayor of Cleveland for three years and four months now.

Incomplete is not an option.

How would you grade yourself as mayor of Cleveland?

If I give us B a big why?

I think it's important to take stock on the challenges that we inherited on day one.

When I took office, we were dealing with the murder of Officer Shane Bartek.

We were dealing with a crisis in confidence of whether or not our city could address violent crime and our public safety issues.

We were seeing headline after headline whether or not Cleveland could emerge out of the pandemic effectively.

And since day one, since our team took office, I believe we've tackled those issues with a sense of urgency.

We made real strikes on public safety since we took office.

Homicides have declined by 46%.

We these we brought on the most cadets to our police department, the most since 2019, the most in five years.

Over 134 new cadets last year to our police department.

We've fixed simple things like having DocuSign finally at City Hall, the first new website in nearly two decades.

And and now Cleveland is in a different part of the conversation.

People are choosing Cleveland now once again.

And now is our moment to build up on down that progress.

Let me ask you this.

When you look at the decisions you've had to made, you had to make over the last three years and four months.

Anything you would have done differently?

Any decision you look at it, look at it and say, if I could have done this differently, I would have.

Yeah.

I think one of the lessons I learned early on was in order to move fast and be effective, sometimes you have to slow down.

Prime example One of the biggest controversies we had in my first year in office was our leaf pickup program.

And I'm in my first year and I have my big JD MBA brain on and I get the decision memo that we should cut our leaf pickup program because it's not equitable across the entire city.

And the JD MBA in me said, okay, this makes a lot of sense.

But we didn't talk to city council.

We didn't get feedback from residents.

We made that decision in a vacuum.

And that was just an important lesson for me, that for us to achieve the big things like making sure we have a world class waterfronts in our city, we have to get the little things right too, and that requires listening, bringing people along and making sure we don't make decisions in a vacuum.

Since this is your state of the city as we speak today.

How would you describe the state of the city of Cleveland?

What word would you use?

We have a promising outlook, but there are choppy headwinds facing Cleveland and facing cities all across the country.

I got to be honest, the last 90 days have been very hard for me as mayor.

Very hard.

How so?

For example, just last night, I got an email stating that the Department of Justice may be cutting millions of dollars, and our city around violence prevention efforts in our city.

Billions of dollars of cuts last week met with the CEOs of Metro Health and University Hospital.

If the Republican led Congress budget proposal gets in place, it would decimate our health care infrastructure in Cleveland, potentially could put Metro Health out of business if they cut SNAP benefits, a core local business like Dave's could go out of business.

And so while we've made a lot of great progress over the last four years, we need to double down as a city and as a region to fight these headwinds and to make sure we can continue to deliver for our residents along those lines, a lot of cities are dealing a lot of solutions.

Cities are dealing with federal cuts.

Yeah.

What can the city do to combat that?

Well, we can fight.

We need to continue to fight and mobilize our residents, make the case to our leaders in Washington on how these cuts are harming our cities.

We also need to think smarter about how we deploy our resources locally.

One of the things I'm really proud about is the fact that we took office.

I inherited a $61 million deficit and we worked very hard with council to pass three structurally balanced budgets in a row to make sure we now have the largest rainy day fund in our city's history right now because of smart, prudent fiscal management.

We and and the other thing that I'm proud of is we didn't wait to get money to Cleveland under President Biden.

I was aggressive to bring resources back to Cleveland because I didn't know what would happen if the president would get reelected or someone else would get in office.

I wanted to make sure that we maximize this historic moment when there were billions of dollars available for cities like Cleveland to fix our airport, invest in our waterfronts, bring back money for housing development in our city.

And so now we have to pivot where we need to engage more with our local corporations to continue to invest in Cleveland, work more closely with our foundation partners to invest, to address our local priorities.

Because there's one thing I've learned over the last 90 plus days since Donald Trump has taken the White House.

Washington is not coming to save us.

I will say it again.

Washington is not coming to save us.

