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(gentle upbeat music) - Good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

I'm Brittany O'Connor Vice President of Public Affairs at Citizens and a proud member of the City Club and the League of Women Voters and the City of Lakewood where so many of my friends are here from.

I'm proud that my company, Citizens is partnering with the City Club on our forum today.

It's part of the City Club's Local Heroes series.

The series is designed to ensure that champions living and working here in Northeast Ohio have a leading role in our continuing community dialogue.

The speakers represent a cross section of the brightest thinkers and doers whose hard work changes the way we view ourselves and the community.

It is my privilege to be a part of this today to introduce Erika Anthony.

Erika is the co-founder of Cleveland Votes and in 2019 became the Executive Director of the Ohio Transformation Fund, a philanthropic organization that advocates for healthy communities and an equitable democracy across Ohio.

You may have also seen the news from just a few days ago, Erika was appointed as one of six co-chairs to mayor elect Justin Bibb's transition team an appointment that will.

(audience clapping) An appointment that will surely benefit all of Cleveland as Erika has been at the forefront of civic engagement in Northeast Ohio for years.

Her recent work centers around developing relationships with trusted stakeholders that are most proximate to historically disenfranchised residents and grounding those relationships in the realities of our social fabric.

This is a very relevant and critical conversation in Cleveland right now.

In September, 2021 Cleveland's primary election saw voter turnout increase from 2017 numbers, but still ran below a 20% turnout.

The similarly low turnout from the November 2nd election has understandably sparked more debate over the civic health of Cleveland.

While some of the election related data may lead us to question whether Cleveland voters are apathetic, research suggests that's emphatically not the case.

In fact, they care deeply about their community and believe that collective power needs to be amplified and equitably distributed to effect change.

So what exactly is needed in this moment?

How might we all reimagine the future of equitable civic engagement and democracy building and how might we collectively work towards increasing voter engagement in future elections and beyond?

To answer this today, guests, members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Erika Anthony.

(audience applauding) - Thank you, Brittany.

(audience applauding) Well, well, well.

(audience laughing) I feel like I'm at the family reunion.

I'm the cool auntie y'all all came to see.

(audience clapping) Oh, my gosh.

Some of you I have not even seen in living color since before the pandemic and my heart is full right now.

Y'all got me crying.

I didn't even say a word.

(audience laughing) My heart is full.

There're people here who have been with me through so many journeys in my life.

There're family members and friends across this country that I know are tuning in right now.

I stand here on the backs of my ancestors.

I do not stand in here alone and we can not fix democracy alone.

So let's start there.

I'm humbling honor to be before you all this afternoon.

Thank you Dan, for the invitation.

Thank you all for taking time in what is still a very precarious time.

So I know there are safety risk in coming out and I think you for joining us all this afternoon.

It's been a little bit of a whirlwind of a week as you just heard and we'll get to that in a little bit, but there's also been a lot of celebration.

I see Mr. Abbott here from the George Gund Foundation.

So there's this joy in democracy and so much to celebrate despite what the data may say.

Before we start, I'm gonna ask for a request that may be a little unconventional, sorry, Dan and Cynthia to run this by you, but I'm gonna ask you all to set an intention for our time together today.

I'm gonna ask you to pause.

You can close your eyes.

You can just gaze.

If you're tuning in virtually, you can do the same.

This intention can be for yourself.

It could be for your family.

It could be for your neighborhood.

It could be for really anything you want to center our conversation around and I'm gonna pause and just ask you to send that intention right now.

So normally I hold my intention sacred to my heart.

They're my private thoughts, my private time, but today I will share with you.

Coming in here this afternoon, I set an intention of healing and restoration.

There's a lot of pain and grief that many members of our community are facing right now and if we do not send her on the person, the whole person, then we can't expect to move past and figure out how to solve democracy.

So I invite you today to bring forth your intention.

I receive your energy.

I hope you've received my energy and know that together our collective power can really do anything.

That's the truth.

Most days are pretty overwhelming when you are in this work of democracy building, organizing, activating on so many issues.

I look around this room and I see friends who are working in the environmental space.

I see those that are down at the State House, fighting for our democracy and so many others.

Comrades here who were addressing issues in our jails and prisons.

These issues are overwhelming y'all and they're personal for many of us.

This is not a job.

It's not a vocation.

It is literally our livelihood.

The ability to wake up and have motivation, to have hope is really hard some days which is why my family, my husband, my village, 99% of them that are sitting in here right now are what keeps me motivated.

These moments also call for a tremendous amount of grace.

We don't know what people are contending with.

I can't say I know what your personal experience is and I should not and I try not to pass judgment, but hope and pray that whatever that interaction was that maybe wasn't positive, there wasn't malice behind that, but that someone may be dealing with something far beyond what I can comprehend.

So I try to extend grace.

I hope that others will extend grace to me as well.

Before I can really dig into what does it take to re-imagine a more equitable democracy, I think it's important to ground this conversation in who I am, where did I come from?

