Cleveland Council President Blaine Griffin joins the show to talk about a number of issues, including why he decided not to push for a Ceasefire resolution in the Gaza conflict, the issues with massive shortages in the Cleveland Police Department and more.
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This is the FCB Podcast Network.This is The l Laws Extra. Welcome
to the Outlaws Extra. This isDarveota Kingpenmorrow. Don't forget too Like us
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on Facebook at facebook dot com slashthe Outlaws Radio. Follow us on Twitter
and Instagram at The Outlaws Radio.We have a very special guest with US
Cleveland Council President Blaine Griffin, who'sgoing to be talking about a whole host
of issues that's been going on.Whether it's the controversy over whether or not
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to issue a cease fire resolution relatingto the situation in gazap. We're also
talking about the issue that we're havingwith the dramatic reduction in police forces in
the city of Cleveland, as wellas the mayor's recent budget announcing that they're
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going to be budgeting for even lessofficers as well, and a whole host
of other issues that we got into. I'm very grateful that he was able
to take the time to sit andtalk to us about a lot of things
are important not just for the city, but you know nationwide as well.
They have national implications. As amatter of fact, his decision making on
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the Gaza situation made national news.It was in a PBS piece recently as
well. So all right, sothose of you who are familiar with Outlaws
Extras, you know how this goes. We are going to take a break
now and then go to the interviewin its entirety. So stay tuned you're
listening to the Outlaws Extra SA welcomeback. Make sure you subscribe to the
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show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And if you listen to this showon Apple, please make sure you
leave us a five star review anda comment. It's very important for the
algorithm and for those of you who'vealready done so, thank you, oh
so very much. And now let'sget to our interview with Cleveland Council President
Blaine Griffin. All Right, wehave a very special guest on the show
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today. He's been on this showmany times before. Friend of the show,
Cleveland City Councilman Blaine Griffin. Welcomeback. How you doing sir?
I'm doing good, yo. Howyou doing today? Man, one of
the my main man, one ofthe guys that called it straight in the
city of Cleveland. I appreciate that, man, and thank you for taking
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the time to speak to us.Man. It's always it's always informative when
you come on the show because there'sa lot of stuff going on that people
don't real and not enough people areasking the questions. So we have a
lot of things to discuss. Butfirst, let's start with the news that's
just breaking as of this recording,and that is the BIB of administration releasing
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their projected budget which share which showsanother reduction in police officers. Talk a
little bit about what you've seen sofar with that, I believe it was
released today, and just give peopleyour thoughts and your position on that.
Well, let me make it clear, I don't want to jump to say
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that it's a reduction in police officers. Here's what I do want to make
clear. When we first started doingthis approximately two years ago, we had
sixteen fourteen police officers, approximately sixteenhundred and fourteen police officers budget in the
budget. Last year, the administrationcame to us and said, hey,
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we're not going to probably get tothat sixteen even though past folks and past
leadership has said they need as muchas seventeen hundred. But the bottom line
is they, you know, basicallysaid that they would like to budget fourteen
ninety eight well, fast forward tothis year, and the budget in the
amount that they believe that they wantto budget is thirteen hundred and fifty.
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They believe that with the rate ofattrition and with the amount of you know,
people that they're bringing in the classes, that their budgeting amount is thirteen
fifty. I have not seen anyindependent analysis or anything else in order to
show what the optimal amount of policeshould be in the city of Cleveland.
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I know that there's organizations that dothat, like Police Executive Research Forum,
they call it perfect others, butI really like to see what is the
baseline, What is the the mountthe appropriate amount for you know, cities
the size of Cleveland that have comparablecrime rates, what's the amount and how
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does that look and how's the deploymentstrategy. Plus we're under a consent decree,
so I want to make sure andhope that we're in compliance with the
staffing levels that we outlined in theconsent decree. So all of those things
matter, and all of those thingsare what we're looking at very close.
And so obviously, by you beingthe council president, you talk to the
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other members of the council all thetime. What do you think the temperature
is for them? What is whatdo you think the appetite is for them
to go along with this? Oris there going to be some concerns?
Do they have similar concerns and similarquestions like you do. Most of the
body, and most of the peoplethat I've talked to have very similar concerns.
You know, you got councilors,seventeen different members. You have some
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members that you know, hey,they may be cool. I'm not sure.
I haven't talked to them yet,but most are the ones that I've
talked to are concerned because they believethat this is what caused us not to
be able to recover in the firstplace, because we never really set a
level to say this is the linewe're going to draw. Way back in
twenty fourteen when we laid off morethan two hundred and twenty two officers.
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The city has never recovered from that, and a lot of people feel like
if we continue to go to thisgreat and budget for this amount, You're
talking about the city with three hundredand seventy or three hundred and sixty four
thousand people or so, and yougot approximately you know, we got approximately
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one thousand. You know, probablyabout eleven hundred foot soldiers on the ground
now, So we got to reallyask ourselves is that appropriate amount? And
we know that we had to spenda significant amount of time bringing in resources
from the state, from the HighwayPatrol, from the Marshall's office, from
the Sheriff's office. We need tolook at all of those things because what
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I'm concerned may happen is that someof these guys may go to some of
these other departments and we continue tosee a decline in retention rates here.
So there's a lot of questions,a lot of concerns, and you know,
we'll have that deliberation over the nextfew weeks. We're talking with Cleveland
City Council President Blaine Griffin, andI saw a report recently from Channel nineteen
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for those of you outside of Cleveland, that is the CBS affiliate here locally,
and they said, you know,within the last believe in the two
or three years, we've lost likefive hundred or five hundred and fifty officers
or something like that. It seemslike the things that are trying to be
done to slow to stop the proverbialbleeding, if you will, we're still
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losing officers. What do you thinkthe cause of that is in your view?
Why why are we losing officers ata rate that we were not losing
just a few years ago. What'syour thought. I think it's multiple things.
I don't think you can put iton one. But if I was
to just put it on a coupleof things. Nationwide, they called for,
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you know, police reform and realingpolice in And let me say this,
I agree with police reform. Ibelieve that you should keep police accountable.
I believe that the police department shouldbe reported to civilians. However,
the structures and the pushback that policehave gotten, whether right or wrong,
I think have discouraged a lot ofpeople from trying to get into that law
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enforcement profession. So I don't thinkthis is just a Cleveland problem. I
think it's a national problem. Butlocally, I will tell you that the
job has probably become tougher, probablyhas become more cumbersome. There's probably a
significant amount of burnout, and onceagain, we're not bringing in people at
the rates that we used to bringthem in. So our departments are authentic
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fast and we got to find away to really try to beef up and
onboard people to be police officers inthe city Cleveland. Yeah, it seems
like a lot of times the conversationgets swung from one extreme to the other.