And so we must continue to find ways to be resilient, to make sure our progress can be sustained over time.

Let's talk about some issues you've been certainly dealing with the last 90 days as well, beginning with the stadium, the Brown Stadium.

It appears as though the Haslam's are very close to getting the money they need to build this stadium in Brook Park.

Mayor Mr. Mayor, how likely is it that the Cleveland Browns are staying in downtown Cleveland?

Well, I'm not a betting man and I'm not going to make any bets on what the legislature or the governor will do or decide if they will decide to fund the Browns to go to a park.

But let me just say this.

First of all, I want to shout out our county executive, Chris Ronayne, for support and leadership on this critical issue.

Please.

You know, we've gotten a lot of flack over the last several years, really for for a decade in Cleveland and across Cuyahoga County for not having a unified voice and not being aligned about what our priorities are in Columbus and in D.C..

But on this issue, on this issue, the city of Cleveland and the county have been aligned.

And unfortunately, we didn't have that alignment with the business community and our city.

But we're going to keep fighting to keep the Browns playing good or bad football on on our lakefront and and if if they do get the money, yeah, we're going to find a way to be resilient and keep Cleveland growing because hell or high water we are going to develop a world class lakefront that our residents can be proud of once and for all.

Let me ask you this way.

Are you more optimistic or less optimistic than you were six months ago that the Browns are staying?

50, 50, 50, 50, 5050?

It's a good answer.

Yes.

You mentioned the business community not getting in line.

Yeah.

With this and you talked about this, I believe was in January.

You criticized the Greater Cleveland Partnership specifically for, as you said, not being in line with everything the city and the county wanted to do.

Do you still feel that way?

Listen, one of my heroes in public service was the former mayor and governor of Ohio and former mayor of Cleveland, George Voinovich.

And I remember when I decided to run for mayor, his nephew Paul, gave me his book on the role of public private partnerships in Cleveland's comeback and the 1990s and how then Mayor Voinovich was able to really convene all the key sectors to create a new renaissance in Cleveland.

And one of his key partners in that work was Dick Polk.

And Cleveland had such a great model for civic alignment to focus on core priorities that at the time The Washington Post did an article and it said what America can learn from Cleveland because everybody was on the same damn page.

And when I reflect on the challenge that the county executive and I have had on fighting to keep the Browns downtown, this is not just about football.

We are seeing people like Dan Gilbert spend $4 billion to invest in our city, shovels in the ground right now.

Companies like Cannon are choosing Cleveland.

They're bringing their new health care corporation to the city of Cleveland.

People are choosing Cleveland.

And so now is not the time to turn our back on investing in the urban core.

Now, we were growing like Dallas or Nashville.

Different conversation.

But we have finite resources, limited capacity.

And I'm very concerned, as is the county executive, that this will create a massive, massive impact to our economic outlook as a city and as a region.

That's why it's been a bit frustrating for myself and the kind of executive not to have real alignment with our business leadership on this critical issue.

Any theory why that hasn't been the case?

No idea.

No idea.

As you we all know, you're a lifelong Clevelander, born and raised here.

Your mom is out here of a personal question.

What would it mean for you personally if the Browns were to leave downtown Cleveland as someone who's lived here his entire life?

It would be a big blow.

I remember going to one of the last games with my late father and my brother, Donovan.

They were playing the Jacksonville Jaguars and my dad left the firehouse.

We went to Chuck's Diner in Cleveland Heights and drove downtown.

And it was a sad time because obviously they were going to Baltimore.

And Baltimore is very different, obviously, than Brook Park.

But there is a a civic and spiritual attachment that residents have taken long pilgrimage to on East Ninth or going to the muni lot and probably getting too drunk before the game.

And so many Clevelanders, not just older residents and older fans, but younger residents and younger fans love being downtown.

They love being in the urban core.

Does it mean to you that what does it mean to you personally?

Again, you grew up here.

You view the Browns.

You've been part of the downtown Cleveland your entire life.