I'm just a girl from Long Island who chose to be in Cleveland 16 years ago.

Well, maybe not exactly chose.

I came here via my sister and brother-in-law who made a relocation journey for their work and asked me to join them.

And if I'm being honest, I sort of looked at them sideways.

I'm like, I'm living my best life in Brooklyn.

Loving life like, what's good?

Why y'all want me to come to Cleveland?

But they, you know, for a multitude of reasons, personal and really to support my family, I decided to take this journey really with the intention of being here for a couple of months to help my family get settled in and support them and my nephews, but what I often have said is that Cleveland courted me, we dated, we got engaged and now we're in this long-term relationship.

I just celebrated 16 years in Cleveland this Summer and I am so grateful for the opportunities that have been afforded to me in my time here.

We are born and bred New Yorkers.

Really no footprint in the Midwest.

So we came here on blind faith, moving to a city as an adult and not knowing anyone or having a natural network can be quite intimidating.

I learned how to spend time by myself.

I've learned the value of just exploring and really getting to know a new city through the eyes of someone that really had never spent time here.

It's also really important to note who my family is.

My parents are literally my bedrock, my dad in the heaven form, my mom in the physical form.

There is really nothing that I do or believe in that was not shaped by my family and my parents, my siblings and others.

Their sacrifice has allowed me to stand here today and I'm forever grateful.

They were very active and as I reflect back more often than not, I probably didn't even really understand what they were doing as a child, whether they were involved in a civic association or at the school, involved in parent, you know, parent teacher associations, supporting candidates, you know, I probably didn't fully comprehend at the time, but that exposure even if it wasn't realized in process in the moment really was foundational to who I am today.

Accompanying them to the ballot, seeing them vote, seeing how important this was, the conversations I have with my mom who just yesterday celebrated her 76th birthday.

Yes, shout out to mom.

(audience clapping) Are a gift.

And I'll tell her some probably more as she gets older in understanding what she has seen in her lifetime.

And she literally says, we were on FaceTime with her last night to me and my husband never did I think my babies would be experiencing what I and your dad experienced 20, 30 plus years ago.

And she said, "It hurts my heart, "that we are still facing issues in our community "that your dad, your grandparents, "other elders in our family have been fighting for."

But at the same time she says she's so proud and so grateful to have children and grandchildren who are out here fighting every single day.

They are my foundation.

They are the bedrock and they are who center me to stay focused about who I am and where I need to go and how I need to show up.

Very early on my mom and dad would say to me, "The janitor and the CEO "both put their pants on the same way.

"You give each person respect.

"I don't care where you are, who you're with, "you bestow respect upon individuals as humans, "not as titles."

We're not superheroes.

None of us are superheroes.

Not one human being can overcome or address an issue, right?

Which is why seeing this room filled with so many partners that I have the honor to work with on a daily basis.

We brainstorm, we strategize, we cry, we curse, we do a whole bunch of things to try to get ourselves through, but it's through that power of a collective that allows us to push through.

Y'all know I'm not even reading my notes, I'm just free flowing.

But I think another foundational thing to talk about and it's sort of a silly example, but I think it's funny to share from my experience in high school.

So back in the 1900s 'cause apparently I'm looking at the young folk in the room.

Apparently that's how we're referring to the 1900s as if I was churning butter or something.

I don't really quite understand, but don't feel bad owed, but back in the 1900s.

(audience laughing) Actually have a girlfriend who her child was asking her today, like, mommy, how are you?

Or when's your birthday?

And she's like, such and such date.

She was like, "No, but like, what year were you born?"

And she says, "19 and dah, dah, dah."

She's like, "Mum, you were born in the 1900s."

(audience laughing) So back in the 1900s when I was in high school.

For high school I went to an all girl, pretty affluent Catholic school.

And this is an important detail because the town that I grew up in Long Island at the time was predominantly Black and my parents made the hard decision to transfer me to a private school for better educational opportunities, my siblings who are nine and 11 years older than me both had gone through a public school.

So it's not that my parents were not in support of public school, but by the time I got to junior high school our school district was really declining pretty horribly.

And administrators actually told my parents, "Get her out."

Like, if you want her to have the quality education that her siblings received she has to go.

We didn't have that many options available as far as where I can get to by bus.

So they didn't tell me when we went to tour the school that it was an all girl Catholic school, but nevertheless there's a longer version of this story that I can share afterwards.

But, you know, I was pretty upset because I was comfortable in my neighborhood.

I was comfortable with my friends and I really at that time didn't understand what quality education meant 'cause I was 13 years old.

I wanted to kick it with my friends, but I'm grateful that they made that investment.

In my senior year I decided to run for president of the school.

So it was a K through 12 school, the high school level you would have your each respective class student council, but then there was like an executive team.

So I ran for office and votes come in and I win.

I'm super high as me and my girlfriends yelling, screaming.

Well, my opponent was not as happy 'cause she lost.

So she demanded a recount.

Okay, cool.

So we do a recount comes back, Erika, my maiden name Ford, won.

