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(upbeat music) (bell rings) (audience applauds) - (laughs) Good afternoon.

And welcome back to the The City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

I'm Dan Moulthrop, chief executive here, proud member and giddy moderator because we have a real live in-person audience back at The City Club of Cleveland.

(audience applauds) The last time we were in a room like this in this room together, enjoying the incredible food made by our executive chef, Adam Crawford, it was Friday, March 13th, 2020 for our annual high school debate competition.

Here we are today, and so much has changed.

The country and our world and our community are still grappling with serial waves of COVID-19.

We're facing pressing issues of entrenched poverty, health disparities, and racial inequities.

And we are seeing a push for policing reform, criminal justice reform, as well as the need to address deep community failings in community and economic development.

Last summer, I want to tell you a quick story, last summer, I was out for a walk, and that was pretty much all anyone could do last summer.

And I ran into a local artist I know, Carmen Lane who was with a friend of theirs, Kerry Davis.

We got to talking about the mayor's race, which at the time, if you'll recall was just beginning to take shape.

Carmen Lane said to me, "The really interesting question isn't who should lead, but what kind of leadership is required at this moment."

Artists often ask the best questions I find, and that one stuck with me.

And we're here today to answer it, or at least provide some form of an answer or maybe four different forms of an answer.

There's a wide open election in the Cleveland mayor's office for the first time in 16 years, as you know, and there does not appear to be a clear front runner.

There are contested city council races in 16 of 17 Cleveland wards.

And we have an open congressional seat in the 11th congressional district and the 2022 county executive race is already heating up.

So clearly this is a pivotal moment for Greater Cleveland and the stakes for citizens, and those who would like to lead them could not be higher.

So, joining me here on stage are four incredible professionals to dig deep into what kind of leadership this moment requires.

We have seated right next to me is Mordecai Cargill, he's co-founder and creative director at ThirdSpace Action Lab.

Joyce Huang, vice president of community development in Midtown, Cleveland.

Bob Klonk, chairman and CEO at the Oswald Companies and Ricardo Leon, executive director at Metro West Community Development Organization.

Esteemed guests, members and friends of The City Club, please join me in welcoming our panelists.

(audience applauds) So I wanna start with this question, this general question, Ricardo Leon, we'll start with you.

What kind of leadership does this moment require?

- Thank you.

I think this moment requires quite frankly, leadership that is innovative, inclusive, and flexible, right?

We need leadership that is gonna go out into our communities and make all members of our neighborhoods city feel like they're a part of our city, right?

They're out showing their face, but we also need leadership that can bring businesses back to the city, increase our tax base, increase the quality of life for folks in our communities and offer real services for our neighborhoods, right?

Our communities need someone who's going to lead us and make us a 21st century city and so my hope is that, our next mayor in the city helps us transition and make us a better city, a city that folks wanna live in, a city that quite frankly, has potential, we have potential to be that we haven't realized, you know, in the last few decades, in my opinion.

- Innovation, flexibility, Joyce Huang, what would you add to that list?

- So I think, you know, going off the artists, and how they often have a good angle on things, I think really looking at what is the vision, so, can you define what a vision for the future of the city could look like?

But not just vision, you have to be able to take process.

And that's the artist part, right?

Process is an incredibly important part of making sure that we have equity and the structure being able to implement that vision into the right structures around city hall or city government or public officials is going to be essential to making sure that services and et cetera can be delivered and that vision can be accomplished.

So, that's my 2 cents.

- Mordecai Cargill, do you think this moment is about sort of a radical change or ongoing stewardship?

- Dan, you clearly know me very well.

(Dan and Mordecai laughs) Yeah, no, I think a radical changes is necessary, but I think that if I were to bullet down to like three things, it's about vision, it's about swagger.

And I think that that is probably-- - [Dan] Define swagger.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I tried to define it in our like kind of pre panel, like, you know, rap session, but there's something unique about being from Cleveland.

There's something unique about living in this city that makes you want to, I was gonna say, it makes you wanna fight people, you know?

But like, I'm a peace person, but you know, anywhere we go as Clevelanders, if we're out of the country, if we're in different cities in the United States, there is something that is like motivating us to rep our city, you know?

And we need a leader who can inspire us, who can inspire us to think even bigger about what is possible here in the city of Cleveland.

So, I think that that radical imagination, which we kind of alluded to in the question is essential.

So, we have to think about what the next few decades are gonna look like.

And we also have to think about what a new form of leadership might look like, so that more people get the opportunity to contribute their vision and their ideas.

- When you say a new form of leadership, I feel like you're alluding to something that we tend to sort of think about leaders as looking and acting a certain way.

And I think you're suggesting, I mean, you tell me what you're suggesting.

- Well, I mean, I think that so often we think about the next mayor or the current mayor as like the CEO of our city and that's fine, you know?

But I also think that we need a mayor that's gonna be like the community organizer in chief.

We need somebody who can bring a whole bunch of different people together and hash out some differences and be focused on power and how are we gonna distribute power, right?

How are we gonna build power beyond a mayoral term, but really to build that grassroots, you know, to build the movement of people who are gonna say like, this is my city and I'm gonna try to create in my own image.