It'll be very sad.

Yeah, very sad.

Can I ask you a political question now?

Polls have shown several polls have shown that most residents, I believe it's like 54 or 55% do not want the Browns to leave downtown Cleveland.

I hear you're up for reelection.

Year politically.

What do you think it would mean to you?

It could mean to you if the Browns were to leave downtown.

I think the residents have been very clear and the residents have been very supportive of our position to fight to keep the Browns downtown.

But we have bigger issues we're focused on outside the Cleveland Browns, but we're focused on making sure we have good folks who invest in our city, getting rid of predatory landlords.

We're focused on making sure we install more speed tables on our streets to keep our streets safe and secure.

We're focused on getting more illegal guns off our streets.

The residents I talked to don't really care that much about the Cleveland Browns.

They care about their jobs.

They care about good schools.

And they're concerned about Medicaid and Medicare.

They don't.

All they want is the damn Super Bowl in Cleveland.

That is it.

That is it.

All right.

Let's move on to safety now.

As you mentioned, Cleveland saw a drop in violent crime last year compared to the pandemic years, including homicides, non-fatal shootings, car thefts are down as well.

What programs do you think are working in which ones need work?

It's not just one program.

When we say as an administration, we are taking an all of government approach.

We mean it because that's what it takes in this moment to fight violent crime and keep our residents safe and secure when they walk our streets.

I would say a couple of things.

One.

One of the biggest issues that we inherited was this challenge around attraction and retention.

And for folks that don't know this and 2022, the city of Cleveland was ranked in the bottom third statewide in police pay.

If you wanted to join the police academy as a new cadet, you were barely making minimum wage.

If you wanted to be a member of our police department, you couldn't have a beard, couldn't wear ball caps, couldn't have tattoos.

And so we had to do a lot of things to change the culture of our police department to attract and retain new officers.

So first thing we did was we got to work on the police issue.

And it's pretty rare to have a mayor that can call the police union president and have a good working relationship.

But as a son of a cop, I know how important it is to make sure that the men and women of our police department have what they need to fight crime and do their job.

So in just three years, we boosted police pay by 34%.

Now, in the top third statewide, we've we've had a major issue where we have illegal crime, guns flowing into our streets.

And so we got to work.

We called the former head of ATF, Steve Dietl.

BECK And we brought to Cleveland our first ever crime Gun Intelligence Center, where we're using data technology, new intelligence and partnerships with U.S. attorneys and marshals.

And we're getting illegal guns off our streets.

And because of this new partnership, we now have a nearly 90% homicide solved rate in the city of Cleveland.

90% homicide solved right now.

But it's not just about law enforcement.

We needed to do a better job of investing in violence prevention initiatives in our city.

And what I'm so upset about right now after hearing that news from the DOJ, folks like Mike SHAPIRO, who leads the Cleveland Peacemakers Alliance, their funding could go away and they do so much good work to stop crime before it starts in our streets.

So we put $2 million of work to play to create the first ever neighborhood Safety Endowment fund, where we're investing in violence prevention efforts to really address violent crime in our city.

As you know, as county executive Ronnie knows, there is a discussion now in the county council about eliminating funding for sheriff, sheriff's deputies who patrol downtown Cleveland.

What do you think about that?

It's the wrong move.

Last time I checked, Cleveland was still part of Code County and so goes the city.

So goes the region.

And the county really stepped up in the summer of 2023 after we had that mass shooting in the warehouse district.

We are working to fight crime not just in downtown, but all across the city.

I know the business community supports this work.

The county executive supports this partnership, and it's critical that we have county leadership and county council recognize that the city of Cleveland is still part of Cuyahoga County and a key driver of jobs and prosperity in our region.

The consent decree is ten years old this year.

The latest report from the which I believe came out last week, says that the city has improved in key areas, including the use of force, but also said the city's new strategy.

This is what the monitor said, new strategy to focus on the work of the monitor rather than devote all recent were on compliance was a problem.