She is sobbing.

She is in the office, like she just can't believe this and demands another recount.

And I'm like, this is like, girl, it ain't that serious.

Like this is a high school student council election.

So because of the 1900s, I call my mom on a payphone and I'm like, "Hey mom, "I think I need to come up to the school "because things are looking not so good for this election."

And long story short after three recounts and she finally resolved to the fact that I had won the seat.

And it's important to note this because you know, this is not as significant as like the Bush Gore recount.

It's not that serious, but it was the first time that I observed the way in which somebody could (indistinct) reality, despite what facts were showing.

And I'm like, well, this was the process.

We followed the process, right?

Logic says, if A plus B equals C, then that's it.

And in this particular moment, the thing that stood out the most to me was she looked at me and said, "You don't deserve this."

Little girl, why?

I've been here since kindergarten.

This is my seat.

I said, "You are owed nothing.

"You have to work for it."

And I started to understand at this young age that people can have their own form of reality.

And that there is a spirit of thinking that you were owed something and that is not the case and that has not been the case for me.

And that spirit stays with me.

We are Facebook friends.

I mean, she looks like she's having a good time in life and stuff.

Her kids are cute and all, but you know, I won't say her name out loud.

So jumping back to current times and to really hone in on where our time is or where our time will be for today.

I think we need to acknowledge that we need a serious transformation when it comes to democracy.

You heard Brittany share some of the statistics as it relate to our primary and our most recent election.

And while our time today for sure will not allow us to fully digest and dissect all that we need to talk about when it comes to democracy, I hope we can remember the intentions that we all set at the beginning of our time together and really think about how we can collectively invest our time to think about how to solve these issues.

It's important to know that I don't have the solution.

So sorry, I hope the food is what drew you here today.

I do not have the answer to democracy and like my friends to my right Third Space Action Lab, we also don't have the 10 steps to eradicating racism, but what we do have is a spirit of conviction and tenacity to invest our gifts toward a more liberated future.

And if we can center our intention and our thoughts around that, then I think we can solve anything.

Part of what we need to think about deeply is about power.

Who has it, who's willing to relinquish it, who's willing to share it and how do we begin to shift power?

I don't believe anyone is actually powerless.

There may be situations that you may feel powerless, but that does not consume who you are as a human being.

Each of us hold power.

Each of us hold gifts and assets.

Some of them are not always realized right away, right?

Sometimes someone will wake up in their 50s and say, "Oh my gosh, this is what I wanna do.

"This is how I wanna give to the world."

And that's okay.

There's no timetable on thinking about how do you contribute, how do you bring your gifts forward?

But as the power of we and how we think about power that really is at the center of democracy.

I mean, the reality is as I stand here before you all today, when the founding fathers were drafting these documents, I did not count.

I wasn't even a whole human being.

So that was an experiment.

And I think we have to acknowledge that that for the last couple of centuries we've been experimenting and trying to figure out how to realize democracy.

So if we set our mind to understand that this is an experiment and that we have to prototype and try some things and that trying those things may result in things not being successful, we have to be okay with that.

Every day, the Cleveland Votes Team advocates and activists across the state that I work with through Ohio Transformation Fund and 99% of the people in this room that I work with, literally all we're doing is experimenting.

We are prototyping and trying to figure out how to move closer to that liberated future that we all desperately would like to have.

And in the non-profit sector, failure is not celebrated.

If I was in Silicon Valley and venture capitalists and multimillionaires were investing in some new tech thing that would make my phone better on my Apple watch better and I failed, it would be celebrated.

So why do we have this notion for those that are trying to address systemic challenges that we should just figure it out?

Evelyn said years ago and it has stayed with me.

"We think that we can solve systemic challenge "in a programmatic cycle."

How, how, right?

So we have to think deeply and we have to celebrate that something that's unsuccessful does not mean it's a failure because the spirit of conviction and tenacity allow that person to even have the thought to say, "I'm gonna try this or I'm gonna try that."

When the pandemic hit last year and we were coming into 2020, feeling ourselves like we got a presidential election, we have the census, we have our best laid plans, right?

And then slap for all of us, right?

On a personal level or professional level we were forced to in real time figure out how are we gonna get to the people.

I see my girlfriend Selena here from Young Latino Network.

She brought a tradition from the mainland of Puerto Rico called carvana.

Never heard of it.

Jane from the team was like, "We're gonna do this thing called carvana."

I was like, "Cool, okay.

"Just let me know where I'm going to show up."

And in the midst of this pandemic when safety was of utmost concern or health was of utmost concern, they innovated and figured out that if we get in our cars then we're physically distance.

We can figure out how we can get voter registration, vote by mail to individuals in our community 'cause, oh, by the way we went from having no in-person election to having a virtual... An entire, excuse me, absentee vote by mail application.

How many of y'all typically vote in person either early or at your polling location?

Exactly.

Now trying to figure out in the middle of March going into April, how we try to not only educate the masses that this change has happened, but also help them get access and gain access to vote by mail information as well as the applications.