I think most people want police tobe held accountable when they do wrong,
But there's also the understanding that ifyou're good, if they're good officers,
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you want those people. You wantthose people in your city to help
keep people safe. And does itseem like the conversation around this issue has
been swinging so dramatically in one directionor the other that it's hard to get
sensible solutions in order to be ableto attract people to the profession who can
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do their job when they do theirjob the right way, but also be
held accountable if they do something wrong. I think that there's a need and
that's what people really want the leadershipto stand behind them. I mean they
want to, you know. Ithink most people that me being an administrator,
a former administrator, and me beinggod a legislator. Now, I
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think most people just want you tobe upfront, straight with them. The
police have been under a tremendous amountof scrutiny. They feel like they're a
political ping pong ball, and theyfeel at the end of the day that
anything that they do to effectuate theirtask of trying to make sure that they
keep us safe will be challenged byformal institutions as well as informal institutions.
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Formal institutions like the Cleveland Police Commissionand the scrutiny that comes with the consent
decree, as well as informal whichis, you know, everybody has these
phones now, so anytime that youdo anything, somebody's going to record you.
And the minute that you say ordo something that is not aligned,
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the people are going to blow youup. So a lot of people have
taken the standpust and say, whywould I put myself through that, or
why can't I go somewhere where theygive me the flexibility to do what I
need to do and where there's notlike this group that does not know my
profession to do that. Now.I happen to believe in civilian oversight.
I believe that we have, youknow, strong mechanisms in the city of
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Cleveland for civilian oversight. I justreally hope that once those cases start coming
in front of them, that everybodyfeels fair and hopefully that will restore the
confidence and the police that they don'thave to fear this commission to consent decree
or any other retribution for just tryingto be professional law enforcement officials. We're
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talking with Cleveland City Council President BlameGriffin. And another issue that you've been
dealing with, I mean, yougot to you gotta plate full, man.
You've been dealing with a lot ofstuff lately. But another one that's
obviously been in the news is thewhole issue in the fight over a ceasefire
resolution, whether to do it ornot to do it, and things like
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that, And in my view,I think there's been a lot of unfair
pressure put on the members of theCity of Cleveland City Council. You know,
like like members of council can solvea problem that has been going on
for thousands, literally thousands of years, and you issue a statement coming to
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you know, explaining to people whatwhat the conclusion is and what you would
like to see happen. Talk alittle bit about how that process, how
you came to that conclusion, thehow members of council were feeling about going
through all of this, and thenlet people know, you know, why
you decided that it would be bestfor you know, the the communities that
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are most impacted by this to cometo the table and reach a solution together
versus council trying to superimpose it.Well, I'm a jokester, and I
tell people that I don't think anyof us signed up to do this job
to be Henry kissing Chip. Buthere we are because Cleveland City count So
is the windshield to local, state, international, and national affairs. So
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at the end of the day,a lot of people rely on us to
be their voice. So I getit. I understand. The frustration with
a lot of people don't know isthat there have been significant conversations with leaders
from all of those communities that areaffected by this, and quite frankly,
if you don't have certain language ina resolution, then one side has concerns.
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If you do have certain language ina resolution, then the other side
is concerned, and you can flipthat on both sides. It's everything from
you know, you know, everythingfrom I learned this week that some people
in the Palestinian community feel like ifyou say things like Israel has a right
to defend itself, which one resolutionactually said, then the Palestinian community has
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concerns. The word cease fire thatthe Palestinian communities want embedded in a resolution.
They don't want us to say peacein the Middle East, they don't
want us to say any loss oflife is tragic. They want a specific
language that said we are requesting aceasefire, and that is very offensive to
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the Israeli in the Jewish community.So I came to a conclusion that hey,
why don't you guys have a conversationwith each other, since you're the
closest to the matter, and giveus, at the very least language that
we should stay away from, andlanguage that you can mutually agree upon that
we should be included, as opposedto just saying if you don't put this
in here, then you're basically disrespectingus, or if you do this,
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then you're disrespecting us. So we'rein the heck of a position, and
I think it's unfair that Counsel hasto be in a position that pretty much
people have asked us to pick aside. Listen, nobody can't condone in their
right mind. They'll say that weare cheering for twenty seven thousand, almost
thirty thousand and the a lot ofchildren. I don't know what the accurate
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numbers. Some tell me it's asmuch as ten thousand. Nobody can cheer
or say that that loss of lifeis acceptable. We all speak out against
that. But we also know thatthere were thousands or more thousands of people
who were attacked over in Israel thatmade this latest conflict kick off. And
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you know, sometimes people don't wantus to acknowledge that because they say,
hey, this is going on waybefore that, and this was just a
visceral reaction to the oppression that hashappened to the Palestinian people. Well,
we understand that it's very complicated,very nuanced, and it just got to
a point where many of my colleaguesasked me to stay away from it.
They said they didn't want to engagein it. Two thirds of Council does
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not follow international conflicts. I justhappen to be into it because quite frankly,
I have a passion for understand geopoliticalissues, and I've been to Israel
and I've been to the Middle East. So at the end of the day,
you know, I just didn't feelthat this Council, after talking with
my colleagues, because I'm only oneto seventeen, was in a position to
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present an unbiased and fair resolution thatwould have accommodated the needs of folks.
I mean people literally got up andyelled and shouted people down in the middle
of meetings because they would not putthe ceasefire. They only condemned the violence.
They wanted specific language to say theseaspire. And then the other community,
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the Jewish and Israeli community, waslike, no, that is just
basically allowing Hamas to take a breakso that they can get back in control.
So why are we in the positionto negotiate that and to try to
put it in place, and thatanything that we say would probably be used
against us, like it already has. Well. And I also saw to
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some comments that you made. Ithink it was with Idea Stream where you
pointed out too like when there werepeople trying to shut down council meetings and
trying to interrupt the other important workthat you have to do for the city.
It's like, well, those thosethose things matter too, right,
I mean, there's there's issues weas we just talked about. We have
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problems going on in our streets righthere right now, so you know,
it also just it seemed to beit was unfair in my view, and
it's my opinion it was unfair toput that kind of weight on council for
something that you really don't have anycontrol over anyway, versus the things that
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are happening in this city right now. Darv. Let me be clear,
no federal stating or other municipal communitieshave been under as much pressure as Cleveland
City Council to make a statement onthis issue. No other. Not not
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our national representatives, not our staterepresentatives, you know, not the governor,
not the state legislature, not countycouncil, not the county executive,
not any of these suburban communities,even though I hear that Lakewood and Cleveland
Heights are considering doing something like that, but nobody has been under the amount
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of pressure of Cleveland City Council.Now I should be flattered, you know,
hey, are we that important thatpeople are coming to us to try
to deal with some of the mostpressing and complex investing issues in our community.