How do you think the city is doing when it comes to the consent decree?

And do you agree with with Bernie Marino, Senator Bernie Marino, who has suggested that it's time for the consent decree to go away?

Let let me say this.

I think we've made remarkable progress over the last ten years with the consent decree.

If you look at the training, the culture and the mentality of our officers now than when it was in 2014, it's a completely different department.

And one of the things that we uncovered three years ago was we as a city really didn't have in all of government approach to be compliant with the consent decree.

So we brought in Dr. Leah Anderson from Saint Louis, who has really helped have an all of government approach, the first ever independent police accountability team inside the mayor's office.

Under her leadership and the chief's leadership.

We have now achieved nearly 70 upgrades to the decree over the last three years.

And so the progress has been made.

But I will say this The DOJ has to stop moving.

The goalposts has to.

We've spent over $40 million and ten years on the consent decree.

So we want to make sure that the monitor gives us a clear methodology and a clear end date to say when we can be compliant.

Now, once we are compliant, we still have work to do to make sure that those reforms are sustained to ensure we're still building trust between police and resident compliance.

In your mind is how far away?

I think two or three years, two, three years.

Let's talk about education as well.

I've got about seven or eight more minutes with you before we start taking questions from the audience of the district.

Earned a three star rating on its 23 or 24 state report card.

I see the CEO there who's smiling and liking that meeting state education standards or rather meeting state education standards for the first time.

However, 70% of schools on the east side did not reach that level.

What's being done to improve that, especially in light of CEO Morgan saying that the district will have to cut almost $160 million over the next two years?

Well, first, I want to just thank this community for passing the school levy last November with the highest margin in the history of levies that we had in Cleveland.

We have some choppy headwinds ahead of us at the district, and I have full confidence and faith in Dr. Morgan's leadership.

Board Chair Sara Ali Quad's leadership to ensure we can close this deficit over the next two years.

We have $150 million deficit inside of MSD over the next two years.

Here's the issue, Russ We have islands of excellence and see MSD But not a system of excellence.

Quite yet.

We've made great progress under the Cleveland Plan, but that progress has to come faster.

But the biggest challenge we have right now is too many school buildings, not enough children.

And what that leads us to having is not being able to divert the right resources across the entire footprint of the MSD.

I'll give you an example.

Less than ten of all of our K through eight schools across the MSD offer Algebra one and Bant less than ten less than 15 of those same K-3 schools offer computer education right for a high schools, less than 15 offer football.

That's not good enough.

And so while we have great pockets of excellence and parts of city, I want the same quality from Mount Pleasant to West Park.

And we we we can't continue to delay hard choices for nearly two decades.

We've delayed hard choices around closing school buildings, reimagining our footprint to make sure we have that quality that our children deserve.

Now is the time to make those hard choices.

It won't be easy, folks.

It won't be easy.

But if we do it the right way with the community support, we can have one of the best public school districts in America.

And that's my fight and that's my commitment as mayor.

Let's talk about the leadership.

Yeah.

Nearly half a decade since this has been an issue in Cleveland and Cleveland has been fighting it one out of every five kids in Cleveland is still testing positive for lead.

This rivals Flint, Michigan, at the height of its problems there.

A lot of people are asking why, Mr. Mayor, is this still a problem?

You know, I think we've had good intentions over the last five years with the work of the LED safe coalition and prior administrations at city hall.

But what we're finding out right now is we've made compliance really hard.

We've made it complicated for landlords and residents to access funding.

And from our administration standpoint, we need a higher standard because in some of our testing, we found through the LED safe existing ordinance, we had homes that were deemed less safe.

But babies are still getting poisoned.

And so we have an inflection moment right now where we're going to work very closely with the LED safe coalition and city council to examine how do we improve the legislation we have on the books.

Number two, how do we get government out the way to get money on the streets faster, to fully abate some of these homes and our city?

And it's going to require us at City hall to get our act together.