You're like, "Oh, Erika, that's simple.

"They can just print it out from home."

I don't know about y'all, but I just got a printer at my house about a year ago.

Okay, like sorry, other employers, but I printed my stuff at work.

That's what I did.

I didn't have a printer at home, but now we expect that everyone's gonna have a printer at home and they're gonna be able to print out these applications and submit them to the Board of Election or the Secretary of State.

Even if someone had access to do that, we have to also contend with the fact that digital red lining is a real thing in this city.

I don't see her here specifically today, but Sue Dean for Mobilize the Vote came to us earlier this year.

She and a number of volunteers were doing some outreach work primarily in ward five with the public housing units there in the central neighborhood and they were having issues with connectivity.

So they were coming to us asking for hotspots.

So they were there.

They were trying to do the work.

They were trying to engage with voters, but they literally could not connect to the internet.

So when we think about these barriers and we think about these challenges, we have to ground ourselves in understanding, people are not making choices to not be engaged.

There are physical barriers that are reducing the likelihood that they can get there and there are many more.

So coming back to power, I think it's really important to understand that we should be aspiring to move to a term that we use a lot at Cleveland Votes called new power.

There was a book... We tend to read books together because I'm a geek so then the team is a geek, but we read this book, I think in 2019 actually called "New Power" and I'm gonna share just a snippet because I think it's really important to this conversation today.

The authors, they talked about that power is a current and we want to have in the new power form is that it's open, participatory and peer-driven.

We upload and then we distribute out.

We're not holding on tight to whatever that thing is that we have.

Like water or electricity, it is the most powerful, forceful surge that we can see.

The goal with new power is to not hoard it, but to channel it back out.

Opower on the other hand is like currency.

It's held by few, once gained it's jealously guarded and the power has substantial... Has the power to substantially store rather than expand back out.

It's closed, it's inaccessible and it's leader driven.

It downloads and it captures.

It's important to understand that again, each of us do in fact hold power and it's a question of how do we share that power?

How do we share our gifts with each other?

Brittany referenced briefly and Daniel here from Policy Matters knows that we spend a lot of time in this research that we did, thanks to the investment from the George Gund Foundation.

Saying hello to my Gund people along with Policy Matters and Hit Strategies and a lot of what the conclusions say are really centered on the power of the collective.

What we're doing here is a great example of that.

We need to foster spaces where we can have dialogue and discussion and really hone in on what does it mean to be in community with one another and not just think about the transaction or the act of voting, but what does it mean to be in community?

So I'll just note just a few, there's many, many findings from this research, but one of the first things that we heard is that the participants are concerned about the state of their communities.

They care deeply about improving them, but the reality is they don't trust local elected officials to enact the change they wish to see.

There was an overwhelming majority of high potential and frequent voters that talked about issues related to healthcare, public safety, improving K through 12, education and many other issues that are of most importance to them.

I'm gonna read one quote from a Latina woman that participated in our focus group.

"But I feel I haven't seen any big changes in a long time.

"As far as our Cleveland government, the city police, "the correction officers in the country, "all the stuff is going down.

"The clerk, as far as I like."

Excuse me, "The clerk as far as I know, "I don't know what they're called, "but there's a lot of corruption.

"Different offices in our state, in our communities "are using funds inappropriately.

"I just don't understand how we can affect change "and where I fit into this picture."

Voters are also not apathetic and I think that is a big message that we need to shift globally and understand how we author people as we talk about them.

If someone tells me I'm apathetic am I gonna be encouraged to be like, yeah, sign me up.

Like, let's do it.

So we have to be really careful of labels and the ways in which we talk about individuals in our community 'cause it can be extremely dehumanizing.

So this power of the collective is really where we have to center ourselves and understand how do we move beyond the ballot?

You can read the research in detail and we're happy to share that with you and I think some of you would walk away from reading that like, dang, we have a lot of work to do and we do, but at the same time, it's an invitation to say, okay, we have this information.

How are we going to address it?

And we need to challenge ourselves to think about what are we doing in between our elections, right?

Daniel mentioned a few examples and I'll offer a few more.

Right now there're many ways that folks can plug in whether it is through the participatory budgeting effort, for our ARPA-E dollars.

Clevelanders for Public Comment have been on fire this year and have availed us the opportunity to have public comment at our city hall for the first time in over 100 years.

(audience clapping) There are countless examples and I think it's really important to also understand that I know that I have what I consider a privileged view into our community and I'm very protective of my comrades and the folks in our community because I see the grit, I see how hard they are working.

And when people make negative comments about, oh, Clevelanders don't care, voters don't care.

It's like a shot in the heart because I see every day beyond election day how hard.

I see Molly here who works diligently with homeless and houses individuals in our community.

So many examples of folks who are pushing really, really hard.

We know that the barriers are real.

Some of them structural, some of them informational.

We can go on and on and talk about the ways dis and misinformation are coming to us.

The voting purges, lack of transportation.