- Bob Klonk, about a year ago, when I was strolling around Shaker Lakes having conversations with artists, you were convening other business leaders for this kind of conversation.

What do you believe?

What kind of leadership qualities do you believe this moment calls for?

- Well, I agree with the rest of the panel of all the qualities that they've mentioned, vision and inspirational and good leaders get other people to follow them and follow their dream and their vision.

They inspire others to do things.

They help others believe in themselves that they can do more than they ever thought they could do.

And you bring all that together.

And I agree with all of that, but I've lived in Greater Cleveland my entire life.

And I want a leader who comes in here and stops talking about our problems and actually solves them, okay?

We have problems.

We've had the same problems for too many years and we need somebody, you know, if there's one thing lacking in politics, it's accountability, right?

That doesn't lack in the private sector world, okay?

If you're not accountable in the private sector world, you lose your job, right?

And if it's a CEO of the city, whatever you wanna be, a CEO as a board of directors, that happens to be council, right?

They should be able to kick him out if he doesn't do his job, right?

We need a leader that's going to come in and actually get stuff done.

So if he has a great vision, then execute on the vision, that's all.

- Which of the to-do list, and there's a, that you sort of referred there, Bob Klonk a to-do list of deferred problems.

What are the top three that you wanna see?

And, or specifically that other large employers wanna see?

- You know, I think that's one of the hardest questions we have to answer.

I don't know if there's really a top three, there's so many that we need to do because we have different types of communities that have different needs, but I think your overarching, the two biggest to me is safety and education.

Everything starts with a good education, okay?

And we have jobs available in the city.

We have major employers that I started talking to over a year ago that have jobs available today, but we don't have a workforce that's ready for those jobs.

And we need to create that whether it's career academies, vocational schools, whatever it is, you know, Cleveland School District is gonna get $273 million I believe from the CARES Act here, what are they gonna do with it?

Because if they do the same thing they've done with all the other money that they've gotten, we're gonna get the same results.

So really driving something that's gonna change the dynamics of that.

And we have to improve the safety.

Our employees that come to work in our businesses Downtown, the people who live in Downtown and around in the neighborhoods, the disparities in the neighborhoods, we need safety.

But that's also a two way street.

It can't be just the police force, its gotta be community working with the police force to create a safe environment.

- Ricardo Leone, you run a community development corporation.

Do you agree with Bob Klonk's priority list there in terms of education and public safety?

- I'm sitting right next you, so-- (panel laughs) (indistinct) - From the, I think from the 30,000 foot of sky global perspective, yes.

We need a better workforce in order to entice business to come back to the city, we need safer neighborhoods.

We need neighborhoods where people feel comfortable being in them.

I think when you get down in the neighborhoods, it's a little bit different, right?

Because to Bob's point, every neighborhood is a little bit different, every neighborhood needs something different.

Some of the things that we see in our neighborhoods that we serve, and I say this as a lifelong resident, a graduate of CMSD, we need neighborhoods where there is real representation.

Representation that is actually of the community and allows the community to have a voice, right?

So when we think about ideas of like polycentric governance, where neighborhoods can kind of self-govern themselves and have an ability to interface with city hall and the municipality in a way that allows them to have real discourse.

- [Dan] This is about the distributed power that Zach was referring to earlier.

- Exactly.

Right.

In addition to that, I think something that is lacking in a lot of our urban core neighborhoods, certainly, like the neighborhoods that I represent is civically engaged folks, right?

There needs to be a new wave of getting folks civically engaged and finding unique creative ways for folks to feel like it's important to being civically engaged, right?

Most folks we talk to say they don't vote because it doesn't matter, there's no reason to, right?

And so, how do we start changing that narrative and how do we have a leader that inspires folks to want to change that narrative and get involved?

I think is incredibly important.

And then ultimately is resources, right?

Most of our underserved neighborhoods are underserved because for historically they have been under resourced.

Resource have gone into the neighborhoods that have the highest return on investment, right?

And return on investment in a dollars and cents way, which is valuable and it's important, but we also have-- - But that sort of compounds thing, so that the neighborhoods that are doing well, get more.

- Right, exactly.

There needs to be a social return on investment.

We need to think about our communities and that investing in our communities, particularly underserved communities in a way that creates that social capital, that then does increase education.

It does make that neighborhood safer.

It does create more informed community members and constituents.

- You know, you talked about voter engagement or citizen engagement and civic engagement, but there are two community partners on this program today, or the League of Women Voters and Cleveland VOTES.

And it's not insignificant, right?

There's a reason why that's the case because in the last, in the 2020 election cycle, I mean, voter turnout in Cleveland was among the lowest in the nation and really disappointingly so.

Joyce Huang, from a, I don't know if voter engagement is one of the issues that the constituents you serve in Midtown and in your work with AsiaTown if that's a concern, but is it, and what else?

- Oh yeah, absolutely.

So, you know, last year there was a huge push, many thanks to Cleveland VOTES to get folks out into the neighborhoods to be like on the ground, getting people to vote.

And our team was out there trying to get people registered.

We had pop-ups, we had residents bake goods to give away to others.

And what we discovered was that there really needed to be somebody on the ground with folks in their native language.

So, our community organizer who speaks Mandarin and can understand Cantonese was on the ground, engaging folks not just to get people to vote, but to dig up what are the reasons why you feel like you can't vote?