You know, you know, youcould look at it as being flattered,
or you could look at that isyou know, they know that this
is the only place that they couldcome that are rules, and the way
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that we are set up gives theman opportunity to voice their opinion, but
in doing that, they crowd outso many other people that want to speak
about so many other issues in thecity of Cleveland, for example, safety,
people talk about safety, abandoned houses. We have a very comprehensive Residents
First package that is going to changeour Building and Housing department that people want
to come and speak about. Ihave a bank on Buckeye Road that is
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leaving because they have concerns about safetyand are taking a six month break,
and hopefully we can convince them tocome back after six months because of safety.
They want to come down and talkabout, you know, their issues,
but they can't because one, theyget drowned out or they can't get
a space on public comment because soonas public comments come up, those spots
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get filled up by people that wantto talk about the Seaspire resolution that they
like to see. And then numbertwo, they basically some people don't feel
like they want to come down inan environment that in a lot of ways
they feel is not conducive, youknow, or not safe or not relaxing
where they can actually come and havetheir voice heard and being a democratically protected
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environment. So we had to youknow, redo our rules in our comments
for public comment, which we submittedand passed this past Monday. And then
in addition, we had to putsome protocols in place in order to make
sure that we can run an orderlymeeting that has decorum and the publics and
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the people. We should be ableto conduct the people's business in a in
a proper and orderly way. Andthat's all we're trying to do. And
I know everybody else creates all kindsof other narratives around you know, Blaine
Griffin, the big bad over that'strying to throw people out of meetings that
are just exercise their democracy. No, you got to come and you got
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to take a look. Somebody whotried to tell me that yesterday I sent
them the video and they said,oh my god, Blaine, I didn't
know you guys were dealing with.Right, we're talking with Cleveland City Council
President, Blaine Griffin. I knowyou've got a few minutes stuff. I
got a couple more questions for you. So another thing that this news world,
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I think maybe a week or twowould go was your endorsement of County
Prosecutor Michael Maalley for reelection talk alittle bit about that and why you thought
it was important to endorse Prosecutor Mounty. You know, I'm gonna put this
in a broader context, Darvo,because this is happening across our region and
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across our nation that a lot ofpeople yearn to bring new, young,
progressive voices into the political sphere,and in doing that, they take people
who have experience and who have workedin this field and work their way up,
and they basically labeled them as statusquo. And we just need to
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throw out everybody and bring in thisnew experience. And I tell people oftentimes
changes a process, not an event. So just because you've arrived, don't
mean you're going to change the wholeworld. There's a lot of other structures
you need to do this. AndI just believe that Prosecutor Or Mounty more
experience. And I know that peoplehave, you know, concepts and conversations
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and oh we just want to getrid of the old guard, or we
just want to get rid of folkswhatever. But out of the candidates that
have been presented, he has shownme or he you know, has the
credentials and he has the experience,and I don't consider him just status quote.
There's things that I disagree with him, and I may challenge him,
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but he has my support because,quite frankly, I think that he's the
most experienced professional candidate in the race. And I don't want to put my
justice system to a whim to anunproven leader who really hasn't been in that
line of fire. And I justthink that that's where society is going,
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where they want to try to throwout even people like myself to say,
hey, your status quote, No, we're experienced. We actually have been
in these situations and understand how governmentis supposed to operate. Talked by one
of the best, Frank Jackson andsome of the people who he had in
his cabinet, and I want tobe helpful and be supportive of this next
generation, but just to try toprop somebody up and have him to run
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for a position against an experienced litigatorwho has had years on the job and
who's worked in multiple leadership positions,who has been in city council, and
just to try to, you know, create this narrative that somehow he's a
problem. I don't think it's fair. Now, once again, are there
things that I would like to seeto you know, to make mister Olmalley
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more appeasing to the public gift.And those are things that he and I
will talk about. But just becauseI disagree with somebody on one or two
things does not mean that I haveto throw out the entire body of work,
right right, And you know,you talk about like this this wave,
and you kind of mentioned that thatI think anybody who has experience unfortunately
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gets put in this in this boxof being establishment and status quo. I
mean, and I understand that peoplewant change. Sometimes change for the sake
of change isn't always a good thing, because that's because it's different, doesn't
mean it's going to work. Buttalk a little bit about why it's important
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to have Like, somebody got toknow where the bathrooms are. Somebody got
to know how to work this thing. If you want change, but you
don't understand how how to go aboutthat, how to get that done,
you're still going to end up withdisappointed people because you're not going to be
able to implement what you're trying todo. It's about having institutional knowledge.
Okay. City Hall is a verycomplex bureaucracy. And one of the things,
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and not just city Hall, butjust any of these bureaucracies, whether
it's the county, the prosecutor's office. You can have a little old lady
or a little old guy that sitsin the Cuba cole that nobody hardly knows,
that can hold your stuff up ifyou don't. And just having that
kind of institutional knowledge and experience isimportant to understand why some of the guardrails
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are put in place and not toojust totally dismantled. Now, let me
say this, I'm not always aboutdoing business as usual either, but I
think that there's a sweet spot thatwe have to get to that we basically
inject new ideas, innovative strategies,new leaders, and new people, but
we don't just demonize and throw outall of these folks that people want to
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try to call the establishment. Listenw O. In two thousand and six,
when Frank Jackson brought me in thecity hall, I was the most
popular guy in town. I cango to any activist meeting and I had
an afro and a beard. Youcan tell the job to stress me out
from the last ten to fifteen years, but I was an activist and people
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accepted me as that. When Iwas out there in the streets, struggling
and protesting. But then when Igot inside and learned how to affect the
outcomes of policy and the quality oflife for the people in our community,
I learned how to do it fromthe inside. So I took my passion
as an activist and and implemented,you know, and applied myself to the
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internal operations. And it took awhile to understand and be able to pull
those levers. And I just thinkit's unfair that people that are getting and
gaining experience, like Prosecutor o'mali arenow being demonized by parties that quite frankly,
he has spent years trying to helpbuild and years trying to help make
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successful supported candidates like myself and othersthroughout the years that now everybody expects for
us to turn our back on them. I don't do that, And at
the end of the day, Ithink I made the right decision. I
strongly believe that Prosecutor O'Malley is thebest qualifying candidate for the race, and
I'm a stand on that. Andlet me say this to you, darv.
