- [Narrator] Production and distribution of City Club Forums and Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.

(upbeat synth music) (bell gongs loudly) - Good afternoon and welcome to The City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

I'm Cynthia Connolly, director of programming here and proud member.

You're here for a virtual City Club Forum, Global Problem, Local Solution, Ohio Cities Leading on Climate Action.

Over the last year, we've partnered with the Cleveland Foundation and the George Gund Foundation to bring you a three part series on changing climate.

While much of the responsibility for combating the effects of climate change are being negotiated on the world stage, many of the most actionable solutions are right here, small and local.

Today's forum is the last of these three forums.

And we were focusing on municipal efforts to address climate change.

According to C-40, a collaboration of 97 great cities of the world, we learned that cities occupy only 2% of the world's land masses, but consume two thirds of the world's energy and produce 70% of global CO2 emissions.

It would naturally seem that if one wanted to tackle climate change, our world cities would be a good place to start.

So what is happening here in Ohio?

Many local leaders are seeing clean energy and climate opportunities and they're taking action.

They're showing what's possible through comprehensive climate action plans that deliver measurable results.

Can the global climate challenge be solved city by city?

To answer this, we are joined by the Honorable John J. Cranley, Mayor of the City of Cincinnati, Erica C. Crawley, the County Commissioner of Franklin County and the Honorable William D. Franklin, Mayor of Warren, Ohio.

Guiding this conversation today is Taylor Haggerty, a reporter at Ideastream Public Media.

Thank you all for joining us here at The City Club today.

And Taylor, I now turn the forum over to you.

- Great.

Thanks, Cynthia, and thank you to The City Club for hosting the forum.

While I've been covering Northeast Ohio, I've seen a lot of cities have these conversations about what sustainable options are there for developing different solar panels or getting rid of dams or all those kinds of things we're gonna be talking about today.

So I'm excited to see where the discussion goes and let's get started.

I wanted to start with Mayor Franklin of Warren.

We've heard a little bit about dam removal here in Cleveland as different neighborhoods have discussed what to do to keep the river clean.

What's been going on in Warren?

What kind of efforts have you gone through in order to improve the cleanliness of the water?

- Thank you, Taylor.

Can you all hear me?

Can you hear me?

- [Taylor] Yeah.

- Okay, great, great, I wasn't sure.

Yeah, we've been collaborating with some of our surrounding communities to do some low-head dam removal.

That project started early in my tenure as mayor.

And it's a collaborative between seven communities.

And we're removing low-head dams from nine, nine dams from those communities.

They all run along the 422 Corridor and it fueled our economy, that river was basically used for decades to fuel our economy in the steel making process and manufacturing of steel.

What had happened though during that process, is it contaminated the river to extreme heights.

The average temperatures during the height of the steel making process was somewhere around 102 degrees.

So you could imagine what happened to the wildlife and all the recreational activities that suffered and were really a detriment to any other type of use of that river.

So fast-forward to where we are today, most of those jobs have gone.

The steel production jobs that fueled our economy have since left our communities, all of those communities in this collaborative.

But as nature would have it, the river's actually cleaning itself up.

So we're wanting to take advantage of that natural resource.

So we all got together and put together a plan through the Eastgate Council of Governments that allowed us to seek funding successfully to remove some of these low-head dams for our community.

That's doing two things.

First and foremost, it's supporting our environment.

It's cleaning up the river and it's providing economic development opportunities through recreation, and also bringing that river, that natural resource closer to the communities that were more detrimentally affected by it.

I have a personal, it's sort of a personal interest in this because when I was growing up in Warren, Ohio, unfortunately, my family lived close to one of those steel mills.

My father died in 2004 from lung cancer and their statistics all across the spectrum that shows how communities of color and underserved communities, poor people in general, suffer from the placement, their zip codes, 'cause they're always close to these toxic environments.

And so, I have a personal interest in cleaning up that river and making sure that future generations doesn't suffer from that detriment.

We know how often, water is often overlooked and how we view its effect on the climate.

And I think that's a huge mistake and we're gonna correct that.

We all know what's happening with algae bloom in the Great Lakes.

This infrastructure bill that's pending from Washington will be a great benefit to all of our communities in addressing some of these disparities.

So I look forward to them passing that bill so that we can continue to do some of the other initiatives, which I'll be able to talk about later.

But thank you, Taylor, for letting me share that.

- Yeah, thank you for sharing.

And Commissioner Crawley, you have some background in health equity and disparities, particularly maternal and infant mortality.

I'm wondering if you can touch a little bit on how environment fits into that and what some of the concerns are as we're looking at the state of things in Ohio?

- Absolutely, thank you, Taylor, for the question.

Thank you to City Club and Power A Clean Future Ohio, as well as Ohio Environmental Council for inviting me here today.