Or what are the barriers that make you feel like it's not important?

And so absolutely that is a huge, huge need.

And I think just the more broadly from a neighborhood perspective, language access is really important.

Even if there are residents and business owners who actually speak English, their interface with public officials or city hall is often met with a sort of anxiety, right?

Because they may speak accented English, or let's just say not so perfect English.

And there's sort of a shutdown that happens when people encounter that.

And so I think it's really important to help people feel empowered and feel civically engaged by saying, we're actually listening to you, we'll be patient and walk you through this process alongside you, so.

- Do your constituents feel that the kind of public facing, I use the word constituents generically, not because you're, 'cause you're not serving in an elected office, but I mean, just like the community you serve and the community members you serve and work with, do they feel that the public facing parts of city hall really aren't welcoming, aren't working for them, aren't doing the things that you're talking about?

- I mean, there are so many barriers, I think with the COVID grants, first of all, that was like very delayed for most businesses.

It took about six to eight months to actually get your COVID rescue grants in through the door, but for example, when applying for applications or trying to get someone on the phone at city hall, there is not someone that they can go to and say, do you speak the language that I speak?

And instead there's a sort of this difficult conversation that they have where they don't get the services that they need even though they're speaking the same language.

- Mordecai Cargill, we're still sort of on that issue of top priorities and you have done, you and your colleagues at ThirdSpace Action Lab have done more to raise the visibility of issues around racial equity than any other organization in Cleveland.

So I would imagine that's one of the top priorities that you would lay out, but could you talk about that a little bit and the kind of direction you think the next mayor needs to take the community in that regard?

- Yeah.

Well, this is another kind of big question because given the fact that so many people are a part of this conversation around racial equity and inclusion, the term is starting to lose a bit of its power, right?

It's like something that can be said so many times that it starts to become this like abstract thing that everybody's like a part of, right?

I think what the next leader, what the next mayor has to do is like say it very clearly and precisely like Cleveland has a race problem, has had a race problem for decades, right?

And it looks like this when you break it down into these systems, right?

And this is what I'm gonna do to address that race problem, you know?

And I think one of the-- - If I can just -- - Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

- Verify what I think you're saying that we need the next mayor, the leaders that this moment requires, are people who are really clear and understand very specifically what inequity looks like in housing, in health, in education, in community development and have the data and an understanding of the data and an understanding of potential solutions to really chart a new course.

- Basically yes.

And I would push a bit further and say that what we're looking for is for the leader to be able to put it in their own words, to make it plain for people, because we know that these disparities exist across all those dimensions that you mentioned, right?

- [Dan] And others.

- And others, right?

And so we want this leader to be able to say, like, I know this city, I'm spending a lot of time thinking about these problems and we're not gonna stop at the problems, but y'all should get with me on like building our awareness around these problems, right?

Because there's work for everybody in this city to do in order to push the needle on any of these dimensions.

But I'll also say that one of the, I only said two things out of those three that I had in mind, one of them is proximity.

And that is so important because with proximity comes a clearer sense of what the problem is.

But also it's like how you continue to develop the trust that is essential for people in neighborhoods to believe you, right?

'Cause I think to go back to the matter of equitable civic engagement or civic engagement at all, one of the, I've told this story a few times, but I had my mind rocked over the summer in 2020, it feels like so long ago, but we were doing civic engagement, get out to vote with Cleveland VOTES and it was an event called Biscuits and Democracy.

And I remember like going to-- - [Dan] They go together well.

- Right, you would think so, right?

So I went across the street to flag this guy down and I was like, yo, come in, get registered to vote.

We'll tell you all about the issues.

While you're here, sign up for the census and you get a biscuit.

And he was like, I'll take the biscuit, you can keep the other stuff.

And I was really struck, you know, we still gave him the biscuit and all that, but what was really, really terrifying to me was like, that suggested a complete lack of faith in the systems.

It's like, what am I voting for anyway?

Why does this even matter?

I'm already here in this neighborhood, I'm already doing my thing.

So like, we're thinking about what the next leader should inspire in their constituents with what we are going to be voting for it's like, how do we get more people engaged?

How do we get more people to feel like, yo, I can follow this leader because this leader is going to respect me, is gonna respect my point of view.

And I also have something to contribute to what the future of the city is gonna look like.

- Let me just mention for the benefit of the radio audience, that it is like, you know, 10 minutes to one on Friday, the 23rd of July, 2021.

We are back in The City Club, live with a real audience at The City Club.

Mordecai Cargill is the voice you just heard.

He's with ThirdSpace Action Lab.

Also with us on this panel discussing the sort of leadership qualities that this moment calls for is Joyce Huang from Midtown, Cleveland, Bob Klonk of Oswald Companies and Ricardo Leon of Metro West Community Development Organization.

I'm Dan Moulthrop with The City Club.

We'll be going to the Q&A in about five to 10 minutes.

And if you have a question, if you're on the radio audience, you can text your question to 330-541-5794.

Or you can tweet your question @thecityclub, we'll work it in.

And if you're here in the room, you'll be able to stand up at a microphone and do the same.

You know, one of the, one of my favorite books about leadership is by Max De Pree, it's called "Leadership Is an Art."