A wise man once told me thata scared man get you killed.
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People always wanted to threaten you withconsequences because oh, you supported this guy
or whatever else. Listen breathing,I ain't scared of nothing, and I'm
tired of everybody trying to see itact like they can threaten us with our
job. Listen, do me afavor if you can come and take me
out. I ain't gonna give itto you, but do me a favor,
because once you come, I'm gonnacompete. We're talking with Cleveland to
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the Council President Blank Griffin, andthe last question for me, I know
you got to get out of hereto kind of switch it up because we've
been talking about some real heavy stuffthroughout the whole interview. Man, there's
one thing, and this is oneof the first conversations that you and I
had, and I've always been kindof fascinated to delve into this topic with
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you because you're one of the fewpeople that I hear actually talking about restoring
the middle class in the city,growing the middle class in the city,
and how important that is and howthat can really grow the city. So
we're not in a situation where we'rejust managing decline. We're actually growing the
city well. And there's one thingthat happened in your war that I was
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just so impressed by, and that'sthe Fairfax Market, the Maya Fairfax Market,
particularly because there are Cleveland based businessesin general, and black owned businesses
specifically that have some of their productsstocked in that supermarket. Talk a little
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bit about the Fairfax Market and whyit was important that they did that and
what you're looking forward to having thatin your community. There's a heck of
a story behind that. And I'mgoing to tell you the statement that I
made when I was at the FairfaxMarket, and I would call it that
we built a pack. It wasa partnership, it was alignment, and
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it was collaboration. The Cleveland Clinicwas involved where they invested in it because
one of the things that I toldthem is that I want them to do
what they do best, which ispromote and give access to healthcare. I
told them that I wanted access tosome of those great jobs that they actually
have so that we could train peoplefor their workforce. But last, but
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not least, the fair and equitabledevelopment, because quite frankly, if you
go to that part of Cedar,it looks like the clinic almost turned their
rear end or their back to thecommunity, and we wanted to change that
narrative. So one of the thingsthat it took seven years to have this
conversation and what we did was weoriginally they originally wanted to put a freezer.
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This is no exaggeration, a freezerwith eight to ten jobs that wouldn't
have had a lot of foot trafficor interaction. And I didn't think that
was acceptable now here. I ama rookie council person, even though I
got years of community activism, Iwas faced with a decision, and I
made a decision to sit at thetable to tell the clinic that I didn't
want that freezer there. Which iswhat's called a bio repository where they collect
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you know, urine samples, tissuesamples, blood samples in the story and
they do research. And there's animportant need for that because a lot of
people don't know this, but ninetypercent of the medicine that we take is
tested on our white counterparts, andAfrican Americans need more testing and those kinds
of things so that we can havebetter blood pressure, medicine, diabetes and
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other things so on. For thatresearch. But I wanted that corner at
one hundred and fifth and Cedar toreflect the rich history of Fair Facts,
and that was what it was for. How can we make sure we have
a triple bottom line impact that socialbecause we see this as a gathering place
where people in the Fair Facts andsurrounding communities can come. We see it
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having an environmental impact because it wasin the middle of a food desert.
Even though it's in the shadow ofthe largest employer in the state of Ohio
and the city of Cleveland, itwas a food desert in that area,
and more excited about that. Andthen also having an economic impact because not
only are we making fresh food availableto everybody, but we're also really working
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to deal with making sure that peoplehave an opportunity to work, admire,
and also attract more people to theneighborhood. So all of those things are
one some of the reasons why thatwas so important for us to really really
get that supermarket there. So Iconsider that a success story. We got
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a couple more chess mods we're tryingto do. There's probably about two thousands
or sole units rooftops that have beenbuilt in that neighborhood and that surrounding neighborhood.
There was a report that Richie Preparinghas done about the Opportunity Corridor that
the job growth is on the eastSide and the edds and beds institutions of
university circle. So if we reallywant to repopulate the east Side and bring
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back that middle class that you're talkingabout, we got to make sure that
we invest in the amenities and thehousing and the solutions that are needed in
order to bring back, you know, people who are working class folks in
that neighborhood. So I'm very passionateabout the things I do, which is
one of the reasons why sometimes peoplesay, blame you too close to this
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stuff. But I really love people, man, and I'm here to do
a job. I'm here to providea service. And you know that's why
I like doing your show because youcall it straight. You don't come in
here and sugarcoat stuff. And that'swhy anytime you call me, I'm gonna
make myself available, sir. Iappreciate that, man, and it's,
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you know, congratulations on all thestuff that you're doing in Fairfax. I
consider Fairfax is a very important partof the city. It's like our Harlem,
you know what I mean. Soit's Fairfax is very, very important
to the city of Cleveland, andcongratulations on everything that you're doing and all
the stuff that you got going on. And maybe one of these days when
we do one of these interviews,we can spend more time talking about your
(32:59):
economics thoughts and some of your planson growing the middle class. But it
just so happens that there's always somestuff jumping off when we talk, so
we end up having to talk.Listen number a dull moment in my world.
And I tell people, that's whatmakes the job fun, that's what
makes it exciting, but that's whatalso make your man tired sometimes. Right
(33:19):
If you see these big Gucci bagsunder my eyes, it's because I'm up
late at night trying to figure outhow we can make Cleveland a better place.
So I really appreciate the opportunity tobe here. And at the end
of the day, with all ofthe struggles and trials and tribulations we go
through as a city, Cleveland's agreat place. I won't give up on
it. I know you love thiscity. I love this city. I
love the people of this city.And at the end of the day,
(33:43):
let's just keep on working hard.Man to try to make Cleveland the best
we can. All right, andman, I appreciate you always being a
great public service man. Thank youfor coming on the show and spending time
with us. I appreciate it.Thank you do I appreciate your memage.
All right, one more time,want to give a special shout out to
Blame Ripping for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. We are
out of here. We'll see younext time. Peace. This has been
(34:21):
a presentation of the FCB podcast network, where Real Talk lives. Visit us
online at fcbpodcasts dot com.