Coming from the legislature a little over three months ago, and now I'm Franklin County Commissioner, and have been very outspoken around climate justice and environmental justice and how it is interconnected with racial justice.

And so just from a local, and how it impacts and why I was trying to champion this issue at the state level is because quite naturally, we think about time at change as a global issue.

And it's big and massive.

But we are able to address it at a local level, if not from the state level.

We see, and I saw firsthand in the legislature of how there wasn't a willingness to do it.

And as I would talk with my colleagues, I did have some legislation that was called health equity in our policies.

So whatever we are doing in the legislature, we had to be looking at from a health equity standpoint.

Whether it's from educating our children or building new schools or looking at infrastructure and talking with the Ohio Department of Transportation and what that looks like.

How does this have a health impact on our community?

Is a positive, negative, or neutral impact?

Because we know that over time, in generations, have seen where we will build roads and bridges, right through a community, majority marginalized, black and brown communities.

And so, it was important for me to continue to raise a health equity lens with everything that we do.

And also because how we talk about climate change or how the environment is changing, and we usually hear folks talk about it from a perspective of it's a great equalizer.

And I wanted to dispel that notion.

And I wanna do that today.

We know as climate change increases and things continue to warm up, it will not impact us all the same way.

It does not impact us all at the same way.

Vulnerable communities are at greater risk.

Acting on climate change immediately and with urgency is an environmental justice issue.

It's a racial justice issue and it's an economic justice issue.

And as I said before, communities of color are disproportionately victimized by environmental hazards and are far more likely to live in areas with heavy population.

And they're more likely to die due to environmental causes like asthma.

And more than half of the people who live close to hazardous waste are people of color.

And so when we think of an issue of environmental protection and how this impacts social (banging drowns out speech), climate action intersects with all of these things.

Whether we're talking about housing, whether we're talking about education, whether we're talking about transportation, these things are all interconnected.

And we have to look at climate change and environmental change from that perspective.

- Yeah and Mayor Cranley, when it comes to infrastructure shifts and taking immediate action, Cincinnati is working on, as I understand it, a pretty sizeable solar array, a massive farm of solar panels to kind of shift what sort of energy the city is using.

What does that process like?

How do you get people on board with it?

How is it changing the conversation in the city regarding environmental sustainability?

- Thanks, it's great to be with you, Taylor.

And it's also good to be with my friends, Commissioner Crawley and Mayor Franklin who are doing tremendous work in their communities on these issues.

Yes, I'm very proud to say that we're building, right now, the largest municipal solar farm in America ever built.

I do believe Columbus and Franklin County are working on one that may be even bigger, which is awesome, but ours will be operational this calendar year, in the next couple of months.

It is the size of 750 football fields.

It includes 330,000 individuals solar panels.

Right now we have about 130 electricians working on it, who make $60,000 for this project each.

We have a public private partnership in order to take advantage of federal tax credits.

And the developer we selected out from an RFP process is an African-American owned business.

And we brought jobs to rural small town Ohio that has been depressed.

The farmers who leased and or sold us our land thanked us because we saved the family farm.

They were not making money in the business that they were in.

I will say, 'cause I do wanna talk about this later, but just mention now, we can talk about it more later, but after we started our project, the State of Ohio passed a law on a party line vote to allow government to tell farmers that they cannot sell or lease their land to wind or solar.

Which I thought was the opposite of what the party of capitalism and private property rights, or at least what they claim they are, believes in.

I happen to believe farmers should be able to make money and farmers should be able to do wind and solar.

And our farmers are happier and doing better as a result of our project.

But backing up a minute.

I agree with my colleagues that this is a moral issue, but it is also an economic issue.

What I committed when Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord five years ago, I made a pledge on TV that we would do something about it.

In retrospect, I regret that it took Trump's action for me to pursue this solar panel project.

But nonetheless, it is a great reminder that we don't need to wait for the federal government to act.

That in fact, the amount of physical plant and energy that governments consume at the state and local level is far in excess of what the federal government can do or require us to do.

Similarly, the private sector can act with or without support from the federal government.

And increasingly we're seeing that happening here in Cincinnati and around the country.

So I'm very optimistic about what's happening at the state level and in the private sector.

Now it took us years to go from this commitment to breaking ground.

And I would very much encourage other communities to borrow from what we did, so they don't have to go through the brain damage that we did.

But let me make one point now.

And that is that we are literally saving money on our solar farm.

Meaning by diversifying our energy sources, and we're still using plenty of traditional sources for the electricity use of our entire citizenry, which we're aggregating together, the solar piece of it, which is about 20% of the total is cheaper than what we were paying before.

There is I think a very widespread belief that to do a clean energy would require paying a premium or hanging up over the market rate.

And at some level that could be true, but that is too often used as an excuse to do nothing.

And the reality is if you do the homework, you can, every major institution like Franklin County or Columbus, Warren may have to partner with other communities and get into a buying consortium, but once you get to a certain size, you can in fact save money.