And he begins by saying the first responsibility of the leader is to define reality.

How do we define the reality of Greater Cleveland today?

And in what ways specifically is it different than it was two years ago?

Because it is really different than it was two years ago.

Joyce Huang, can we start with you?

- Sure.

So, I'll try to tackle the first part of your question.

I mean, I think the reality of Cleveland is that there are two maybe more Clevelands and I just don't think we can ignore the very real issues.

And I think there is a tendency all around this town to like really be hyped about Cleveland.

Like, yeah, Cleveland is this Cleveland is that.

But I think when you try to just look at the shiny, you're not really loving your city, right?

You need to be able to love your city in a way where you're like, I can weep over my city because of the issues there, because I love it.

And so I think the two Cleveland's really being that you talked about, Mordecai, a lot of it is related to racial (chokes) excuse me, racial inequity, and the resources that sort of are compounding in neighborhoods that are already receiving them.

And then getting sort of, I don't wanna say worse, but like that the disadvantages are growing more in others.

And I think on the ground, you can really feel it.

So to your point Mordecai about proximity, are you walking the neighborhoods?

Do you live in the neighborhoods?

Do you know people in the neighborhoods?

I think part of what personally was helpful for me in COVID I was living in AsiaTown over the past three years.

And you know, for me, I'm like, oh, busy work, gotta get here there.

And when COVID struck, I took the time to really walk around AsiaTown and to really look and observe and see.

And I think there's this practice that I started to take in a sort of, what am I really seeing with my eyes?

Am I looking at people in the eye?

And there were so many magical things that I learned about AsiaTown and the people just by taking the time to be out on the ground.

And I think defining reality, it gets really real when you're actually out on the ground.

So yeah.

- Bob Klonk, how do you see, like, how would you define reality from a business owner's perspective or business leader's perspective?

- It's a tough question.

Its a big question.

I mean, it's a, and I listened to Joyce and Mordecai talk and yes, there are multiple problems in the city.

There's no doubt about it.

We've gotta find a leader who can help us unite together to solve the problems versus being divided and we never solve anything.

And somehow we've gotta get to that point.

So we need that inspirational leader that can help us and make everybody in the town feel that they can be a part of the solution.

The business community is one small part of that solution.

You know, we're trying to create the jobs and create the enterprise available for the young people to come up through the systems and stay here in Cleveland, Greater Cleveland and work.

So we want to be a part of that solution.

We understand many of the inequities that go on in the neighborhoods and other places like that.

We wanna be a part of that, okay?

But you've gotta start with a leader who's willing to listen to that, and then develop the processes and improvements that we need to deal with everything.

But we're not gonna do that if we're divided amongst four or five different segments.

We've gotta have that leader who's got the ability to unite us to fight for Cleveland because what Mordecai said early on, I'm gonna paraphrase, but if you've lived here your whole life, or even a good part of your life, you'll love this town and you are willing to fight for this town and for what we believe in.

But it's hard to sit back and watch it continually be torn apart and torn apart with a city hall that doesn't react to anything and simply makes excuses.

- It's interesting I thought you were gonna talk about kind of the state, the reality that office buildings are half empty now and that sort of reality about commercial real estate Downtown, which is kind of a proxy for our economic situation.

- Those are small problems compared to the other problems that we have in the city though, okay?

I mean, that's just real estate.

Those are just buildings.

They'll fill back up again, all right?

I think what happened during the pandemic and what's going on right now with flexible work schedules and back and forth, you can have different arguments with different business owners.

I think it's gonna go full circle in a couple of years quite frankly.

I think people realize that remote work in certain industries is not the best way to go.

That's all, but we'll wait and see.

I know all my young employees that are listening to me right now are cringing, but it's all right, we're still gonna have a flexible work schedule, don't worry.

But it is an issue, but there's more issues Downtown than just that.

We've gotta worry about the commercial real estate.

You gotta worry about what's going to happen with employment taxes, depending on what the laws change.

If you're working from home, not working from home, but we've got restaurants went out of business.

We got a lot of small businesses that went out of business.

We had some safety issues Downtown, so that flood of people that were going to move Downtown, now it's a little bit slowed down a bit, and we gotta create that again.

That's great, the vibrancy of Downtown was fantastic prior to COVID, we've gotta get that back and you get that back, the buildings will fill back up again.

- Ricardo Leone, as we think about the qualities that are called for in this moment, one of the things we haven't talked about is the ways in which our leaders are able to deal or embrace and include a variety, people from a variety of backgrounds.

That hasn't been sort of front and center for this conversation, the broader conversations happening outside of this room about mayoral leadership.

It's really public safety education, all of that.

What about those issues?

What about that ability to bring cultural competency?

- I mean, it's spot on.

I mean, I think the reality is that there are communities, both physical places, but ethnic communities that have been largely ignored for decades in this city.

There has been longstanding traditions, communities that have been here and have built communities, have built networks, informal networks and formal networks, and built businesses, helped increase the tax base, and those folks have historically been completely overlooked.

They haven't been part of the conversation.

And so I think our next leader, whoever it is, needs to take a really hard look at how do I create a system, right?

How do I create a system down at city hall?

How do I get the right folks in the building?