This is the FCB Podcast Network.This is The l Laws Extra. Welcome
to the Outlaws Extra. This isDarveota Kingpenmorrow. Don't forget too Like us
(00:21):
on Facebook at facebook dot com slashthe Outlaws Radio. Follow us on Twitter
and Instagram at The Outlaws Radio.We have a very special guest with US
Cleveland Council President Blaine Griffin, who'sgoing to be talking about a whole host
of issues that's been going on.Whether it's the controversy over whether or not
(00:46):
to issue a cease fire resolution relatingto the situation in gazap. We're also
talking about the issue that we're havingwith the dramatic reduction in police forces in
the city of Cleveland, as wellas the mayor's recent budget announcing that they're
(01:07):
going to be budgeting for even lessofficers as well, and a whole host
of other issues that we got into. I'm very grateful that he was able
to take the time to sit andtalk to us about a lot of things
are important not just for the city, but you know nationwide as well.
They have national implications. As amatter of fact, his decision making on
(01:32):
the Gaza situation made national news.It was in a PBS piece recently as
well. So all right, sothose of you who are familiar with Outlaws
Extras, you know how this goes. We are going to take a break
now and then go to the interviewin its entirety. So stay tuned you're
listening to the Outlaws Extra SA welcomeback. Make sure you subscribe to the
(02:06):
show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And if you listen to this showon Apple, please make sure you
leave us a five star review anda comment. It's very important for the
algorithm and for those of you who'vealready done so, thank you, oh
so very much. And now let'sget to our interview with Cleveland Council President
Blaine Griffin. All Right, wehave a very special guest on the show
(02:30):
today. He's been on this showmany times before. Friend of the show,
Cleveland City Councilman Blaine Griffin. Welcomeback. How you doing sir?
I'm doing good, yo. Howyou doing today? Man, one of
the my main man, one ofthe guys that called it straight in the
city of Cleveland. I appreciate that, man, and thank you for taking
(02:50):
the time to speak to us.Man. It's always it's always informative when
you come on the show because there'sa lot of stuff going on that people
don't real and not enough people areasking the questions. So we have a
lot of things to discuss. Butfirst, let's start with the news that's
just breaking as of this recording,and that is the BIB of administration releasing
(03:16):
their projected budget which share which showsanother reduction in police officers. Talk a
little bit about what you've seen sofar with that, I believe it was
released today, and just give peopleyour thoughts and your position on that.
Well, let me make it clear, I don't want to jump to say
(03:37):
that it's a reduction in police officers. Here's what I do want to make
clear. When we first started doingthis approximately two years ago, we had
sixteen fourteen police officers, approximately sixteenhundred and fourteen police officers budget in the
budget. Last year, the administrationcame to us and said, hey,
(03:59):
we're not going to probably get tothat sixteen even though past folks and past
leadership has said they need as muchas seventeen hundred. But the bottom line
is they, you know, basicallysaid that they would like to budget fourteen
ninety eight well, fast forward tothis year, and the budget in the
amount that they believe that they wantto budget is thirteen hundred and fifty.
(04:24):
They believe that with the rate ofattrition and with the amount of you know,
people that they're bringing in the classes, that their budgeting amount is thirteen
fifty. I have not seen anyindependent analysis or anything else in order to
show what the optimal amount of policeshould be in the city of Cleveland.
(04:46):
I know that there's organizations that dothat, like Police Executive Research Forum,
they call it perfect others, butI really like to see what is the
baseline, What is the the mountthe appropriate amount for you know, cities
the size of Cleveland that have comparablecrime rates, what's the amount and how
(05:10):
does that look and how's the deploymentstrategy. Plus we're under a consent decree,
so I want to make sure andhope that we're in compliance with the
staffing levels that we outlined in theconsent decree. So all of those things
matter, and all of those thingsare what we're looking at very close.
And so obviously, by you beingthe council president, you talk to the
(05:30):
other members of the council all thetime. What do you think the temperature
is for them? What is whatdo you think the appetite is for them
to go along with this? Oris there going to be some concerns?
Do they have similar concerns and similarquestions like you do. Most of the
body, and most of the peoplethat I've talked to have very similar concerns.
You know, you got councilors,seventeen different members. You have some
(05:54):
members that you know, hey,they may be cool. I'm not sure.
I haven't talked to them yet,but most are the ones that I've
talked to are concerned because they believethat this is what caused us not to
be able to recover in the firstplace, because we never really set a
level to say this is the linewe're going to draw. Way back in
twenty fourteen when we laid off morethan two hundred and twenty two officers.
(06:17):
The city has never recovered from that, and a lot of people feel like
if we continue to go to thisgreat and budget for this amount, You're
talking about the city with three hundredand seventy or three hundred and sixty four
thousand people or so, and yougot approximately you know, we got approximately
(06:38):
one thousand. You know, probablyabout eleven hundred foot soldiers on the ground
now, So we got to reallyask ourselves is that appropriate amount? And
we know that we had to spenda significant amount of time bringing in resources
from the state, from the HighwayPatrol, from the Marshall's office, from
the Sheriff's office. We need tolook at all of those things because what
(07:00):
I'm concerned may happen is that someof these guys may go to some of
these other departments and we continue tosee a decline in retention rates here.
So there's a lot of questions,a lot of concerns, and you know,
we'll have that deliberation over the nextfew weeks. We're talking with Cleveland
City Council President Blaine Griffin, andI saw a report recently from Channel nineteen
(07:24):
for those of you outside of Cleveland, that is the CBS affiliate here locally,
and they said, you know,within the last believe in the two
or three years, we've lost likefive hundred or five hundred and fifty officers
or something like that. It seemslike the things that are trying to be
done to slow to stop the proverbialbleeding, if you will, we're still
(07:47):
losing officers. What do you thinkthe cause of that is in your view?
Why why are we losing officers ata rate that we were not losing
just a few years ago. What'syour thought. I think it's multiple things.
I don't think you can put iton one. But if I was
to just put it on a coupleof things. Nationwide, they called for,
(08:11):
you know, police reform and realingpolice in And let me say this,
I agree with police reform. Ibelieve that you should keep police accountable.
I believe that the police department shouldbe reported to civilians. However,
the structures and the pushback that policehave gotten, whether right or wrong,
I think have discouraged a lot ofpeople from trying to get into that law
(08:33):
enforcement profession. So I don't thinkthis is just a Cleveland problem. I
think it's a national problem. Butlocally, I will tell you that the
job has probably become tougher, probablyhas become more cumbersome. There's probably a
significant amount of burnout, and onceagain, we're not bringing in people at
the rates that we used to bringthem in. So our departments are authentic
(08:56):
fast and we got to find away to really try to beef up and
onboard people to be police officers inthe city Cleveland. Yeah, it seems
like a lot of times the conversationgets swung from one extreme to the other.