And so, not only is it a moral imperative to reduce carbon emissions, it's I think a taxpayer issue to make sure that people get better rates for electricity, cheaper rates, as people are struggling to pay their bills.

And so, I really want to disabuse people of the idea that they have to pay up for this.

They can and should diversify up to 20% of consumption to renewable sources and save money in the process.

And then after that, you can debate whether or not you should go ahead and pay a premium to do more.

But no one, very few people are actually doing the 20%, which is saving money.

And so, I implore people listening to lobby their state, local governments and businesses and nonprofits to join buying consortiums and do what we've done to add clean energy to the grid and save money in the process.

- Yeah and Mayor Franklin, I see you nodding.

I know you mentioned that removing the dams is part of, not necessarily a consortium, but a partnership between a variety of cities to get that done.

What is the importance, how does it help to kind of work together with other cities and how do you go about that, getting other people on board?

- Well, obviously you can leverage.

We've found through experience that we're much more successful working as a collaborative when it comes to seeking funding.

So we use that approach to our success locally here, and we've been able to secure funding to remove all of those dams.

But more so than that, it gives us an opportunity to sort of centralize our message to the whole region.

And it's a powerful message.

And it brings more attention more quickly to the environmental justice issues.

To the fact that we have this beautiful natural resource that's been abused to fuel our economy, and it's not paying us back.

So we wanna just reverse that.

And when you have all of these community leaders on the local level singing out of the same hymnbook, the message is much stronger and the music is much sweeter.

So that's our approach and it tends to work.

We've been fortunate.

And I really applaud Commissioner Crawley and Mayor Cranley for their efforts.

We've been enforcing, the other consortium is Power A Clean Future for Ohio.

And I believe Mayor Cranley was the first city to join that consortium.

And we were the latest to join it.

But we always exchange notes.

We always work together.

We take, you know, there's a saying and I hope no one takes me wrong for this, but they say, good mayors borrow, great mayor steal.

And we will take any program that proves to be beneficial to our communities and to our citizens, so that we're optimizing the effect on their lives and making it a better life.

- And Commissioner Crawley, I wanted to give you an opportunity here too.

Coming from the state perspective and the county perspective, obviously not necessarily an individual city effort to get something done.

But how do things shift as you move up to county level and up to state level in terms of making these things happen?

- [Commissioner Crawley] Absolutely.

So I know I'm gonna mention a piece of legislation that will not be a surprise to anyone.

Well, two pieces of legislation, House Bill 6 and Senate Bill 52.

So House Bill 6, got rid of, continue to invest in coal, got rid of, and rolled back a lot of our renewables and our energy standards.

And then Senate Bill 52, which I did not vote on.

I had to abstain because I had already received the appointment to come down to the county.

And I knew that it might come up.

And so Senate Bill 52 enables counties to set up restricted areas within their unincorporated boundaries where wind and solar projects, greater than 50 megawatts, would be prohibited.

Well, here in Franklin County, what we did before that legislation passed, which is when you see things taking place that can kinda tie the hands of those at the local level, you get to acting.

And this is why I'm excited about being at the local level and being able to do stuff, because Franklin County had already made itself an alternative energy zone and before the legislation went into effect.

And we see just last week in the dispatch where Delaware County is working to support that measure, to make sure that there can be no solar or wind projects within the whole county.

So to what Mayor Cranley was saying earlier, really restricting property owners to be able to make decisions about their own property, their livelihood, their investments, and able to build wealth.

And so here in Franklin County, we do have a solar project.

It's called the Pleasant Prairie Solar Energy Project, which is a 250 megawatt solar power electric generation facility.

And it is in Pleasant and Prairie townships here in Franklin County.

And when we think about collaborations, so it is Franklin County, our economic development and planning department who's working with our township trustees.

We're also working with an outside consultant and working with the property owners.

It is really a collaboration.

And one thing that this project will be able to do is provide 800 jobs.

So when we even talk about climate change and what we can do to mitigate the negative impacts of it, we rarely talk about the jobs that can be created.

And that was a thing that was talked about with House Bill 6.

And the argument was, hey, we need to continue to do this and invest in coal because it's going to keep these jobs.

Well, usually get the same jobs that are being done by the same people in coal can be on wind turbines and work in solar as well.

And so, this will provide 800 jobs.

It will also provide roughly $1.1 million to Southwestern City schools.

And they are excited about that.

We know that education hasn't been funded and we also know the generation that, the energy generation, that will be created because of that solar project.

And so there will be, over the course of time, $4.4 million in investments to Franklin County, payments to property owners.

And I can go on about this.

We are very excited about this project.

It is one of a few that will come here shortly.

And we'll talk about those later on as those start to develop.

But I think it's where you get to see some of the efforts that are taking place at the state to limit energy production in a way that is clean.

