You can find the agenda on the @cledocumenters website here: Be advised that these agendas have a tendency to get updated, sometimes right up until the start of the meeting cleveland.documenters.org/assignments/ci…

I believe this is the first regular (non-special) city council meeting of the fall -- last week there was a special meeting called and about a month earlier was another special meeting. This meeting will feature the return of public comments, which is special in my book

The meeting begins at 7 pm - you can stream it here: or watch live on TV-20 youtube.com/@ClevelandCity…

Council President Blaine Griffin opened the meeting with a statement about disruptions to the meeting and the process for stopping the meeting due to any disruptions - he said it was the first & only warning

The first public commenter on the list was someone named Dennis Kucinich from Washington, DC to talk about rezoning at Madison Ave & West Blvd Dennis Kucinich from Washington, DC was not present, however

The next commenter was Dallas Eckman, from Kamm's Corners. Eckman has given public comment at City Council 3 previous times. He spoke against charges & the arrest of Antoine Tolbert (who also uses the name/title Chairman Faheim) cleveland.com/court-justice/…

Next was Brenda Bickerstaff, who has spoken at Council 7 times previously. She shared her experience with groundhogs damaging her property and asked for help with the groundhogs (specifically from Councilmember Conwell)

Next was Daryl Houston (sp?) - he shared his concerns about lax maintenance of utility poles and tree trimming. He suggested that Councilmembers should have offices open daily in their wards

Next was Asia George Huff from the Buckeye neighborhood, who described herself as a victim of gun violence and spoke against what she described as the false charges against Fahiem. Several other attendees got up to support Asia in her comments

Next was Diab Dar-Issa, a ward 11 resident, who spoke at Council one previous time earlier this year. Diab spoke against a proposed gas station at Madison Ave and West Blvd

Next was Andrew Carpenter, age 15, from Buckeye Road. Carpenter spoke in support of Chairman Fahiem and shared his experience with New Era Cleveland. Said that "kids got power, got something to say about it"

Next up was Maryam Assar, the attorney for Antoine Tolbert/Chairman Fahiem. Said that the prosecution "works against the interests of the very community that it purports to protect" pattakoslaw.com/maryam-assar/

Cameron Demasca (sp?) of Kamm's Corners also spoke against the charges against Tolbert/Fahiem. He praised New Era Cleveland's work and drew some parallels between Tolbert and Huey Newton

Last up was Faouzi Baddour, a ward 11 resident, who spoke against the gas station at West Blvd & Madison Ave. He said 39/40 ppl at a meeting were opposed to the gas station. He's concerned about safety for all the students coming/going to Marion Seltzer & Cudell Park

@CleCityCouncil Clerk Pat Britt then read the roll - quite a bit here, here's a few appointments I thought were noteworthy:

There were also 11 liquor licenses awarded or transferred

Councilmember Polensek requested a moment of silence for John Frato, who was a leader in restoring and reopening the Euclid Beach Carousel (which you can still ride at the Western Reserve Historical Society). RIP John obits.fiorittofuneralservice.net/john-frato

The agenda and the legislation for tonight's meeting is vast. Clerk Britt is an absolute reading machine, flying through all of the legislation here. So what follows is some of the things I found interesting/noteworthy:

Cleveland will send law enforcement officers to DC for the presidential inauguration in January

A very non-descript ordinance amending $343k in general fund appropriations

some objections to liquor licenses

adding a Key Bank ATM to the city hall in the vital statistics dept

extending the lease of the Community Police Commission's offices and meeting space

applying for a grant from the US Forest Service's Equitable Tree Canopy Growth & Preservation program

The City of Cleveland will partially finance the construction of a pavilion at the Refugee Response's Ohio City Farm.

all legislation was either passed or referred unanimously (15 votes)

Councilmember Polensek got up to thank the Cleveland Police for apprehending the suspect in the hit & run death of Amir Prewitt last month.

Councilmember Conwell spoke about city government's need to be more responsive to residents. He noted that he's been getting complaints about the rollout of speedtables in his ward - there's 3 by his house but not in other parts of his community.

And after that, the meeting adjourned after approximately an hour and 15 minutes

I also want to note that some of the public comments against the arrest of Antoine Tolbert/Chairman Fahiem also implicated a councilperson in their comments - without using anyone's name The arrest took place in Ward 1. Ward 1's Joe Jones was not present as far as I could see

Meeting adjourned around 8:15 pm. This concludes tonight's @CleCityCouncil meeting. The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, Sept 16. For more meeting coverage, check out . documenters.org

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This concludes my coverage of tonight's meeting. Thank you for reading along with me! Have questions? Think we got something wrong? Send any inquiries on the meeting or these tweets to @cledocumenters. Or email us at cledocumenters@gmail.com