As I told my team, we got to control the internal chaos before we try to get external partners to lead the way.

For example, we had a backlog of nearly hundred applications.

We fixed that backlog in less than a month by making sure we brought people from every part of City Hall to address that backlog.

So better coordination, easier ways to get money on the street and making sure we have a full lead abatement approach in neighborhoods where we're still seeing kids being poisoned by lead paint.

So Cleveland's population, the latest census, shows the population has in Cleveland has pretty much leveled out.

Yeah, After declining significantly over the past few years, we talk about the brain drain.

Young people going to school here, people growing up here and leaving.

How do you maintain a population in Cleveland to the point where it's where you want it to be?

Manges This enables us to remain a major city.

You know the moment we're facing right now reminds me of where many of our peer cities were in 2008 and 2009 coming out of the Great Recession, where cities like Pittsburgh, Columbus, Cincinnati, Nashville really had a clear business plan for growth.

And what we've really uncovered over the last several years is we haven't had a clear business plan for growth in our city.

So if we're blessed to get a second term and as we approach our final year in this first term, it's time to embrace a new economic agenda.

This is the Cleveland area where we can build things in Cleveland.

We're making things in America again.

The Cleveland area can lead the industrial revival of Ohio and the nation with our $5 billion investment to make Cleveland one of the only two waterfront cities in America.

Our nearly $100 million sites fund that's attracting companies to come back to the city of Cleveland in a few weeks will make a big announcement about our $2 billion modernization of our airport.

So we have an airport that matches our ambitions and opportunities as a city.

The Cleveland area is an area where we have opportunities in our neighborhoods.

I think about the great work we're doing KeyBank and LISC, a new $100 million housing fund that's going to bring 3000 more units of affordable housing to our city.

Q You think about the fact that we can use things like a tax abatement or a tax increment financing district downtown.

Well, let's deploy that in our neighborhoods, too, as well.

And the Cleveland area is also a city where government can work for people, where government is innovative and nimble, pursuing things like permitting reform and where developers, big developers or small developers don't have to go to four departments to get a document signed.

These are the basic things we can do to meet the moment, because I want to make Cleveland that city where folks are not choosing Chicago over Cleveland or New York or Cleveland.

They are choosing Cleveland as their primary destination.

This is our moment to do it.

Got 30 seconds before we take audience questions, as I may have mentioned, once you are running for mayor this year, but by my count, there is one declared candidate so far and be feel free to name names.

Do you expect others to enter the race and challenge you?

I'm not going to make any predictions on the race.

The only thing I can control is making sure we run a smart, thoughtful, aggressive campaign like we ran four years ago to talk about the progress that we've made to bring more residents along and to ensure we fight to get four more years.

Because my assignment ain't finished yet.

There's still more work to do.

And and being mayor of my hometown will probably be the best job I'll ever have.

And I'm so honored to be in this role to lead my amazing city.

We're about to begin the audience Q&A for our live stream audience.

We are at Cleveland's Public Auditorium for the 2025 State of the City with Mayor Justin Bibb.

I'm Russ Rico Schwab, Mitchell anchor and managing editor at WKYC and moderator for today's conversation.

As many of you as many of you know, direct questions from the audience have been a hallmark of City Club forms since its inception in 1912.

As discussed before the program began, the City Club invited all of you to submit questions in advance of today's forum.

Question for today The question is whether it is form or selected by City Club staff with the intention of capturing a cross-section of resident voices, community representation and interests.

These individuals have joined us this afternoon to ask the Mayor their question here in person.

I must tell you, the mayor has not seen these questions in advance.

So, Mayor Bibb, if you are ready, let's do it.

We will get underway.

We've got our first question right there.

Is this.

Allison Black Yes.

My stand up, is that okay?

Perfect.

All right, great.

All right.

My name is Allison Black.

And not only am I a resident here in Cleveland, I'm also a leader of a nonprofit.

America Scores Cleveland, which serves 14 CMS city schools.

One break through charter school.