And then counties being able to really take ownership and do what's best in the interest of our neighbors.

And it's what our neighbors want.

- [Taylor] Yeah and Mayor Cranley, I saw you nodding through some of that.

You've mentioned that there were some laws put in place, or bills proposed that seem to work against your goals for putting in place these sustainable measures.

How do you continue to innovate and come up with those options in the face of legislation that maybe doesn't work with what your goals are?

- [Mayor Cranley] Well, thanks, I mean, I think, you know, look, at a bigger picture level, Ohio has been in decline economically and demographically.

That's why we lose a congressional seat every 10 years.

And the reality is that the people running Ohio, their policies have failed.

Some of them are corrupt like HB 6, where they got indicted.

But it's not a coincidence that their corruption is also involved with backwards energy and economic policies.

How can we expect Ohio to grow and get more jobs and build a middle class, if the government can now tell farmers that they can't make money on their land with wind or solar?

I mean, it's really awful.

And not only is there a moral crisis around the environment, there's an economic crisis facing the state of Ohio where a generation ago, Ohio had the biggest middle-class in America.

The state of Jesse Owens and Neil Armstrong and Tony Morrison and John Glenn and Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers.

Now we're seeing young people flee the state.

We're seeing congressional districts leave.

And the economic policy is for government to clamp down on people's ability to make money and invest in renewable energy.

They are just wrong about everything.

The short answer to your question is, I'm running for governor.

And so, we need a new set of leaders that will in fact, change the course of Ohio history to one of growth again.

Facts are facts.

Reagan famously said, are you better off today than you were when the other guy took over.

Well, Ohio as a whole is worse off since these people have been running our state.

Columbus and Franklin County is better off, since people like Commissioner Crawley have been in place.

Warren Ohio is better off since Mayor Franklin has been in place.

And Cincinnati is the only major city in Ohio to ever make a comeback in population from decline.

And we grew twice as fast as the state of Ohio in the last 10 years.

The first time since 1950 that we grew instead of decline.

And so our leadership, which is embracing energy, clean energy, jobs, investment, giving farmers the right to make money, these are policies that are growing our communities, fixing up the environment and building a better future.

That's also attractive young people around the country and for our young people to stay in Ohio.

So fundamentally we need change.

Their policies are corrupt.

And I mean that literally, they got indicted for HB 6.

The Trump administration indicted them for a RICO bribery scandal.

But set aside the corruption for a minute, the policy was to repeal renewable portfolio standards.

They allowed a coal company in Indiana and hurt the industries like clean energy and natural gas, which is cleaner than coal, which also has a job creation opportunity for Northeast Ohio, Eastern Ohio and Southeastern Ohio.

And so, the fundamental issue is that we're at a crossroads, in my opinion, about whether we're gonna grow and whether we're going to embrace the clean energy as a future way of creating jobs in the middle-class.

- [Taylor] Today at The City Club, where it listening to a virtual forum, talking to local leaders about how they are taking action to address climate change in their communities.

In a few minutes, we'll turn to your questions.

If you have questions for our panelists, text them to 330-541-5794, that's 330-541-5794.

You can also tweet them @TheCityClub.

We'll try to work them in.

And so one last question, before we move to the Q and A, and I wanna make sure to get each of your responses to this.

As we're looking at projects that you have undertaken or that you're planning for the future, what is something that you like to accomplish in your community that you haven't been able to?

And what's standing in your way?

Mayor Franklin, let's start with you.

- [Mayor Franklin] Yeah, first and foremost, I'd like to follow up on my remarks about taking good ideas and running with them for the benefit of your own community.

We're planning to use a lot of our, you know, we were decimated by the loss of steel production.

Delphi Packard, when they filed for bankruptcy, it sort of decimated our tax base, but it also spurred a loss of population as well.

So we have some tracks of land that we were working with other energy companies with looking at proposals to put solar arrays or solar farms on those, so that we can be more efficient, invest in the clean energy economy and be responsible for our citizens in terms of their own health and also create jobs at the same time.

We're also, luckily for us, we're pretty well-placed in terms of geography.

Right down the street from us is Lordstown Energy Center, which is a natural gas powered company that just got online about four or five years ago.

They produce enough clean natural gas that's safe, efficient for 850,000 households.

There'll be a follow-up.

We're pretty close to a second deal for Trumbull Energy Center to mirror that.

So we're doing all of those things.

Being a part of the coalition for power for clean future of Ohio, we're also engaged with some of those so that we can do electric vehicle charging stations.

We've made a commitment to change our policy so that we're in line with the goals of that organization to reduce our carbon footprint by 30% by the year 2030.

So we're laying the ground work for that to happen.

I just fundamentally believe we can take care of our environment and be responsible from a public health standpoint, and also save money and create jobs at the same time.

And that that's where our focus is at this time.