The list is countless, but instead of focusing on those structural barriers which we do and all voting locals gonna figure it all out, we need to also think about, you know, what are we really want to think about and how do we wanna evaluate the civic health as Brittany said in her opening remarks, of our democracy.

How do we move beyond and push beyond just simply looking at voter turnout?

For me the health of our community, the health of our democracy should be evaluated on whether or not members of our community are thriving.

Are they accessing safe and affordable housing?

Are they breathing in clean air?

Do they have access to green space and beautiful tree canopies?

A term I didn't even know existed a couple of years ago.

Shout out to my place-making folks.

Are they living in a state of safety and not fear of law enforcement?

Are they saddled or relieved of student debt?

Are we really being clear and clear and understanding how we continue to enslave people in our jails and our prisons simply because they cannot post hell.

Do members of our community have access to quality health care or mental health services?

The list can go on and on.

This is how we evaluate democracy y'all.

It's not just by looking at this ward, that ward, this turnout, that turnout, we need to broaden the definition and we need to broaden the understanding to really think about the multi-dimensional and intersectional nature of what democracy is.

There're folks here probably representing almost every sector that is working diligently every day to make Cleveland a better place.

And as our mayor, Lex said, "We can't wait."

We can't wait.

The problems are urgent, but we have to be intentional and we have to be diligent and we have to understand it at the center of all of this are human beings.

We can look at a dot on a graph or a chart and say, oh, this means this or this means that and those that know me, know I love data.

So this is no shade to the research and the data 'cause it's really important, but there are layers to this and we have to understand the complexity and what this actually means.

So again, there are so many examples of where I see positive change in our community and I'm looking at our time so I know we're getting close and maybe I can share some of them while we're having questions and answer, but I'll conclude by saying this and returning to my intention, what I seek for our community, for you all is for us to commit to healing, restoring and thriving together.

Let's commit to a new social contract that faces racism and it's the racist policies that continue to saddle us and hold us back.

Let's commit to fostering our community's civic health and mutual trust.

Let's commit to a restorative economy that embraces cooperation instead of competition, inclusion instead of exclusion, abundance instead of scarcity.

And lastly, let's recommit to re-imagining the power of democracy beyond and in-between elections.

Thank you.

(audience clapping) - Hello again, I'm Dan Moulthrop.

Today the City Club we're listening to a forum in our Local Hero series featuring Erika Anthony.

She's co-founder of Cleveland Votes and Executive Director of the Ohio Transformation Fund.

She's also a student body president from the 1900s.

(audience laughing) We're about to begin the Q&A and then... And by the way, for the radio audience, that was a standing ovation.

You should know that.

We're about to begin the audience Q&A and we welcome questions from everyone, including guests, City Club members and students as well as well as those of you joining us via the live stream or on the radio on 90.3 Ideasstream Public Media.

If you'd like to tweet a question, you can tweet it at the City Club and we'll work it into the program.

And if you were not on Twitter and you'd like to get a question and otherwise you can text your question to 330 541 5794.

The number again is 330 541 5794.

We will work those questions into the program.

We've got member volunteers on the microphones today, including City Club Debate Committee Co-chair, Wells Harder and City Club member, Sarah de Yorkie and may we have our first question please.

- I spoke to you in the beginning about working with immigrants.

I just wanted to know is it your perception that they are some of the most eagerest people to vote once they obtain their citizenship?

- That's an interesting question.

I'm not sure if I could quantify or qualify an entire group of individuals in that way 'cause I think it's a very personal individual experience.

Yeah, people are not a monolith.

So it's hard for me to answer that question, but I think there is great joy and excitement.

I saw Dante last Summer, Third Space, NACP Cleveland all voting as local.

We did a series called Biscuits and Democracy along with the Roaming Biscuits.

Help me out if... Rowing Biscuits, okay, Shonda.

And it was an amazing series where we brought together some really good biscuits, some really good food, DJ and just really a way to register people to vote, have them take the census if they wanted to do that.

We have laptops available.

And I remember one of Dante's mentees had registered to vote for the first time and that's a very vivid experience I remember where there was just such joy and excitement.

So I think there was many instances of joy and excitement, but I wouldn't say that there's, you know, one group of individuals that have that more than another.

- Good afternoon, Erika.

- Hi, Chris.

- Hi.

You are now part of a generational shift in power in Cleveland.

I wonder what, yes.

(audience laughing) What will be the early signs that the power is being exercised differently that you will be looking for?

- Yeah.

Well, first I think we have to go back to this entire year.

The shifts started through the ways in which this campaign, in this case that you're referring to our mayor elect as well as many organizers and volunteers on the ground, both for the mayoral campaign of mayor elect Bibb as well as me just holding up Issue 24 as another set of great advocates in our city who worked diligently to get that issue pass.

I think understanding again, what I said before about being participatory and engaging.

I think both mayor elect Bibb's campaign as well as Issue 24 campaign one, embrace and understood the importance of those most proximate to these issues.

Shout out to Brian Stevenson one of my best friends.