I think most people want police tobe held accountable when they do wrong,
But there's also the understanding that ifyou're good, if they're good officers,
(09:20):
you want those people. You wantthose people in your city to help
keep people safe. And does itseem like the conversation around this issue has
been swinging so dramatically in one directionor the other that it's hard to get
sensible solutions in order to be ableto attract people to the profession who can
(09:41):
do their job when they do theirjob the right way, but also be
held accountable if they do something wrong. I think that there's a need and
that's what people really want the leadershipto stand behind them. I mean they
want to, you know. Ithink most people that me being an administrator,
a former administrator, and me beinggod a legislator. Now, I
(10:01):
think most people just want you tobe upfront, straight with them. The
police have been under a tremendous amountof scrutiny. They feel like they're a
political ping pong ball, and theyfeel at the end of the day that
anything that they do to effectuate theirtask of trying to make sure that they
keep us safe will be challenged byformal institutions as well as informal institutions.
(10:24):
Formal institutions like the Cleveland Police Commissionand the scrutiny that comes with the consent
decree, as well as informal whichis, you know, everybody has these
phones now, so anytime that youdo anything, somebody's going to record you.
And the minute that you say ordo something that is not aligned,
(10:48):
the people are going to blow youup. So a lot of people have
taken the standpust and say, whywould I put myself through that, or
why can't I go somewhere where theygive me the flexibility to do what I
need to do and where there's notlike this group that does not know my
profession to do that. Now.I happen to believe in civilian oversight.
I believe that we have, youknow, strong mechanisms in the city of
(11:11):
Cleveland for civilian oversight. I justreally hope that once those cases start coming
in front of them, that everybodyfeels fair and hopefully that will restore the
confidence and the police that they don'thave to fear this commission to consent decree
or any other retribution for just tryingto be professional law enforcement officials. We're
(11:33):
talking with Cleveland City Council President BlameGriffin. And another issue that you've been
dealing with, I mean, yougot to you gotta plate full, man.
You've been dealing with a lot ofstuff lately. But another one that's
obviously been in the news is thewhole issue in the fight over a ceasefire
resolution, whether to do it ornot to do it, and things like
(11:56):
that, And in my view,I think there's been a lot of unfair
pressure put on the members of theCity of Cleveland City Council. You know,
like like members of council can solvea problem that has been going on
for thousands, literally thousands of years, and you issue a statement coming to
(12:18):
you know, explaining to people whatwhat the conclusion is and what you would
like to see happen. Talk alittle bit about how that process, how
you came to that conclusion, thehow members of council were feeling about going
through all of this, and thenlet people know, you know, why
you decided that it would be bestfor you know, the the communities that
(12:41):
are most impacted by this to cometo the table and reach a solution together
versus council trying to superimpose it.Well, I'm a jokester, and I
tell people that I don't think anyof us signed up to do this job
to be Henry kissing Chip. Buthere we are because Cleveland City count So
is the windshield to local, state, international, and national affairs. So
(13:07):
at the end of the day,a lot of people rely on us to
be their voice. So I getit. I understand. The frustration with
a lot of people don't know isthat there have been significant conversations with leaders
from all of those communities that areaffected by this, and quite frankly,
if you don't have certain language ina resolution, then one side has concerns.
(13:31):
If you do have certain language ina resolution, then the other side
is concerned, and you can flipthat on both sides. It's everything from
you know, you know, everythingfrom I learned this week that some people
in the Palestinian community feel like ifyou say things like Israel has a right
to defend itself, which one resolutionactually said, then the Palestinian community has
(13:54):
concerns. The word cease fire thatthe Palestinian communities want embedded in a resolution.
They don't want us to say peacein the Middle East, they don't
want us to say any loss oflife is tragic. They want a specific
language that said we are requesting aceasefire, and that is very offensive to
(14:16):
the Israeli in the Jewish community.So I came to a conclusion that hey,
why don't you guys have a conversationwith each other, since you're the
closest to the matter, and giveus, at the very least language that
we should stay away from, andlanguage that you can mutually agree upon that
we should be included, as opposedto just saying if you don't put this
in here, then you're basically disrespectingus, or if you do this,
(14:39):
then you're disrespecting us. So we'rein the heck of a position, and
I think it's unfair that Counsel hasto be in a position that pretty much
people have asked us to pick aside. Listen, nobody can't condone in their
right mind. They'll say that weare cheering for twenty seven thousand, almost
thirty thousand and the a lot ofchildren. I don't know what the accurate
(15:01):
numbers. Some tell me it's asmuch as ten thousand. Nobody can cheer
or say that that loss of lifeis acceptable. We all speak out against
that. But we also know thatthere were thousands or more thousands of people
who were attacked over in Israel thatmade this latest conflict kick off. And
(15:22):
you know, sometimes people don't wantus to acknowledge that because they say,
hey, this is going on waybefore that, and this was just a
visceral reaction to the oppression that hashappened to the Palestinian people. Well,
we understand that it's very complicated,very nuanced, and it just got to
a point where many of my colleaguesasked me to stay away from it.
They said they didn't want to engagein it. Two thirds of Council does
(15:46):
not follow international conflicts. I justhappen to be into it because quite frankly,
I have a passion for understand geopoliticalissues, and I've been to Israel
and I've been to the Middle East. So at the end of the day,
you know, I just didn't feelthat this Council, after talking with
my colleagues, because I'm only oneto seventeen, was in a position to
(16:07):
present an unbiased and fair resolution thatwould have accommodated the needs of folks.
I mean people literally got up andyelled and shouted people down in the middle
of meetings because they would not putthe ceasefire. They only condemned the violence.
They wanted specific language to say theseaspire. And then the other community,
(16:32):
the Jewish and Israeli community, waslike, no, that is just
basically allowing Hamas to take a breakso that they can get back in control.
So why are we in the positionto negotiate that and to try to
put it in place, and thatanything that we say would probably be used
against us, like it already has. Well. And I also saw to
(16:56):
some comments that you made. Ithink it was with Idea Stream where you
pointed out too like when there werepeople trying to shut down council meetings and
trying to interrupt the other important workthat you have to do for the city.
It's like, well, those thosethose things matter too, right,
I mean, there's there's issues weas we just talked about. We have
(17:19):
problems going on in our streets righthere right now, so you know,
it also just it seemed to beit was unfair in my view, and
it's my opinion it was unfair toput that kind of weight on council for
something that you really don't have anycontrol over anyway, versus the things that
(17:40):
are happening in this city right now. Darv. Let me be clear,
no federal stating or other municipal communitieshave been under as much pressure as Cleveland
City Council to make a statement onthis issue. No other. Not not
(18:00):
our national representatives, not our staterepresentatives, you know, not the governor,
not the state legislature, not countycouncil, not the county executive,
not any of these suburban communities,even though I hear that Lakewood and Cleveland
Heights are considering doing something like that, but nobody has been under the amount
(18:21):
of pressure of Cleveland City Council.Now I should be flattered, you know,
hey, are we that important thatpeople are coming to us to try
to deal with some of the mostpressing and complex investing issues in our community.