- [Taylor] Commissioner Crawley.

- [Commissioner Crawley] Thank you so much for the question.

So I can just talk about what our local efforts are currently, and I can also be honest about where we need to go.

And if you just indulge me and let me talk about a few of those really quickly.

So one of our core principles for the Franklin County Board of Commissioners, and I have the pleasure of serving with Commissioner John O'Grady who's been at the board 12 and a half years, and board president, Commissioner Boyce who has been here since 2017.

And so, one of our core principles are good stewardship of natural resources, environmental sustainability, and civic engagement.

And so, some of those goals and principles include providing safe water and effective sewer systems.

Promote responsible and sustainable stewardship of natural resources.

We improve and expand community green spaces like parks and rec facilities and promote community planning zone enforcement and building code enforcement.

We had a resolution May 25th of 2021 where we decided to become an alternative energy zone that I talked about earlier.

We received a SolSmart Bronze Designation for encouraging solar energy.

We support MORPC's Sustainable 2050.

So MORPC is the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission.

And that's a recognition and a technical assistance program that supports MORPC and their members in their sustainability efforts.

And it is directly tied to the goals and objectives of the Regional Sustainability Agenda.

And for that Franklin County is a platinum member, which is the highest standard in Sustainable 2050 program, which educates and assists communities who want to be greener.

And so we have a number of things.

We're working with SWACO, which is our Solid Waste Authority Central Ohio, to reduce the methane gas there.

They have a number of innovative ideas and we'll be rolling out some of those here shortly from my office.

And then we have our economic development and planning department, which we have an energy works program, which is an ongoing partnership with the Columbus Franklin County Finance Authority to capitalize on the energy fund, which provides long financing to Franklin County businesses and nonprofits for cost effective energy efficiency improvements.

Our PFM, our Public Facilities Management, every building is trying to move to a Lead certification.

So we have that.

But one of the places that we can do better is look at how Franklin County as a whole is contributing to climate change, and moving to a greener space for everyone.

We are talking to governmental partners in all of our municipalities that are under Franklin County's jurisdiction, but also working with the private sector because it will take all of us to work together.

Our solutions have to be based in equity.

And so, we have our Rise Together Blueprint, which is a poverty blueprint, but it talks about environmental challenges, especially for the most marginalized.

It's important that the people who are most affected, as I always say, those who are closest to the problem are closest to the solution.

They should be at the table as we come together to have energy policy and what that looks like.

So when we look at building more affordable housing, we should look at ways to build them in a greener way in these areas where we see a lot of gentrification that is taking place.

And we have to protect and move forward and be innovative in job creation, especially in this area.

As I talked about earlier, when we talk about renewables or solar or wind turbines and renewable energy, those are job creators.

It doesn't have to be in coal and in that industry, we can move to a place where people aren't losing jobs, but we are creating more.

And so, that's what some of the things that Franklin County is doing.

We are looking at how do we, are we a convener?

Do we create our own policies ourselves and work with other collaborators?

And how can we be a leader in this space?

- [Taylor] Yeah, absolutely.

I don't know if we've lost Mayor Cranley.

Oh, there he is, hello.

Mayor Cranley your response.

- [Mayor Cranley] Look, there are many things that we're trying to do, that we haven't always been able to do.

We spent years trying to figure out how to use natural gas for our fleet cars.

But because in winter a certain gas is put into our pipes, it couldn't mix with the gas that we would need for the cars and for our fleet.

And so that's an ongoing issue.

However, we have moved forward with purchasing a number of electric vehicles for our fleet.

And so that is moving along, but not as fast as I'd wish.

- [Taylor] Yeah, of course.

We do have the first audience question here.

This is for Mayor Franklin.

We've got someone who would like to hear you talk about the struggle to provide fixed route bus service in Warren given public transit's importance in addressing climate change and some of the difficulties in providing it within your county.

- [Mayor Franklin] Yeah.

Thank you, thanks for that question.

Yeah, that's been a real sore spot for me.

The fact that we weren't able to come, from a county standpoint, to an agreement, or at least to put on the ballot initiative to expand fixed route busing throughout the region for Mahoning and Trumbull counties.

It was a regional plan, which I always support, and they always have the best opportunities to get federal and state funding.

Our local commissioners failed to put that on the ballot, so I think we've missed a great opportunity.

However, I'm not giving up the fight.

If anyone knows me, I never will.

But you tie that into, you know, public transportation and the environment are linked so, and the economy are so intertwined that you can't think of one without the other.

I failed to mention in my previous comments that right now, when I talked about the Lordstown Energy Center, in that same community, that same village Ultium Cells is pretty much getting ready to start up with a battery plant at the old GM Lordstown assembly site.

And also Lordstown Motors, which is planning to produce electric trucks and they have the prototype model already ready.