Not really, but if you're listening Brian, we should be best friends.

You know, they did some of the old school, right?

Just door knocking, meet and greets in the community, but also embrace the evolution of where we're going around relational organizing through texting and phone banking.

But it's really important to understand that again, the culmination is more than the decision that was made last week.

So for me, I'm really excited one, to see the continuous follow-through and what I saw in this particular campaign translate into our city hall and really understand what does it mean to re-imagine a city hall that is perhaps evolving to be more participatory and really inviting the community to come in and be a part of the making of our city.

- Thank you.

I thought they were an alternate.

So I had to wait a little.

My question deals with what are we going to do to get more civility in our democracy and our public speech?

Basically get rid of the hate words, demonizing people by I'm good, you're terrible.

How do we get civility back into democracy and in our public arena?

Thank you.

- You're welcome, sir.

Thank you.

I mean, first I think it's really understanding how to foster more spaces like this.

There's a wonderful woman in our community, Ms. Gwen Garth, who I was talking to a few months ago about how to create civic cafes.

And I think because we're still contending with and figuring out COVID, we're not sure if and when that will come to fruition, but we need more spaces to have dialogue.

Going back to what my observations and recollections are from my parents, you know, the kitchen table conversations, you know, going to the such and such, you know, so-and-so's house and having conversation in a way that's not polarizing, but really listening.

And I think it's important to understand the power of listening.

My husband is in education and is currently at a school where he's leading work around diversity, equity and inclusion.

And every night we have very interesting dialogue about our day.

And I think one of the biggest challenges that I'm observing in some of the issues that he's experiencing is individual's lack of ability to listen, right?

And really understand that we can hold different opinions, but still share space.

But we have to do that in a way that's respectful.

So I don't know how we shift the entire culture to not be so dehumanizing, but I think it starts with really starting to listen to our community members and understand their concerns.

Again, referencing Issue 24 as an example.

What we witnessed in the last couple of weeks leading up to the election and the fear-mongering that came along with the ways in which some individuals were talking about, what this issue is seeking to do was really hurtful.

And I know it was really hurtful for many of those working on the campaign, volunteering their time, but pleasantly hearing from some of the organizers, the conversations that they were having individually door to door or in different meet and greets were more positive.

So I think that gives me hope and inspiration.

- Hey.

- Hey.

- What's up?

So for those of you that don't know me, my name is Selena Pagan I'm the Executive Director of The Young Latino Network.

And coming from one of those organizations as boots on the ground is doing this work.

Can you talk to us a little bit about the investment from our philanthropic partners that really need to be made into the folks doing this work.

I know there's a lot of challenges with organizations that are grassroots and their movement building that have not been set up for success.

Have not been invested in to build that capacity.

What does that look like moving forward to achieve that equitable democracy?

- For sure.

Well, I think, you know, first I just have to shout out The Cleveland Votes Team, Jennifer Devontae and China and our co-founder Crystal Bryant, you know, a few years ago when we started this organization from its core and from its inception, reinvesting in organizations was core to who we are and how we do our work.

Thanks to increase fundraising and investments that we've received.

We've been able to do much more than we did when we first started.

So again, thinking about shifting power, we have to think about this long-term and I think as 501(c)(3)s we have limitations from a legal standpoint as far as like how we receive money and what we can do, but again, going back to this being an experiment, we have to really think thoughtfully about what are different ways to generate revenue that maybe we have not explored.

That also requires investing in leaders.

Selena of being one of those that, you know, every once in a while I pick up the phone like, hey girl, hey, not for anything in particular, but she is a young, beautiful leader in our community that I have the honor to work with and also needs to have cover and support around her.

So beyond the operations of what we do on a daily basis, there also has to be investment in the leadership in understanding what is long-term investment, multi-year investment look like, you know, this may be...

I'm not gonna say it.

We have foundations locally that have a lot of trepidation.

And I think not to pick on my friends at Gund, I think they can push and agitate their colleagues even more to understand why this is inherent in their work.

We can't just have the Gund Foundation be the primary foundation that is investing in democracy building.

And we need to really agitate and think about how again, does democracy show up in the environment work, in affordable housing, in place-making, all of it is baked into democracy building and really the wealth needs to be distributed not just in the form of elections, but really thinking about if you were leading an arts program, how does democracy show up?

If you were leading a program around mutual aid and cooperative living and thinking, how does democracy show up?

So it's really a shift I think in understanding that it's not just this niche specific box that we have to fit everything into, but really how does it carry through the entire fabric literally of everything we do and what we're striving for.

(audience clapping) - Good afternoon.

I admit it I'm a Boomer definitely born in the 1900s.

There is no question that today Cleveland is transforming the city itself.

Just on CPN this morning, the list of the changes in leadership in Cleveland that have occurred.

You have mentioned a number of organizations.

I have tried to be attentive and active in Cleveland, but most of them were new to me.

So here's my question.

We have seen in this election, this last election for mayor, that there have been a lot of young people that really have gotten excited and involved, but how do they and even I best know how to be involved and to contribute.