My question as a leader in the afterschool space and as a working trying to decide whether to send my child to Cleveland schools access to afterschool is critical and a deal breaker for me personally to stay in the city.

Traditional school hours make it nearly impossible for many working families to navigate the system and stay employed.

Only a handful of schools offer quality, consistent afterschool programs, especially for the younger students, creating deep equity gaps.

If schools are open, accessible after school, they're failing families and communities.

As the neighborhood rec centers are often very unsafe, while workforce programs matter.

What is your plan to ensure the schools stay open, comprehensive afterschool that support families and engage younger elementary students?

Thank you.

Thank you.

You know, your question is very personal to me because often when my mom is working two jobs or my dad was at the police station or the firehouse, I had a high quality after school program to go to as a young kid growing up in the city.

I will say this.

We have had some challenges inside the district in terms of high quality afterschool programing in our city.

Let me walk you through those challenges really briefly.

First, we had an influx of federal money after the pandemic called the Esser Funds, which gave MSD the ability to pay for high quality out-of-school time programing all across the district.

But here's the challenging thing.

We didn't have a back up revenue plan to fund those programs.

Once the federal funds went away.

And so as Dr. Morgan and the board charts a new path, what we're trying to do as we close this $150 million deficit is make sure that all across the city, not only do we have high quality instruction happening during school hours, that we have high quality out-of-school time programing as well.

I would also say this from the city side.

We take our investment in children very seriously.

Let me give you an example.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the same day when President Donald Trump signed in an executive order to eliminate the Department of Education, which would create a $40 million cut to C MSD, We as an administration, signed an executive order to create the first ever children's cabinet at City Hall to make sure that every department, from public works to Parks and Rec to public safety, that they are all focused on improving the material conditions of young people in our city.

So City Hall is working on the effort.

C MSD is working on the effort, and many of our foundation partners are working on the effort as well too.

Thank you.

Our second question comes from Sir Alex Williams.

Thank you.

Good Mayor Gibbs.

Thank you for the opportunity to ask this question for and thank you for your leadership in advancing the vision of our city.

I'm a native of Cleveland.

Been here all my life.

Public school grad.

In times when cities are competing not just for talent, but for purpose.

How is Cleveland positioning itself as a city of the future, especially in areas like smart infrastructure, clean energy, and AI driven innovation?

Thank you.

Thank you.

A very timely question because many mayors, many business leaders across the country are grappling with the impact of machine learning and A.I.

and what's going to happen in our workforce, in our respective communities.

From a baseline for Cleveland to be a smart city.

We need to make sure that folks had access to high speed Internet.

And as you know, during the pandemic, a lot of families were going to McDonald's parking lots to get their kids online.

A lot of families didn't have access to Wi-Fi, to apply for a job or they didn't have broadband, so they couldn't work remotely.

But working with city council, our foundation partners like the Mendel Foundation and others, we deployed a $20 million initiative to invest in digital.

See.

And I'm pleased to announce that through digital C's work, over 4000 residents in our city now have access to high speed broadband.

That's a big deal because it's giving us a baseline to make sure we have connectivity.

I would also say as a city, we did not have the technology infrastructure to be resilient.

Our cyber attack last year made that very clear.

And now we're making the backbone as a city where three years ago our data was not in the cloud, folks.

It's finally in the cloud now.

And so these are the things we're trying to do to really make sure we have a modern government that's responsive and a smarter city that's attractive for companies and talent as well.

The question now on relationship building across the aisle from Annette Iwamoto that I see your name correctly.

You did.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

My name is in your Modo.

I'm the director of the Cuyahoga Human Services Chamber.

We have nearly 80 members representing organizations throughout the health and Human Services sector.

Nonprofit organizations serving the Cleveland community rely on funding from every level of government and constraints from Washington and Columbus are making our work much more difficult.

How are you building relationships with policymakers at the state and federal level, especially those across the aisle which benefit Cleveland residents?

Thank you.