They're not off the ground yet, but there's been some takeover, or I should say a buyout from another company who can probably accelerate that faster.

But my point is, there'll be a approximately three to 4,000 new jobs right down the street from this community.

One of those plans with that bus, excuse me, that fixed bus route system, the public transportation system that we missed, we could get those people who are underserved, might not have transportation, out to those new clean energy jobs.

And they don't have to drive a car to get there with the transportation system in place.

Ironically, one of the companies Foxconn, I was just reading a few days ago, they planned to build electric public transportation vehicles.

So I'm gonna still fight that fight because it's the right fight, it's the good fight.

But what we have to take advantage of these opportunities.

So I really appreciate that question.

It allows me to vent once again, something that's been bugging me for about six or seven months, so I could take it to a wider audience.

But we have to take advantage of these opportunities.

We have to get those who are unemployed out to these, they have to get to these clean energy jobs.

Employers always wanna know how's your workforce gonna get to the jobs?

Well, we have a plan, but we have to execute that plan.

- [Taylor] Yeah and speaking of electric vehicles, the next question that we've gotten is installing at home chargers for electric vehicles can be cost prohibitive for families, especially those without attached garages or living in older houses, which happens in a lot of cities.

It's certainly here in Cleveland, that's an issue.

So is there anything cities can do to subsidize the cost of those chargers at homes, or to provide more incentives to make electric vehicle ownership more practical for city families?

I don't, I mean, Mayor Cranley or Mayor Franklin, either of you would probably be able to speak to this in some regard.

(Taylor chuckle slightly) - [Mayor Cranley] I'm for all of the above solution to think through these issues.

I am personally inspired by the price coming down of electric vehicles.

I have a Tesla, but it's no more expensive than a American Sedan.

You can buy very expensive Teslas, but that's not what I bought.

I bought the cheapest version available and it's still very cool and it's priced like any other Sedan you can buy.

And it's an American, obviously an American company, which is exciting.

So I think charging stations throughout the city that would be accessible to the public, and I'm certainly open to ideas on how to help individual homeowners or renters.

- [Taylor] Yeah, absolutely.

- [Mayor Franklin] Taylor, and I think Commissioner Crawley might've wanted to weigh in, but I'd just like to tie that into, 'cause I don't think we know what that answer is quite at this moment.

However, with the bipartisan infrastructure deal, I think we might have the opportunity to explore that in a way that it provides the funding to do these projects as well.

It's gonna be huge because it allows you to do EV charging stations.

I don't know about in households, but obviously they're projecting that there'll be a change over 40% of vehicles from gas powered to electric powered in the next few decades.

So we need to be thinking about this thing.

But we also need to have funding in place.

The infrastructure bill that's pending in Washington, it gives us an opportunity to build a foundation for what's coming down the road.

So I think that's important.

We all have to be mindful and stay true to lobbying for that bill to be passed and to be actually distributed to our local communities.

- [Taylor] Commissioner Crawley.

- [Commissioner Crawley] Yeah, I was just gonna add, I mean, Mayor Franklin did mention some of the things that I was gonna say.

Like there isn't an answer and I think as a Biden's climate plan or the Build Back Better plan is passed, we can have more conversations about what that looks like, how we support families who may wanna go and get an electric vehicle.

I can say at the state level, which continues to be an ongoing issue and I think it first started last general assembly as we were navigating the operating budget.

It came up again this year as I was navigating as ranking member on finance and dealing with the operating budget, a push to reduce the registration fees for those who do have electric vehicles.

So as much as we wanna make it affordable so that everyday person can have access and then we'll be able to have charging stations and all of that and that they're around our community.

We have to be realistic that we don't wanna create another barrier by having high registration fees for those who decide to go ahead and go that route.

Which we do know and I heard from advocates on both sides of the aisle on where they stand on this.

But I also heard feedback from consumers who will then see this as a barrier.

So I just wanted to add that.

- [Taylor] Yeah, another question from a listener.

Have there been conversations with power providers about modernizing Ohio's aging electric grid?

Commissioner Crawley, we can start with you on this one.

- [Commissioner Crawley] So it's interesting because I was seeking this appointment, this came up a lot.

And so, I'm not in my current role, have had an opportunity to really engage in what it looks like to make changes to our power grid, especially here in Franklin County, in some of the underserved areas where we have a lot of black and brown people, we have experienced a number of outages that tend to last longer.

And so, that is a conversation that I'm open to having.

And will put it on my agenda as I work with economic development and planning and MORPC and others in my 100 days, 'cause I've only been here 100 days.

- [Taylor] Yeah, absolutely.

And then, in terms of modernizing the electric grid and power, the shift to solar energy in Cincinnati obviously is going to modernize some things.

But is it equipped to handle that transition?

Do you need to upgrade things?

What are some of the loose ends there?

- [Mayor Cranley] I think at a big picture level, our national grid and our state grid needs a complete revamping.