How do I repurpose our departments in a way that they are done, it's designed equitably so that those folks who have historically not had a voice, have the opportunity to be a part of this community, right?

Because what we find in a lot of those communities, they are thriving, but they're thriving in their own way.

They have found a way to thrive by surviving, right?

- [Dan] In spite of.

- In spite of the lack of resources, the lack of attention, the lack of mobility, right?

And so those folks have kind of created those networks.

And now I think as the time with a new leader, you can kind of build upon those strengths because they had shown us erring strength, particularly resilience, right?

Those folks are some of the most resilient people you can think of because they've had nothing, they've built something out of nothing.

And so how do you have a leader that can tap into those resources, tap into that work ethic, that intellect that's there in our neighborhoods, and then use that to propel the city forward and really make our city a global city.

You know, you can get food in this city from any part of the world.

And there's very few places in this country where you can say that, right?

And most of the folks, when you think about cities like that, they're cities that are five or 10 times the size of our city.

And yet those types of aspects are completely overlooked.

When people think about a neighborhood to go get food, they think about three or four neighborhoods.

They don't think about the 17 neighborhoods across the city.

And so I think that's incredibly important.

It's like, how do we, how do we have a leader that incentivizes investment in our most underserved communities, the neighborhoods and people who have historically not been a part of the conversation.

- Today at The City Club, we're enjoying a forum about the challenges of the last year and the kind of leadership qualities that will be required of our leaders for our collective success.

You just heard from Ricardo Leone, he's executive director at Metro West Community Development organization.

Also with us, Mordecai Cargill, co-founder and creative director at ThirdSpace Action lab, Joyce Huang, vice president of community development at Midtown Cleveland and Bob Klonk, chairman and CEO at the Oswald Companies.

We are about to begin the audience Q&A.

We welcome questions from everyone, City Club members, guests, students, even sitting council members.

(laughs) And those of you joining us via our live stream or the radio broadcast on 90.3 Ideastream Public Media.

If you have a question here in the audience, our Q&A does look a little bit different.

We ask that you first raise your hand to be acknowledged and wait in your seat until The City Club staffer offers, you know, brings you over, motions you over to one of our two designated mic stands.

If you are unable or don't wish to walk to the microphone, a City Club staffer will come to you.

And as usual, if you'd like to tweet a question, tweet it @thecityclub, if you'd like to text a question, text it to 330-541-5794.

Supervising our microphones are content and communications and program innovation manager, Alyssa Raybuck, and City Club intern, Jochie Yeboah.

May we have our first question, please?

Bob Lustig, welcome back.

Great to see you.

- [Bob] I couldn't pass up the opportunity.

- Of course not.

- We've focused entirely today on the city of Cleveland.

Last time I looked at any population figures, the city of Cleveland was less than 400,000 people.

In a five county area, that's about two and a half million people.

So, my question to our panel is what can a mayor of Cleveland do to coordinate activities because what you do in the city is woefully inadequate to lead the entire area, which is what will make the city a prosperous place in which to live and work.

- Who wants to take that?

- I'll answer it first.

I don't disagree with you at all.

One of the things we talked about in our prep session was how important it is that the new mayor is very collaborative, works with the county executive, works with the congressional, the Congress folks in our area to help do it.

But although it's only 400,000 people, the city of Cleveland drives the region, it still drives the region.

And it's sad that it's only 400,000 people when you compare it to the other cities in the states that are growing, we've got to make sure the core is there to grow and then work with the other places to drive the region.

I don't disagree with the fact that the county job is a very important job.

Who gets elected in these congressional districts is very important about how much money can come back to the area and to the region.

But I truly believe we need to fix the core and that will help drive the region.

- Ricardo.

- Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly with Bob's point.

What I would add to that is if we fix the core and we have a leader who genuinely focusing their energy and being that collaborative spirit and driving collaboration, then we should see collaboration amongst our inner ring suburbs, our five county MSA, we should see a philanthropic support kind of coming together to bring resources across the MSA.

And I think we'll also see our business community come together and create innovative solutions to not only increase the availability of resources within the city, but then how does then that tap into our neighboring, our neighboring suburbs, our neighboring cities, and even the farthest reaches of our MSA.

- Joyce Huang, it strikes me that the community, the broader community, surrounding communities that Ricardo's referencing would welcome of leader who would be a leader among leaders, a mayor among mayors, that kind of thing.

Is that how you see it?

- Sure.

I mean, I think for so long, we've been sort of sitting back and allowing other sectors to sort of be that collaboration.

And now's the time to really see that come from that mayoral leadership across not just all the neighborhoods, but then across these different levels of governance.

And that's exactly how I see it.

That's what I wanna see.

- I mean, it's such a great job.

I feel like the mayor of Cleveland, I mean, there's an opportunity not just to address the problems, the very real problems inside the city borders, but to use it as a platform to kind of drive, to drive an urban agenda that the entire nation can benefit from.

But that's just me.

Next question.

Hey Al.

- Thank you.

It's clear that we have a load of issues.

And when you talk about the top three, you know, 10 immediately come to mind and we're gonna be getting an inflow of a half a billion dollars from the federal government here over the next two years.

And my question is, how do we take those dollars and use them in a way that's going to create a longterm impact.