We certainly are living in chaotic times and it requires, especially as mayors in this moment, we have to work across the aisle because one of the things I love about about this job is I don't get the luxury of passing the buck to the next legislative session.

Right.

My residents want results now.

I hear it all the time at church, at the barber shop.

When I'm at finance, they tell me.

And one of the things that I've always said is I'll work with anybody, anybody, whether it's a Republican, Independent in Columbus or in DC, who shares our vision as a city.

Just yesterday, I had Congressman Max Miller in my office talking about how we make sure we get our new $30 million secured on the lakefront, Talking about how SNAP benefits being cut could impact Dave's grocery store.

And so we continue to talk to our Republican brothers and sisters across the aisle.

We continue to have a good working relationship with leaders in Columbus and in D.C. and know that we are always working on behalf of our residents, both in Columbus and D.C., to keep fighting for our fair share and for our city.

Our next question is on immigration from any money up.

Thank you.

I'm Amy Minot from Resource Cleveland, formerly known as the Refugee Response.

My question, Mayor Bob, is in this time of fear and uncertainty in the international newcomer community here in Cleveland.

From the future status of our friends from Ukraine and Afghanistan to asylum seekers and international students who live and work and study here, what can the city do to invest in and make sure that these communities feel welcome and a part of our community?

Yeah, I have to say one of the most challenging days I had in office was when we had hundreds of calls in a city hall when ICE raids occurred in our city.

And don't get me wrong.

We certainly need to fix our broken immigration system in this country.

We certainly need to have a secure border.

But two things can be true.

We can be a welcoming city and we can be a city that prides itself on investing in our immigrant population because we have to.

And so my administration will continue to work with organizations like yours.

We to partner with the new welcoming center that the county has led.

And we must continue to make sure and advocate for commonsense immigration reform in D.C.. Our city needs it and our country needs it to be competitive long term.

Our next question is on housing affordability for the reentry population.

Asia Davis.

Hello, my name is Eisa Davis and I am a success coach at Tours Employment that specializes in helping those who are previously incarcerated find careers.

So Cleveland has seen significant rent increases in recent years, and this has made it even harder for returning citizens to secure stable housing.

Many of them face multiple barriers, including lower wages and eligibility for certain public assistance programs and rejection from private landlords due to their criminal records.

While the House I'm sorry Home for Every Neighbor initiative is a strong step in supporting our most vulnerable neighbors.

Are there any upcoming plans or initiatives specifically aimed at providing a hand up to people reentering society after incarceration, especially when it comes to equitable access to housing?

Yeah, well, I'm so happy you brought up our home for every neighbor initiative.

For folks who don't know, coming out of the pandemic, we saw an uptick in the number of tents and encampments, not just in downtown, but across the entire city.

The COVID pandemic was a big driver of that.

The increase in housing costs was a big driver in that.

And as you mentioned in your question, we as a city have rental rates that have appreciated at the highest number out of any of our major cities across the country.

So we got to work to address the issue.

And let me tell you this, No one should have to prove they've been homeless to get access to housing.

Doesn't make any sense.

And time after time, we saw government getting in the way.

So our administration deployed a housing first approach because of this approach.

We've housed over 154 of our unsheltered brothers and sisters, and we've closed over 50 encampments across the city, across 13 wards in Cleveland, Ohio.

Now, the next step is finding ways to address state and federal law that create these barriers.

If you paid your time to society, that should not be a life sentence.

You should have access to good housing, access to a loan to start a business.

And we want to continue to work with our state and federal partners to make sure that our brothers and sisters from the around the community have that right next chance they deserve, because that is what our values call for as a city.

Thank you.

Our next question is on citizen engagement in city planning from Glen Shumate.

Good afternoon mayor.

How are you doing?

Good to see you.

Good to see you.

I live in the Edgewater neighborhood.

I work for a construction association, but also run a high quality afterschool program in the schools, which I'm proud of.