It seems maybe there's a project a foundation could sponsor to put a compendium together of all of the different organizations and how to get involved.

Does one exist?

Do you have one and what are your suggestions?

- Yeah.

That's a great question.

Jane from the Cleveland Votes team and I talk about this often, you know, when you turn 18, there is no like welcome to adulthood, welcome to, you know, how to be an engaged citizen, right?

We don't receive a letter in the mail or anything like that.

There are many traditions, whether we're talking about bat mitzvahs or (indistinct) they're like a passing of you becoming an adult that are very ceremonial.

Surprisingly we don't have that when it comes to civic engagement.

So I agree 100%, this is part of our challenge, right?

There is not a doorway to really funnel individuals through to say, go here or come here.

You know, of course we have our County Board of Elections, but going back to the research, individuals sometimes don't have trust in our local officials and our government.

And I think that's just a reality we have to accept which is why we work so closely with our Board of Elections as well as our Secretary of State 'cause I think in many ways we can serve as a buffer for people to understand that we're essentially translating the same information that these entities are putting out, but we are a trusted messenger and we're a trusted partner and it's received differently.

So one, yes, we did produce a toolkit last year called Commit to Clive of this reason exactly because we were literally being in the data with so many organizations, so many individuals, you know, I think with everything that was happening in 2020 between the pandemic, the horrific murders of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor.

People were having awakenings and I welcome that and I'm grateful for that, but trying to find an easy path to just like plug people in.

This work is very personal and I think it's really important that there isn't one way to plug in and we have to honor the different ways that make sense for people.

So when people ask, we said, you know, do you want to do in-person or virtual?

Do you have a particular part of the city that you're comfortable in?

Do you have a bike?

Do you have modes of transportation?

This work really requires a customized understanding that there isn't one way to exercise your democracy or there's not one way to plug in.

So yes, we do have a toolkit and of course all of this can be amplified more and I think that was the other message that we received from this research is that, we need to do more to amplify the resources that do exist, but it is overwhelming and it can be really hard, but I'm happy to share that toolkit with you.

Yeah, so I wanna hear from the young folk.

- Hi.

- Who are not born in the 1900s.

- My name is Aiden Devore.

I'm a senior from Lakewood High School.

And so kind of bouncing off the previous question.

I'm wondering what, like we as students and like more kids who are under the age of 18 who can't quite vote yet, what steps can we take to like kinda do that making democracy better and doing what we can compared to leaving everything to the older generations?

- For sure, I got a list.

Let's talk after.

- All right.

(audience laughing) But no, seriously we have worked with a multitude of both high school and collegiate level institutions in the region.

I'll just use one as an example.

Hawken had a set of students at their school this year who created a website around voting in Cleveland and they also set up a platform to do texts reminders, letting you know about important dates.

You know, when we went from the primary to the general election they sent information out, say, these are the two candidates that are moving on.

And I believe all if not most of the students are under the age of 18.

So the things that they put together when they presented in their class to us, Jane and I were sitting there like, we need to hire these kids.

So one, internships, right?

For real, for real, like, we need more people for sure helping and supporting.

So really being proactive.

There's literally in this room, you could probably secure internship for this Summer coming up in 2022.

There is definitely a need, right?

For if you wanna raise your hand, holler at Aiden.

There's definitely a need for just innovativeness because we're sort of jokingly and flippantly talking about the 1900s and the 2000s, but the reality is in 20 years hopefully I'm sitting on someone's beach chilled out, relaxing, right?

So I wanna absorb, right?

You wanna absorb what I bring my gifts are and I wanna absorb what energy and new ideas that you have at the same time.

Devante interned with myself, Evelyn and Mordecai in the Summer of 2017 when he was a rising senior.

A year later when he graduated we hired him.

Why?

'Cause he was by far the best intern I ever had and now is one of my most revered, respected colleagues that I get to work with every single day.

So there are many ways, you know, I think really just understanding your fabric, right?

If you are living in Lakewood, I spend a lot of time living in Lakewood when I moved here, you know, just understanding what's happening and what are ways that even you can empower your parents and your family, right?

Sometimes it's just as simple as like, hey, ma did you register to vote?

Did you update your voter registration?

But there are I think are more tactile ways, you know, having mock elections and mock conversations within your school because the reality is civics is not formally offered as my husband his licensure is in social studies.

He elects to bring it in and has elected to bring it into his curriculum, but I know that's not uniform across all faculty and all curricula.

So really thinking about how do you embed and think about how to bring this into your school and how you can ensure that not only giving yourself opportunities for future potential employment, but bring that innovative energy to existing efforts right now.

Oh, Susan.

- Hi.

COVID has had tremendous impact on us individually, collectively in our work, in our relationships, all of those things.

I'm wondering about the specific role of religious leaders as we move back into this new open era.

What role might they play in the fact that they already have relationships with community in their membership and beyond?

What could they do individually or collectively that could really add to the dynamic interaction we have to increase voting and ensure democracy?