As an example, if we took a hundred million of that and went to the private sector and the nonprofit community and said, match our 100 million so we can create a $200 million investment fund that could be used to promote entrepreneurship and do it in a way that's socially responsible and inclusive and creates more equity.

So, you know, but the overriding question is, what do we do with that money to get that kind of impact?

- Anybody?

- I'll look Mordecai spend it first.

- Okay.

- Oh, okay.

Tough question.

I can't say how it breaks out into a budget.

But I don't think that that's so important honestly.

I feel like the scale and complexity of the problems that our region in our cities is facing, these are generational problems, you know?

I would say that the process here is really important then.

So we've heard some of the candidates, but more importantly, we've heard this like, you know, resounding requests from the community to be able to dictate what happens with this money.

I would just say that it's important to listen to the community, to get clear about like, exactly like how people are perceiving their highest priorities.

But I also think that there are a lot of really smart people in this region there are a lot of really smart people on this panel that I have the incredible fortune to get to work with all the time.

You know, I think that there's no quick fixes, it's only slow methodical work, but also that collaboration is so essential in order to be able to say like, this is how I'm perceiving this problem from one vantage point, you know.

Let's put our best thinking together and let's try to plot out the next two years, the next four years, you know, the next 10 years, you know?

'Cause those plans are gonna change inevitably.

Like a lot of the things that we may consider as failures, that was people's best thinking like in the '80s and in the '90s, right?

So, I think the flexibility to be able to test something and say like, all right, well, we're going to continue to refine this.

We're not going to let this just be a drop in the bucket.

We're actually going to continue to pay attention to this and then invite other people to help us make this solution go.

- Joyce Huang.

- Yeah, I would say also on top of that, you know, talking about how communities could be empowered to talk about sort of this collaborative budgeting.

Many of us out there in community development corporations and other sectors have been doing that work.

So through planning processes, through advocacy efforts, the information is out there.

I think it's really a matter of our people listening.

There are platforms, they're are policy platforms that Cleveland Neighborhood Progress or other community development organizations have put together and it's really, can this leader internalize that and really put it into practice?

- Well, and Councilman Brancatelli told me earlier that through the Community Development Block Grant program, there's traditionally a lot of participatory budgeting.

It's just not specifically called participatory budgeting.

So it needs a little rebranding, perhaps.

Bob Klonk, did you have a, it sounded like you had a thought about how either the process by which that half a billion dollars should be deployed or what it ought to be deployed against.

- I don't know that I have a specific thought to it.

As far as what it should be spent for, I think the apathy comes from is that half a billion dollars is a lot of money normally, but we've watched the city and governments historically just waste money like that with no results.

It sounds like a lot of money coming in and then we don't get any results from that.

So, in the business world, we're all about metrics and we're all about accountability.

So, if you want my money, I'll give you my money, but show me what you're gonna do with it, measure the results and report back to me.

And then I'll give you more money as long as you can continue to do that.

So whether it's a community, whether it's part of the government, it's the schools, whatever it might be, we have to have some sense of accountability to where that money is gonna go.

And what is it going to accomplish to bring this city back?

That's how I'd spend that money.

I just don't have the confidence that that's what's gonna happen right now.

- It feels like part of what you're saying is, you know, in terms of framing this back as leadership qualities, like a leader who will hold him or herself accountable, and publicly and transparently.

- But they have to give the inspiration to the people that we don't think they're wasting the money.

They're truly aren't.

But I think a lot of that money is gonna be allocated before this new mayor ever gets into office.

Number one, I don't know how much is going to be or not, but we have to be able to have the belief that this new government is going to be able to spend the money appropriately and then drive the results and if the communities wants, the money and the school, whoever wants the money, you've got to drive results at the end of the day.

- Our next question from an elected leader herself, Meryl Johnson, our state school board representative.

- Its great to be back.

I appreciate the conversation about racial equity and as a member of the state board of education, I'm very concerned about two bills that are circulating in the legislature now, House Bill 322 and 327, which falsely claim that critical race theory, which looks at government policies that have created systemic racism is being taught in the schools.

It is not being taught.

If passed, those bills would prohibit teachers from teaching about race, about social justice, about equity, about current events, about all the things that our students need to be able to exist in a world where people are different.

And so my question to you is what kind of impact if passed, could those two bills have on the city of Cleveland?

- Not exactly about leadership, but okay, we'll allow it because it's a City Club, right?

Like you can ask whatever you want.

- When you look at leadership, leadership is going to have an effect on what these bills are doing, because we're gonna have a lot of students and adults running around, not really understanding what differences are.

So I think it's-- - Yeah, Mordecai, its coming to you.

- Yeah, yeah, I'm ready for it.

I think that what's at stake here is that we have worse citizens, simply put.

I feel like this conversation about whether critical race theory is anti-American, it's like in, it's an academic exercise that has very real implications when it comes to changing a discourse and driving a discourse to say that asking questions is somehow wrong.

Like what are you supposed to be in school for anyway, but to ask the question?

I can't imagine like what it would mean for young black people who grew up in the city of Cleveland or young Latinos or young Asian Americans to grow up, continue to grow up generation after generation and have your history like kind of told to you in this really distorted perverse way, right?