What my question is, is how can citizens ensure that their voices are heard relative to community investment, community development, things like the lakefront waterfront and ultimately the Community Benefit Ordinance, which staff and council passed?

Yeah, well, I think our administration has really done a good job of making sure we engage residents in all of our planning efforts.

My former planning director, Joyce Wong, is here.

Hey, Joyce, good to see you.

One of the things I loved about what we did to talk about the lakefront work in general is we made sure that our lakefront planning work wasn't just having town halls downtown.

We went to grocery stores, we went to barbershops, we went to churches all across the city because our lakefront belongs to everybody and their collective voices and ideas and vision should be heard.

And we feel the same way about any development project in our city.

So that's why we have robust planning processes and city planning.

We have black clubs that are very, very, very active in development projects, but it's always a balancing act to make sure it's sensible feedback and not letting the perfect be the enemy of good to see real progress in our city.

Our next question is from Jennifer Grogan and Mayor, think you're going to like this QUESTION okay, Goretzka.

Hi, Mayor Bib.

I'm Jennifer Grogan.

I live in Clark Fulton and I work at Lenny in the Hanna building.

My question for you is, what have you learned in your first term that you look forward to applying in your second term?

That's a great question.

I told you.

Yeah.

You know, one of the challenging parts of this job and I'm trying to get better at it, you know, every we get so many fires to put out, literally and figuratively My name is Davon Brantley.

I'm a Cleveland artist and also curator.

Thank you.

And my question is, we got a great initiative of the Transformative Arts Fund that granted a select group of artists a large sum of money to create transformative, innovative projects outside of what Cleveland typically does.

How are we making sure that the grantees of these funds that have been dispersed too, are transparent about their allocation and distribution of the funds and their impact in serving the respective communities and themes that they target?

Great.

To give folks context, we have a brand new effort called the Transformative Arts Fund, the largest direct allocation to support the arts in City Hall ever.

$3 million of investment we brought in.

We brought it back from Chicago, the first ever arts czar for the city downtown around Brown.

Hey, Rhonda, you hired over there.

And what we've done is we really have empowered diverse artists from across the city to invest in public art, showcase their pieces.

If you haven't been to city hall yet, go to the second floor.

There's a brand new exhibit called Artists Run the Streets.

And it really shows the breadth and depth of the amazing artists we have in our city.

And so we're excited about that effort.

We've Been pretty transparent with those investments, but we have to do more as a city to drive the inclusive arts economy.

Cleveland is an arts gem and arts mecca and we have to do a better job of telling that story and being proud of these investments and our artists.

For example, we brought five rather ten Cleveland artists to Miami last year for Art Basel.

Half of them got their pieces acquired.

Cleveland has some of the best artists in the country.

It's time to continue to uplift their voices and their visions.

Thank you.

MAN Before we turn it over to Robin, the most controversial answer you'll give today who the Browns are going to draft tomorrow night.

Travis Honor.

Okay, my best guess.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Robert Thank you so much.

Mayor Bibb and Russ Mitchell, a special thank you to our Cleveland residents and stakeholders who took the time to offer questions for mayor.

You're the absolute heart of the city club.

And on behalf of the City Club, I want to thank again our presenting sponsor, PNC Bank.

We Also want to thank the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Cleveland Foundation and Cleveland.com for additional support.

Free public transportation has been possible because of KeyBank.

Additional gratitude to our friends at Ideastream Public Media for their partnership on the production of today's forum.

There are many other sponsors and community partners listed in the printed program whose support has helped make this event accessible to all and included neighbors from every part of the city.

And, of course, our thanks to our partners at City Hall, the mayor's hardworking staff, the team at Public Auditorium, and our city club volunteers.

Finally, there are a number of wonderful programs coming up at the City Club, including a visit by the former prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, on Friday, June six.

You can get your tickets to this Forum and others and find out more about information about upcoming forums at City Club Talk.

Thank you once again to Mayor Bibb and to Russ Mitchell.

I'm Robin Mentor Smyers and our forum is now adjourned.

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