I'm just wondering about their specific role, religious leaders.

- For sure.

Yeah, I mean, I think the thing is that we have to understand we all have trusted messengers in our life, right?

Whether that's a neighbor, a family member, a pastor or a faith based leader.

So thinking about all the different trusted messengers we have, the strategies are going to look different.

And I think understanding that for faith-based leaders specifically, in some ways they already have a ready made audience.

There are parishioners that are there.

We've seen examples just over the last couple of weeks and forgive me if I say this church name wrong, I think it's the Mount Zion East Baptist Church that had videos encouraging parishioners to participate and engage.

They celebrated National Voter Registration Day.

A couple of years ago, we had South Euclid, United Church of Christ who has amazing technological capabilities and at the time that the two volunteers that we were working with who were members of that church came to us and said, "We wanna do some stuff.

"We're part of this committee, what should we do?"

And we say, "Well, what are your assets?"

Let's start going through what you have and what you can offer.

And when we learned about their social media following and the great technology that they had, we said, "This is a great opportunity "to start putting some informational videos together."

So I think it's gonna be different for each faith-based institution.

I think the last year and a half has demonstrated to a lot of institutions that wow, maybe I didn't think I could do virtual service and now I can, you know, sometime it's as simple as having something on the banner.

So if a faith-based institution is still holding virtual services, you know, if they have the technological capability having just information, 443 vote at the bottom, you know, making a brief announcement before or after service I think is really important.

Yourself and what you're doing and have been doing with the Unitarian Universalist Church in holding the Sunday dialogues and the forums I think are equally as important.

So again, I think it's customized to that specific institution and I think there's really some really great examples of folks stepping up.

- Yeah, hi.

I'm a freshman at the Cleveland State University and I helped with the campus vote projects.

And I have to deal with like two kinds of people when it comes to on-campus voter outreach.

It's like the, I don't care people and the I don't have time people.

Do you have any advice for dealing with those kinds of people?

(audience laughing) - You said your name is?

- I'm Jack Ryan.

- Jack.

Okay, Jack, come on (laughing).

I mean, so the, I don't care people, we all have heard this often and there are folks that are far more well-versed than me who have really, really keen skills in engaging folks on the ground.

I tend not to even say voting when I approach somebody.

I think the first 30 seconds are really pivotal.

Many of you know, I've been a lobbyist and in lobbying I can usually assess in the first 30 seconds, does this legislator wanna hear the story or they wanna hear the stat?

And like, how am I gonna approach whatever the issue is that we're working on and I think for engaging folks in the community is sort of the same way, right?

So there are some things that are to your advantage 'cause you're at a place-based institution, you're at an educational institution.

I'm sure you can right now rattle off five things that students at Cleveland State are complaining about.

So you may approach a student and say, hey, you know, we're really frustrated that the comments are not open until midnight.

What can we do about that?

And just start to try to get to know that individual and sort of extrapolate out from what's happening at Cleveland State to maybe what's happening in the City of Cleveland or even just in the footprint of the school to start to get to know someone.

Often it's really about connecting the dots, right?

The translation of the ballot doesn't come as easy for a lot of people, right?

If we go back to the research and we see that people were concerned about healthcare, they're concerned about education.

On face value, I didn't see the word education on my ballot when I voted last week.

On face value, I didn't see the word healthcare on my ballot, but understanding the role of the mayor, understanding the role of the council persons, understanding what Issue 24 was gonna do, that's part of that translation, which goes back to Jane's question, right?

Like being able to have these translators and repository of information that people can access so that they can see themselves in the ballot 'cause at the end of the day we have to connect to that ballot.

We have to understand what it means to me and how does it impact my life?

The time, y'all are on Euclid, right up the street from the Board of Election.

So you better tell people to sit down when they say they don't have time about that.

There is voter access to get over to the Board of Election and being on campus of course you have access to computers.

So you can print out your vote by mail application.

But really, I think it's the personal customization in that conversation.

I see Dan coming up.

(audience clapping) Thank you.

- You did wonderful.

(audience clapping) - Today at the City Club, we've been enjoying a forum featuring Erika Anthony.

It's part of our Local Heroes series is presented in partnership with Citizens Bank and Dominion Energy and today with Cleveland Foundation as well.

And we welcome guests at tables hosted by the Cleveland Foundation, Cuyahoga Community College, The Legal Aid Society of Greater Cleveland, The League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland, Lakewood High School, Midtown Cleveland Incorporated, Ohio Environmental Council, Policy Matters Ohio, the Char and Chuck Fowler Family Foundation We're so happy to have all of you here.

Thank you so much for being a part of it.

(audience clapping) That brings us to the end of our program today.

Erika, thank you so much for being a part of it for leading us today.

Thank you, members and friends of the City Club.

I'm Dan Moulthrop.

The forum is now adjourned.

Have a great weekend.

(audience clapping) - [Announcer] For information of upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club go to cityclub.org.

(gentle music) Production and distribution of City Club forums and Ideasstream Public Media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.