That forces you to think that you are less entitled to the privileges that we are supposed to enjoy by virtue of us being here, you know?

So, this is why I think that we need to broaden these conversations.

Like I'm not, I felt bad because I wasn't able to come up with more specific proposals or expectations of the next mayor but I don't think it's about specifics, right?

I think it's more about these bigger ideas, that are very much on the table.

It's like, what type of community do we wanna be?

What type of city do we wanna be?

Who's gonna be the leader who says like, you know, I know that Cleveland has a race problem because I'm the mayor of Cleveland, rather, regardless of whether or not it's politically correct or not, that's what I'm looking for.

That's who I'm gonna vote for.

- And can I add to that too?

- Go ahead please.

- I think, you know, we've talked a lot about sort of physical inequities or sort of scenarios, but I think, you know, thinking holistically, we have to think about people's mental and psychological and spiritual wellbeing.

And if someone does not feel like they belong, simply because something, your lived experience tells you, there is something wrong about this and there must be something about the way things have shaken out in my history of being here that it's like being gas lit, right?

You're like, there's something wrong with the way that I experienced my life, but I'm being told that everything's great.

And I ultimately think that that is what makes people wanna leave the region is if they don't feel like they have a belonging here, they don't see themselves in the narrative.

And I have countless Asian American friends who will tell me that, they say, I came here to Cleveland so excited, new city, didn't see myself at all in this narrative of who Cleveland is.

And like three or four years later, they're like, and I think that is maybe the case among a lot of other younger folks, specifically younger folks of color.

I think it's just, if we're gonna grow, we need to be able to address ourselves holistically.

- The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are really important.

- Absolutely.

- Thank you.

Thank you for the question.

Next question.

Hello Carmen.

- [Carmen] Hi Dan, how are you?

- Great.

- So this is an observation and then a follow up question.

So, the observation that I have about the panel is that when you ask the question about what leadership is required in our city, the answer got shifted to what kind of individual leader is needed and leadership and an individual leader are two different things.

So for me, I wanna ask the panel, what is the invitation to all of us, about the leadership that we all need to bring to our community?

A city is a concept, as Joyce said, we all have different Clevelands that we move towards.

So, what's the intervention to get us to move towards the whole system?

I say that because when I say a system, I mean a human system, human beings make up systems, racial equity is human beings being impacted by lack of access to goods, services, conversations, experiences.

I believe that the kind of leadership that's required is that we have someone, more than one, all over our community that is willing to commit themselves in their practice in service of a better world.

I've gotta go back to the pound on the second.

One of the things I wanna say about leadership that has had an impact.

I recently renovated a space in the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood.

I had to remove a 105 year old racist and antisemitic restriction off the deed of my home in order to do the work that I'm doing right here and right now.

Now that's the leadership that has impact.

The only way that I could remove that restriction is if three suburban mayors represented the interest of dead white men in order to remove set restriction.

So, this is an invitation to ask everyone in this room and the panel, what leadership are you willing to bring right here and right now that has a century or more impact in service of our community.

- So glad I'm not on the panel.

(audience laughs) Ricardo Leon.

- Oh man, that was an amazing question.

Amazing question.

And Carmen, I think a part of what you've said, and maybe if I'm interpreting this properly is I think we all need to be better stewards of our community.

I think we all need to be that better neighbor.

We all need to be that better person who represents our friends, our family, the folks who call this city home, right?

Something I point to, I say this all the time, man, I'm Mordecai and I have had this conversation, right?

There were so, like growing up, there was so many people who I thought were smarter than me had a better chance of being in a better situation than I did, right?

Maybe were in a better financial situation at some point in their life.

And none of those folks ultimately had the opportunity to display that intelligence, to display that work ethic.

Many of those folks aren't here today, right?

Because the community around them didn't uplift them.

They weren't in a community that made them feel like they were an individual that had value.

They were in neighborhoods where their neighbors told them that this neighborhood isn't worth anything.

And so when you think, when someone tells you a neighborhood's not worth anything, you inherently think you're not worth anything either.

And so all of us as a community need to come together and change that narrative about our city, you know?

Something that I will say, while I do agree that a lot of our people in Cleveland are like really like, yeah, Cleveland's awesome, I've also seen the flip side where a lot of folks are very negative about our city.

We talk down about our city, we willingly accept the narrative that our neighbor, our city is the mistake on the lake.

Like that inherently changes the perception of folks, particularly the young folks in our communities growing up and feeling like they are worth, like they have worth, they have value, right?

And then when you layer in all of the socioeconomic issues, the racial issues, the lack of investment, the lack of resources, that coalesces in the neighborhoods, staying in the same marginalized place for decade after decade after decade and generations of folks not being able to move out of that lower socioeconomic rung or wherever they are.

And so to some extent, I think my answer is like, we all have to take that leadership within us.

We all have to learn how to be better neighbors, learn how to be real leaders and then come as a collective and collectively come together and force that person who gets elected to have our values as well.

- Others wanna weigh in?

- Yeah, I'll weigh in.

It was a very good question.

A lot of points to it.

I don't disagree with it.

It takes more than one, but a good leader, if you have, a good leader could convene others, right?

And it's one thing we've missed.

We missed that after social justice issues, after the riots here in Cleveland, we've missed that with the COVID.

