CLEVELAND — Leaders from Cleveland City Council and Mayor Justin Bibb’s office met Thursday, hours after a heated council meeting where members lamented violence in the streets and lashed out at the Mayor’s administration for not showing up.
“We care. And when you care and love a community as passionate as we do, and passionate as we are, sometimes you do get passionate. Sometimes you do get frustrated,” Cleveland City Council President Blaine Griffin told Matt Rascon Thursday.
“Because we really put ourselves out there to serve this community with all of our heart and soul.”
Griffin was among many council members to call out Bibb's office for not showing up to Wednesday’s council meeting.
“It is completely unacceptable we don’t have our partners from across the hall,” Griffin told the council and the public during the Wednesday council meeting.
It was the first time he and Councilman Michael Polensek said they had ever seen the administration absent from a city council meeting during their years of service.
At the root of the frustration in the council chambers was the shooting that injured nine people on Sunday. Since then, there have been at least seven people shot in separate shootings across the city, including two people killed.
According to statistics from the Cleveland Police Department, homicides are up by nearly 30% in 2023 compared to this time last year.
“The incident on West 6th magnified the problem. But look at the carnage every day in this city!” said Polensek, who also chairs the safety committee.
Polensek and others accused the mayor’s office of failing to create a marketing plan for CPD, to boost its numbers, which he said are down more than 300 officers.
“I’m not going to live like this! And I’m not going to ask anybody in our ward or across our city to live like this. I mean, there’s got to be a game plan," Polensek said during an impassioned 15-minute speech on Wednesday.
Griffin acknowledged there are disagreements and strong feelings on the subject of violence and policing. But, he said, “we just want to be careful not to continue to make it seem like city hall is in total chaos, because it’s not.”
“After you put yesterday aside, you wake up in the morning and say what can we do in order to solve the problem,” he said.
Griffin said he met with Mayor Bibb Thursday morning. He didn’t offer many details, only saying, “Both of us are just committed to how we move forward.”
The mayor’s office sent 3News a statement around 5 p.m. Thursday, calling it a productive meeting between leadership from the administration and City Council “to come to terms on a path forward.”
“Keeping the public safe and providing residents with good quality services are the two most important aspects of city government. Our residents need and deserve this. We all agree on this baseline,” the statement read in part.
It was a stark contrast from the statement the administration sent out Wednesday after the council meeting, when they accused the council of “political grandstanding” and taking a “summer recess” from the city’s problems and violence.
In a statement in the wake of Sunday’s shooting, the mayor said his administration “has been doing everything we possibly can to address crime in the city through a holistic all-of-government approach that includes investing in technology, our police officers, and through numerous violence prevention and intervention efforts to address the root causes of crime.
Here is the full statement from Mayor Bibb's office on Thursday’s meeting with Griffin:
Leadership from both the Administration and City Council met this morning to come to terms on a path forward. Today’s meeting was productive as both sides committed to work towards improving their relationship – one that is collaborative, genuine, results-oriented, and, most importantly, puts our residents first.
Keeping the public safe and providing residents with good quality services are the two most important aspects of city government. Our residents need and deserve this. We all agree on this baseline. City employees are dedicated, hardworking individuals who give everything they have to ensure those expectations are not only met but exceeded.
We all want the best for our city, residents, workers, and visitors. We must find ways, together, to come up with new ideas, have appropriate dialogue about those ideas, and turn those ideas into action as effectively and efficiently as possible. The Administration maintains its unwavering commitment and is as motivated as ever to accomplish just that.
Collaboration fosters progress and progress is what Cleveland needs. We believe that Council’s stated intentions today are sincere. We stand ready and look forward to working together to create a more positive, solutions-based culture.