You know, you know, youcould look at it as being flattered,
or you could look at that isyou know, they know that this
is the only place that they couldcome that are rules, and the way
(18:44):
that we are set up gives theman opportunity to voice their opinion, but
in doing that, they crowd outso many other people that want to speak
about so many other issues in thecity of Cleveland, for example, safety,
people talk about safety, abandoned houses. We have a very comprehensive Residents
First package that is going to changeour Building and Housing department that people want
to come and speak about. Ihave a bank on Buckeye Road that is
(19:07):
leaving because they have concerns about safetyand are taking a six month break,
and hopefully we can convince them tocome back after six months because of safety.
They want to come down and talkabout, you know, their issues,
but they can't because one, theyget drowned out or they can't get
a space on public comment because soonas public comments come up, those spots
(19:29):
get filled up by people that wantto talk about the Seaspire resolution that they
like to see. And then numbertwo, they basically some people don't feel
like they want to come down inan environment that in a lot of ways
they feel is not conducive, youknow, or not safe or not relaxing
where they can actually come and havetheir voice heard and being a democratically protected
(19:53):
environment. So we had to youknow, redo our rules in our comments
for public comment, which we submittedand passed this past Monday. And then
in addition, we had to putsome protocols in place in order to make
sure that we can run an orderlymeeting that has decorum and the publics and
(20:14):
the people. We should be ableto conduct the people's business in a in
a proper and orderly way. Andthat's all we're trying to do. And
I know everybody else creates all kindsof other narratives around you know, Blaine
Griffin, the big bad over that'strying to throw people out of meetings that
are just exercise their democracy. No, you got to come and you got
(20:36):
to take a look. Somebody whotried to tell me that yesterday I sent
them the video and they said,oh my god, Blaine, I didn't
know you guys were dealing with.Right, we're talking with Cleveland City Council
President, Blaine Griffin. I knowyou've got a few minutes stuff. I
got a couple more questions for you. So another thing that this news world,
(20:56):
I think maybe a week or twowould go was your endorsement of County
Prosecutor Michael Maalley for reelection talk alittle bit about that and why you thought
it was important to endorse Prosecutor Mounty. You know, I'm gonna put this
in a broader context, Darvo,because this is happening across our region and
(21:21):
across our nation that a lot ofpeople yearn to bring new, young,
progressive voices into the political sphere,and in doing that, they take people
who have experience and who have workedin this field and work their way up,
and they basically labeled them as statusquo. And we just need to
(21:44):
throw out everybody and bring in thisnew experience. And I tell people oftentimes
changes a process, not an event. So just because you've arrived, don't
mean you're going to change the wholeworld. There's a lot of other structures
you need to do this. AndI just believe that Prosecutor Or Mounty more
experience. And I know that peoplehave, you know, concepts and conversations
(22:07):
and oh we just want to getrid of the old guard, or we
just want to get rid of folkswhatever. But out of the candidates that
have been presented, he has shownme or he you know, has the
credentials and he has the experience,and I don't consider him just status quote.
There's things that I disagree with him, and I may challenge him,
(22:27):
but he has my support because,quite frankly, I think that he's the
most experienced professional candidate in the race. And I don't want to put my
justice system to a whim to anunproven leader who really hasn't been in that
line of fire. And I justthink that that's where society is going,
(22:48):
where they want to try to throwout even people like myself to say,
hey, your status quote, No, we're experienced. We actually have been
in these situations and understand how governmentis supposed to operate. Talked by one
of the best, Frank Jackson andsome of the people who he had in
his cabinet, and I want tobe helpful and be supportive of this next
generation, but just to try toprop somebody up and have him to run
(23:11):
for a position against an experienced litigatorwho has had years on the job and
who's worked in multiple leadership positions,who has been in city council, and
just to try to, you know, create this narrative that somehow he's a
problem. I don't think it's fair. Now, once again, are there
things that I would like to seeto you know, to make mister Olmalley
(23:37):
more appeasing to the public gift.And those are things that he and I
will talk about. But just becauseI disagree with somebody on one or two
things does not mean that I haveto throw out the entire body of work,
right right, And you know,you talk about like this this wave,
and you kind of mentioned that thatI think anybody who has experience unfortunately
(24:00):
gets put in this in this boxof being establishment and status quo. I
mean, and I understand that peoplewant change. Sometimes change for the sake
of change isn't always a good thing, because that's because it's different, doesn't
mean it's going to work. Buttalk a little bit about why it's important
(24:21):
to have Like, somebody got toknow where the bathrooms are. Somebody got
to know how to work this thing. If you want change, but you
don't understand how how to go aboutthat, how to get that done,
you're still going to end up withdisappointed people because you're not going to be
able to implement what you're trying todo. It's about having institutional knowledge.
Okay. City Hall is a verycomplex bureaucracy. And one of the things,
(24:45):
and not just city Hall, butjust any of these bureaucracies, whether
it's the county, the prosecutor's office. You can have a little old lady
or a little old guy that sitsin the Cuba cole that nobody hardly knows,
that can hold your stuff up ifyou don't. And just having that
kind of institutional knowledge and experience isimportant to understand why some of the guardrails
(25:07):
are put in place and not toojust totally dismantled. Now, let me
say this, I'm not always aboutdoing business as usual either, but I
think that there's a sweet spot thatwe have to get to that we basically
inject new ideas, innovative strategies,new leaders, and new people, but
we don't just demonize and throw outall of these folks that people want to
(25:30):
try to call the establishment. Listenw O. In two thousand and six,
when Frank Jackson brought me in thecity hall, I was the most
popular guy in town. I cango to any activist meeting and I had
an afro and a beard. Youcan tell the job to stress me out
from the last ten to fifteen years, but I was an activist and people
(25:52):
accepted me as that. When Iwas out there in the streets, struggling
and protesting. But then when Igot inside and learned how to affect the
outcomes of policy and the quality oflife for the people in our community,
I learned how to do it fromthe inside. So I took my passion
as an activist and and implemented,you know, and applied myself to the
(26:14):
internal operations. And it took awhile to understand and be able to pull
those levers. And I just thinkit's unfair that people that are getting and
gaining experience, like Prosecutor o'mali arenow being demonized by parties that quite frankly,
he has spent years trying to helpbuild and years trying to help make
(26:37):
successful supported candidates like myself and othersthroughout the years that now everybody expects for
us to turn our back on them. I don't do that, And at
the end of the day, Ithink I made the right decision. I
strongly believe that Prosecutor O'Malley is thebest qualifying candidate for the race, and
I'm a stand on that. Andlet me say this to you, darv.
