This is the FCB Podcast Network. This is The Laws Extra. Welcome to The Outlaws Extra. This is Darvo to Kingpinn Marrow. Don't forget too Like us on Facebook at facebook dot com, slash the Outlaws Radio, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at the Outlaws or Radio. We have another special edition of The Outlaws Extra. Today, we have a special interview with Cleveland City Council President Blaine Griffin. He's been on this show before and we're gonna talk about several issues. We're gonna be talking about what it looks like to rebuild the middle class from a policy perspective. We're gonna talk about the controversy that some of you may have seen me tweet about on Twitter. If you're not following me, make sure you follow me at d the Kingpin. That's dt h E k I N G p I N the controversy over the West Side Market. Of course, as I'm talking about it, and we'll get into a little bit in the show for those of you who are not aware, but also for those of you who are not aware, and make sure that you follow me on Twitter, you'll you'll see my commentary on it, and the whole host of issues. So, of course, as always, those of you who are familiar with our Outlaws Extras, you know how this goes. We're gonna take a break now and then we will air the interview in its entirety, So stay tuned. You're listening to the Outlaws Extra. These days, it seems like everybody's talking, but no one is actually listening to the things they're saying. Critical thinking isn't dead, but it's definitely low on oxygen. Join me, Kiera Davis, Jeff listen to yourself every week as we reason through issues big and small, critique our own ideas, and learn to draw our talking points all the way out to their logical conclusions. Subscribe to Just Listen to Yourself with Kia Davis, an FCB radio podcast on Apple, on Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts. Fuck True, Welcome back, Welcome back. You listen to the Outlaws Extra. Make sure that you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcast And if you listen to this show on Apple, please make sure you leave us a five star review and a comment. It's very important for the algorithm and for those of you who have done so, Thank you, oh so very much. And now listen get to our interview with Cleveland City Council President Blaine Griffin. All right, we have a very special guest on the show today. He's been on this show before, Cleveland City Council President Blame Griffin. Walcome back. How are you doing? Sorry, I'm doing great, Dark you know, how are you doing today in the Outlaw family? How you are through? We're good, We're good. So obviously there's a there's a lot of conversation going on right now about art per dollars and the way that they're being spent and what they're being spent on and all that kind of stuff. So let's start at the beginning. First, tell people, for people who don't know what what are arper dollars? What is that? So? Ar Per dollars are American Rescue Plan Act dollars that were an extension of the COVID nineteen relief dollars that the federal government and President Biden and the federal government sent to cities who were disproportionately impacted by COVID nineteen M. Those dollars were often m You know, Cleveland was number eight in the largest amount that we received total, which was approximately five hundred and eleven point five million. And the reason why is because of how many people were were impacted by COVID nineteen. Now, those communities that were disproportionately impacted, if anybody goes there looks at the maps, were four four one oh six, four four one oh four, four four one three five four four one two old. All of those four four one oh three, all of those cities, all of the parts of the city that are poor bipop communities were the areas that had the most depths of COVID nineteen. So that's how they actually calculated the dollars because they really wanted to focus on cities who experienced a disproportionate impact of COVID nineteen. And so with that, what has council so far done with the arp of dollars? You know, what are some of the things that you guys have invested in and talk a little bit about that in the significance of it. So we put money into food insecurity, because we have put money into the food bank in order to help them with their capacity issues because they had to serve so many more people during the I mean during the COVID nineteen pandemic. We gave twenty million that we put towards broadband. We put millions of dollars towards gap financing to help with some catalytic projects and projects in neighborhoods. We've put fifteen million or more into demolishing housing and getting rid of blight neighborhoods. We put a lot of money into domestic violence because domestic violence and child abuse, many of those cases were getting backed up because you know, they didn't have enough workers and they didn't have the you know, enough people to handle the case though. So we put money into primary fixed assets and also where we had gaps and service. But the largest amount of money that we put away went to what was called rescue recovery. Uh there's you know, we lost a lot of money in admissions tax, income tax, and other type of income that we bring into the City of Cleveland. And because we lost that amount, we were able on the offer to put that back into the general fund in order to cover some of those gaps. And one of the things that came out recently, I think that in the last week or so is the utilities Assistant. I know that that's something that people would be interested in, particularly those are those who are struggling, So talk a little bit about that. So just this week we passed utility assistance and what we did is about fourth thousand people who are cpp not First Energy, but Cleveland Public Power and Cleveland Division of Water customers. We still have some customers that are ninety days or behind because they had economic hardships during the COVID nineteen pandemic. And when we had those folks that went through those economic hardships, many of them got on a payment plan. So what we're doing now is we're going to give them relief since they've made the good faith effort to get on the payment plan, we're going to cancel out that debt. And it also takes care of accounts that are delinked with in our city database. So it's one of those win wins for a government and especially for people who are still experiencing economic hardship coming out of COVID nineteen. And you've also done no long residential customers, by the way, not just not business customers, but residential customers. Okay, okay, okay, that's good to know. We're talking about Cleveland City Council president, blame Griffin. And also, you guys did medical debt relief