We don't have that one leader who can convene others in the community that want to help to come together and figure out how do we solve these problems together?

It's like tipping point leadership in an organization.

I can't influence all of my employees everywhere.

I need my other leadership team to listen to my guidance, listen to what I'm talking about, and then inspire them to make those changes.

That's what the mayor of Cleveland needs to be.

He needs to be that inspirational leader that can help and draw others to him that will help him accomplish or solve the problems within the neighborhoods, whether it's a safety issue, whatever it is.

So, I think that's why it's important that although it is a group effort, we need to have that one singular person that can help convene that.

- Joyce.

- So, I wanna weigh in on that question 'cause I do think that we all can find leadership within ourselves.

And I would say that this, my answer would go both for whoever this elected leader is, but also all of us.

And I'll use a story to sort of illustrate what that looks like.

So, in Vancouver, the Parks and Recreation department began to plan out their waterfront and they had all these listening sessions, focus groups, et cetera, and their final design ended up not really speaking to the indigenous communities that were in Vancouver, even though they had focus groups, the designers themselves were not indigenous.

And the folks there said, you know, when we think about water, you know, the Western perspective looks at water to be enjoyed.

So you stand on a bridge or you stand up on the waterside, you look at it.

Whereas indigenous folks, they're like, we wanna be in the water.

We wanna experience what it is to be connected.

And what was really amazing as a result of that was that this particular leader from that department, shovels were in the ground, they already started digging, they already started that whole process, very expensive to stop, but they actually said we need to stop and pull back because the people we're trying to serve have not actually felt listened to and have not actually been in included in this design, you know, which could, the design of most things can impact generations and how things are set up.

So I would say to that question, I think we all need to look within ourselves to have the courage to say stop when things are moving, even though it might seem like progress.

And I would also say that's the same for our elected officials to have the courage to really put, as you say, humans in the human system first to make sure that that we're really listening.

- Thank you.

Our next question.

- Much in line with the last question.

We all know that money plays a very, very important role in politics.

And so I've heard you talk about leadership and that you're really putting the onus on the candidate to be the inspired leader to unite us all.

But I've heard many, many times the story of Cleveland about how that there is a group of, okay, white men who have picked the leader in the past, the developers, the corporate people who have decided who's gonna be the leader, put the money there and that's who's become the leader.

So, my question to you is, much in line with the last question, yes, we have to have our own personal responsibility in this, do you feel that this group of today's corporate leaders, the people with the money who can really influence the campaign, have a mindset that they want somebody to have the kind of leadership that you've all described?

- Thank you for that question.

Bob that's that's coming to you.

(audience laughs) - Pick on the old guy.

The simple answer to that question is yes, the business community is very concerned about everything that we've discussed today.

We want a better city.

We want a better region.

We want the right leader.

Does that mean there is agreement amongst business?

No, there's not a whole bunch of money going to one candidate or another at this point because there's several candidates that the community, at least the folks that I've talked with, okay, feel wouldn't make a good leader for the city going forward.

So, you know, money is a dirty part of all politics, no matter where.

It's ridiculous the amount of billions and billions of dollars that go into federal races or different things.

Look at how much money that's being poured in the congressional district race.

It's mind-boggling.

And how much is from not even this area.

So you're talking about influencing the result of a race that's not even the money from this area.

I believe though that if you wanna help solve the problem, part of it, you solve it with your vote and sometimes you have to solve it with your wallet to make sure that the right candidate gets their name out there.

Let's face it, there's not a lot of name recognition for many of the candidates on the mayoral slate.

Many of you might know them or not, but the people in the neighborhoods don't know a lot of these candidates at all, and it takes money to get their name recognition out there so at least they have an opportunity to get their message out and to be heard.

And I think that is all the business community has done at this point is to help them get their message heard.

- Thank you, Bob.

We gotta wrap it.

So Bob Klonk is with Oswald Companies, he's chairman and CEO there.

Also with us on our panel today, Joyce Huang, vice president of community development at Midtown Cleveland, Ricardo Leone, executive director at Metro West Community Development organization and Mordecai Cargill, co-founder and creative director at ThirdSpace Action Lab.

This has been our first in-person forums since March of 2020.

You all are part of history today.

Today is our annual Annual Richard W. and Patricia R. Pogue Endowed Forum.

We appreciate their longstanding support of The City Club and civic engagement across our community.

Also, we welcome guests at tables hosted by Councilman Tony Brancatelli and Midtown Cleveland Incorporated, we're very happy to have you all here.

We're very happy to have everybody here to be honest.

But that brings us to the end of our forum.

I wanna thank our panelists.

Thank you, members and friends of The City Club and special thanks to our City Club members whose financial support made our work possible, continues to make our work possible, but especially over this last year.

On August 10th and 17th, The City Club of Cleveland in partnership with Ideastream Public Media, will be hosting Cleveland mayoral debates, all seven candidates seeking office have been invited to participate in both debates.

A majority of them have confirmed participation.

We anxiously await the rest of them confirming.

Thank you, friends.

This has been a wonderful forum, a wonderful conversation and our forum is now adjourned.

(bell rings) (audience applauds) - [Announcer] For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of The City Club, go to cityclub.org.

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