A wise man once told me thata scared man get you killed.
(27:00):
People always wanted to threaten you withconsequences because oh, you supported this guy
or whatever else. Listen breathing,I ain't scared of nothing, and I'm
tired of everybody trying to see itact like they can threaten us with our
job. Listen, do me afavor if you can come and take me
out. I ain't gonna give itto you, but do me a favor,
because once you come, I'm gonnacompete. We're talking with Cleveland to
(27:23):
the Council President Blank Griffin, andthe last question for me, I know
you got to get out of hereto kind of switch it up because we've
been talking about some real heavy stuffthroughout the whole interview. Man, there's
one thing, and this is oneof the first conversations that you and I
had, and I've always been kindof fascinated to delve into this topic with
(27:44):
you because you're one of the fewpeople that I hear actually talking about restoring
the middle class in the city,growing the middle class in the city,
and how important that is and howthat can really grow the city. So
we're not in a situation where we'rejust managing decline. We're actually growing the
city well. And there's one thingthat happened in your war that I was
(28:06):
just so impressed by, and that'sthe Fairfax Market, the Maya Fairfax Market,
particularly because there are Cleveland based businessesin general, and black owned businesses
specifically that have some of their productsstocked in that supermarket. Talk a little
(28:26):
bit about the Fairfax Market and whyit was important that they did that and
what you're looking forward to having thatin your community. There's a heck of
a story behind that. And I'mgoing to tell you the statement that I
made when I was at the FairfaxMarket, and I would call it that
we built a pack. It wasa partnership, it was alignment, and
(28:49):
it was collaboration. The Cleveland Clinicwas involved where they invested in it because
one of the things that I toldthem is that I want them to do
what they do best, which ispromote and give access to healthcare. I
told them that I wanted access tosome of those great jobs that they actually
have so that we could train peoplefor their workforce. But last, but
(29:12):
not least, the fair and equitabledevelopment, because quite frankly, if you
go to that part of Cedar,it looks like the clinic almost turned their
rear end or their back to thecommunity, and we wanted to change that
narrative. So one of the thingsthat it took seven years to have this
conversation and what we did was weoriginally they originally wanted to put a freezer.
(29:36):
This is no exaggeration, a freezerwith eight to ten jobs that wouldn't
have had a lot of foot trafficor interaction. And I didn't think that
was acceptable now here. I ama rookie council person, even though I
got years of community activism, Iwas faced with a decision, and I
made a decision to sit at thetable to tell the clinic that I didn't
want that freezer there. Which iswhat's called a bio repository where they collect
(30:00):
you know, urine samples, tissuesamples, blood samples in the story and
they do research. And there's animportant need for that because a lot of
people don't know this, but ninetypercent of the medicine that we take is
tested on our white counterparts, andAfrican Americans need more testing and those kinds
of things so that we can havebetter blood pressure, medicine, diabetes and
(30:22):
other things so on. For thatresearch. But I wanted that corner at
one hundred and fifth and Cedar toreflect the rich history of Fair Facts,
and that was what it was for. How can we make sure we have
a triple bottom line impact that socialbecause we see this as a gathering place
where people in the Fair Facts andsurrounding communities can come. We see it
(30:47):
having an environmental impact because it wasin the middle of a food desert.
Even though it's in the shadow ofthe largest employer in the state of Ohio
and the city of Cleveland, itwas a food desert in that area,
and more excited about that. Andthen also having an economic impact because not
only are we making fresh food availableto everybody, but we're also really working
(31:10):
to deal with making sure that peoplehave an opportunity to work, admire,
and also attract more people to theneighborhood. So all of those things are
one some of the reasons why thatwas so important for us to really really
get that supermarket there. So Iconsider that a success story. We got
(31:32):
a couple more chess mods we're tryingto do. There's probably about two thousands
or sole units rooftops that have beenbuilt in that neighborhood and that surrounding neighborhood.
There was a report that Richie Preparinghas done about the Opportunity Corridor that
the job growth is on the eastSide and the edds and beds institutions of
university circle. So if we reallywant to repopulate the east Side and bring
(31:53):
back that middle class that you're talkingabout, we got to make sure that
we invest in the amenities and thehousing and the solutions that are needed in
order to bring back, you know, people who are working class folks in
that neighborhood. So I'm very passionateabout the things I do, which is
one of the reasons why sometimes peoplesay, blame you too close to this
(32:15):
stuff. But I really love people, man, and I'm here to do
a job. I'm here to providea service. And you know that's why
I like doing your show because youcall it straight. You don't come in
here and sugarcoat stuff. And that'swhy anytime you call me, I'm gonna
make myself available, sir. Iappreciate that, man, and it's,
(32:36):
you know, congratulations on all thestuff that you're doing in Fairfax. I
consider Fairfax is a very important partof the city. It's like our Harlem,
you know what I mean. Soit's Fairfax is very, very important
to the city of Cleveland, andcongratulations on everything that you're doing and all
the stuff that you got going on. And maybe one of these days when
we do one of these interviews,we can spend more time talking about your
(32:59):
economics thoughts and some of your planson growing the middle class. But it
just so happens that there's always somestuff jumping off when we talk, so
we end up having to talk.Listen number a dull moment in my world.
And I tell people, that's whatmakes the job fun, that's what
makes it exciting, but that's whatalso make your man tired sometimes. Right
(33:19):
If you see these big Gucci bagsunder my eyes, it's because I'm up
late at night trying to figure outhow we can make Cleveland a better place.
So I really appreciate the opportunity tobe here. And at the end
of the day, with all ofthe struggles and trials and tribulations we go
through as a city, Cleveland's agreat place. I won't give up on
it. I know you love thiscity. I love this city. I
love the people of this city.And at the end of the day,
(33:43):
let's just keep on working hard.Man to try to make Cleveland the best
we can. All right, andman, I appreciate you always being a
great public service man. Thank youfor coming on the show and spending time
with us. I appreciate it.Thank you do I appreciate your memage.
All right, one more time,want to give a special shout out to
Blame Ripping for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. We are
out of here. We'll see younext time. Peace. This has been
(34:21):
a presentation of the FCB podcast network, where Real Talk lives. Visit us
online at fcbpodcasts dot com.
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