In Ohio, we have a legislature that has raised people's monthly energy bills, people who are struggling, live hand to mouth, to bail out a coal plant in Indiana, repeal renewable energy standards in Ohio and hurt the natural gas industry all at the same time.

It's very hard to do all those things at once, but they did it.

We need a consumer focus and we need a modernization focus.

And we need to make sure that clean energy is part, a big part of the solution going forward.

I mean, the fact that the state appointments, which come from the governor turned down and basically killed the wind project in Cleveland, the fact that they passed a law that stops farmers from being able to do wind or solar, we have folks who wanna keep us in the past.

And ultimately we need multiple sources of energy, all of the above solution to our grid and we need to upgrade our grid.

And we can upgrade our grid if we're smart about it.

And the more, it's supply and demand, the more supply we have of clean energy, natural gas, et cetera, wind, solar, the cheaper prices are gonna be for people struggling to pay their bills.

And so I would say, of course our grid needs to be upgraded.

I think the national infrastructure bill will help, but even if it passes, Ohio needs new policies and new leadership to promote economic growth and investment in clean energy.

Instead, right now what we have is policies that say that we have to stay stuck in the past.

- [Taylor] Yeah and that ties into listener question.

We do have someone asking, what would you suggest Cleveland and Cuyahoga County do to move forward with the Icebreaker Wind project, the wind power project that was originally supposed to happen in Lake Erie?

Any suggestions given the work that you've done to kinda implement those different alternative energy options in Cincinnati?

- [Mayor Cranley] Yeah, I mean, it's about power.

I mean, the fact is that the Power Siting Board is appointed by the current governor and his cronies.

And he needs to change or we need change.

And so the fact of the matter is that we have this group that runs our state that was indicted by Trump FBI as the most corrupt in the history of the state, the most corrupt bill in the history of the state, all of which was to hurt renewable energy and the natural gas industry in favor of a coal plant in Indiana.

And so, I view this all as a pattern.

Just like they are telling no to wind in Cleveland, they're saying no to farmers who wanna do solar.

All of it is to economically benefit the industries that had, according to the FBI and according to First Energy who pled guilty to bribing DeWine appointed officials, they're doing exactly what they were asked to do by the people bribing them, allegedly according to the FBI.

And so, I mean, this is embarrassing and it hurts our state's future.

So we need different people or we need the people in power to have a conversion, if you will, to get away from corruption and in favor of a brighter and cleaner future for all of us.

- [Taylor] Yeah and we have another question here that focuses a little bit more on the micro level of maybe something that cities can still do in the face of all of that opposition.

But recent reports are citing increases in home heating costs by as much as 50% this winter.

How can cities support low income home weatherization programs, which will help keep those heating bills down and also make homes more efficient?

Mayor Franklin, I'm wondering if you have anything to add to this?

- [Mayor Franklin] Yes and thanks for that question.

I would first and foremost say, what we have done, and it happened some years ago, we became an aggregate community where allows us to, and our residents, to shop for better rates and not to be locked in, not to be monopolized by the industry.

And that's proven very well for us.

We also use it as a city government as well.

We exercise all of those options.

The challenge is always communicating those options in that program to general residents who they don't have the time or the luxury of, or just the stamina to delve into all of these different options.

So we have to make those options more easily available and understandable for the average citizen.

Those are some of the things we can do.

What we're also trying to do is to promote geothermal heating and cooling, not only for our city buildings, but for any new housing projects.

And we can incentivize that through some incentive packages that we put together.

So we're trying to do all of those things and looking at other ways that are out there, that some other communities have done to lower those energy costs for the residents.

Retrofitting housing as the, our housing stock, as it exists, we can give some discounts on permits.

If it has an energy efficiency or a climate benefit, we can do those.

We can do those through our engineering building and planning department.

So we're looking at all of those options, Taylor.

- [Taylor] Yeah and just a reminder for listeners, if you have questions for our panelists, be sure to text them to 330-541-5794.

Again that's 330-541-5794.

You can also tweet them to us @TheCityClub.

We'll try to work them in.

So yeah, Mayor Cranley, I saw you nodding a little bit there.

Do you have anything to add?

- [Mayor Cranley] Just that we have provided millions in help to weatherize homes.

It can make a huge difference for families living on fixed incomes to reduce their monthly bills.

And it is definitely worth the investment.

- [Taylor] Yeah and Commissioner Crawley, you touched a little bit on the impact that this has, particularly underserved communities and communities with higher populations of people of color.

What are some of the difficulties and challenges in making sure that those people know what the options are and they can get the help they need?

- [Commissioner Crawley] Absolutely, great question.

So one of the things that we are doing is, our job and family services, like our human services arm of Franklin County, job and family services, our office on aging, as well as child support and others, we have like this mobile unit that is going out that provides all kinds of information.

Whether people are trying to sign up for benefits or need help.

And we are actually in the community parked every day, sometimes on the weekends if we have special requests, to be able to provide information on where families can go to get assistance for weatherization, or we help them ourselves, especially for our aging population and those most vulnerable, whether it's pregnant moms and things like that.

But I do want to say that we continue to have ARPA funding.

The state has ARPA dollars as well as counties that help with utility bills and they help with heat and things like that.

But I would encourage, and I did this at the state level and I will continue to talk about it at the local level that we have to be working with our utility providers.

We should not be disconnecting people's water or their gas, especially during a pandemic.

We know the impact of that.

And so I just, as much as it falls on government to, especially Franklin County we are the largest social safety net for our neighbors, but it also takes a commitment from our private partners to wanna support families as well, as we navigate this pandemic, as we navigate different problems, whether it's water, keeping water on, or being able to heat their homes.

And then especially for our aging, when it comes to weatherizing and they're living in older homes that have not been updated, their windows haven't been updated, the insulation hasn't been updated.

And so, we wanna work with our partners.

But we continue to be on the ground in the community, talking with our neighbors to let them know what is available and that they don't have to just deal and live in their current circumstances.

That there's money available to help.

And we also work with our faith-based organizations to spread the word on resources that are available.

And we will continue to do that.

- [Taylor] Yeah, one more question from a listener.

Have there been any active efforts to rebuild the tree canopy in dense urban areas where climate change has led to heat domes in urban areas?

Mayor Cranley, we'll start with you.

- [Mayor Cranley] Yes, in fact, we've appropriated more dollars to increase our urban canopy and have made an intentional focus on adding trees, especially in areas without much canopy.

In fact, we even propose using some of our federal funds.

I think we had to amend that when it didn't qualify exactly, I think under the regulations.

But it is so important.

The reality is that trees take carbon out of the environment.

And so planting trees is a big part of the solution because we're gonna need to put carbon in the air to live our quality of life and keep the poverty reduction that we've seen around the world over the last generation.

And these are good things.

Now we just have to manage the carbon better and reduce the carbon footprint over time, without jeopardizing the critical medical and food supplies that require energy to move.

And so I think it requires all this wonderful new investment in clean energy, wind, solar batteries, et cetera, but also the other half of the solution is to plant more trees.

And we know that asthma goes down.

We know that education levels go up when kids are in an environment with green.

And too many of our urban neighborhoods have too little shade.

- [Taylor] Yeah and Mayor Franklin, there's a re-naturalization proposal for Warren as well.

But it doesn't just include trees, it includes more natural plant life, other things to kind of revitalize the outdoors.

What kind of impact does that have on the community?

- [Mayor Franklin] It's tremendous.

And Mayor Cranley said it best.

We have to be mindful of the, not only the urban canopy, but also of all of the other natural assets that God has given our communities.

I really, we're looking at, we're working with the Nature Conservancy of Ohio to do a lot of removal of our invasive species along the river banks.

We also wanna take that into our parks and into our neighborhoods as well.

So we're trying to have a three-pronged approach to how we address this.

Planting trees is it's a simple, great way to provide that natural filter for our communities.

And like I said, once again, the communities I grew up with were decimated by smog and the manufacturing of steel.

We enjoyed the benefits of those jobs, but the jobs are gone now and we're left with all of the aftermath of health disparities and everything else that comes with that.

So we have to work twice as fast to catch up and make sure that another generation doesn't suffer.

But we're doing that through naturalization of all of our communities.

But improving the urban canopy is central to that process.

And we were, just this May, when we found out that that didn't qualify through the ARPA Fund and SIL system.

But I believe there is a way that we can make that fit.

I think we can make that, we've made that nexus between those communities that are facing disparities and how we can use these ARPA funds, which are supposed to be COVID related, to improve that disparity.

Even if it was done prior to COVID.

So we're gonna be continuing to try to make that argument.

And we can all do some small, we can all do something from a personal level to do our part and I think we all have that obligation.

And thank you all for having me here.

And this has been a great forum.

- [Cynthia] Thank you so much, Taylor, Commissioner Crawley, Mayor Cranley and Mayor Franklin.

Today, we are at The City Club and have been listening to a forum on local climate action featuring the honorable John J. Cranley, Mayor of City of Cincinnati, Erica C. Crawley, County Commissioner of Franklin County and the Honorable William D. Franklin, Mayor of Warren, Ohio.

And as mentioned before, our moderator has been Taylor Haggerty, reporter for Ideastream Public Media.

And that brings us to the end of today's forum.

Thank you to our moderator, Taylor Haggerty, and to our esteemed panelists.

And thank you members and friends of The City Club.

I'm Cynthia Connolly and our forum is now adjourned.

(bell gongs loudly) (mellow synth music) - [Narrator] For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of The City Club, go to CityClub.org.

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