right with the ARS talk a little bit, but we did. We we allocated two million for medical debt relief. We know that a lot of people are still dealing with medical debt. And Gel, I gotta tell you this story. So I pulled an old bill from a relative that they showed me, and the bill, the first line of the bill said, it is shameful that you have not paid this debt. This is a collection that So could you imagine a seventy five eighty year old eighty five year old person getting that kind of a letter in the amount of stress that it takes, because you know that generation believes in making sure that they pay their bills and do things the right way, and that they would get that kind of a letter. So now we're going to alleviate that just like they do as debt collectors, where we would actually deal with a company name r IP Debt Relief and they will purchase the amount a debt from these hospitals and then people will really receive a letter in the mail saying your debt has been paid and you you now are made whole. Wow wow um And you told of about fifty thousand people and they will relieve about one hundred and ninety million dollars worth of debt with a two million dollars investment. Wow, that was that was gonna be my next question. Wow, that's that impacts a lot of people, especially with something as serious as that like medical debt can make people go broke, can make people go bankrupt. So yeah, that's a that's a pretty big deal. I know. Another thing that you guys uh tackle was a violence prevention Obviously, that's something that's important right now, UM, considering what the city is going through and what cities all across the country are going through. UM, talk a little bit about your violence prevention efforts. So we just actually had a hearing where several people that are on the front lines of violence prevention, and a lot of them do it out of just the goodness of their heart. But we're looking at potentially working with the Cleveland Foundation in order to try to create a revolving fund where we could actually replenish it every year due to the Foundation's ability to leverage an investment that we can make and create more money through some of their other funders as well as the interest that they will gain from that money being put in there, and just like every other donor, uh, you know, we will have an ability to direct where and how we want that money to work. Okay, okay, So it sounds like, you know, there's a lot of a lot of initiatives, a lot of plans that you guys have done to help people in the city. Um, a lot of a lot of things that I'm happened with the arper dollars that people aren't really talking about. But there is one thing that apparently everybody seems to be talking about the city right now, and I want to get your views on the record. Obviously, it's about the West Side market and the controversy surrounding that. So from your perspectives and the perspective of city council is what is your position on the fifteen I believe it's fifteen million dollars requests that they have to use our per dollars to go to the West Side market. Well, as I've said before, my question has been is that fifteen million dollars more than we can afford right now? And the reason why is because we have competing interests across the city. So once again, you know, I think the market is a very valuable asset. We do want to put money into the market with our per dollars, but we also want to make sure that we make critical investments across the city in neighborhoods. So that's our job as council. We're simply just during our job, which is vetting all other competing interests and trying to figure out how we can be the consensus around where we want to set the priorities for the City of Cleveland. Now, let me give you some facts, um Garvo that you really need to know. A lot of people don't know that we have already been funding the market in the last four years. Out of forty point five million dollars in bonding that we've done, which pays for all capital improvement projects being rec centers, be a road, streets, bridges, the money that we have to pay for infrastructure in the city of Cleveland. Out of forty point five million dollars that we bonded, ten point five has gone to the West Side market, which is approximately twenty percent or more about twenty percent of the total amount of money that we bonded in Garden. So we have already been putting money into the West Side market. We also passed a structure where we asked, you know, the nonprofit board to take over, which has something that we that they have been trying to do for a long time, and this council made it happen. And the reason we made it happen because they said that they were putting forth for a very good business plan, a business model that can help increase revenue for the market. They also believe that they could raise money from private and philanthropic sources. So all that is great. So I'm willing to put the city share in, but I want to understand the business plan. I want to understand how we're going to do all of these other repairs. What is the schedule. We don't even know what the operating agreement is with the market here, so there's just a lot of uncertainties that everybody wants to make this about politics, but this is not about politics. This is about competing priorities and making sure that we're making strategic investments. So I know, the last time I saw you speak about speak about this, you had mentioned that you haven't that they haven't shown you, you know, what the business plan or what the strategic plan for the market is that they have. Have they shown you that yet or you actually have a meeting right after you and I meet today, because now it's a sense of urgency to sit down and go over the strategic plan with me. So I'm looking forward to seeing that, and you know, at the end of the day, we'll see how far that goes. But once again, you know, we're doing our job as council. But I do want to mention one other thing I also want to talk about. We made a strategic investment to finalize Central Vision, which is going to be the heartbeat of the Hispanic community. We've put money into birthing beautiful communities. We put money into rebuilding Woodhills estates once again, we put money into youth education. And then we are looking at putting money into a very significant fund around brownfield site remediation. So all of these things infield housing, all of these things are what I'm talking about when I'm talking about competing priorities across the city that we have to try to put money into infrastructure and other things across the city. Right, and so as as a council president, obviously, like like you just mentioned, your job is to kind of see, you know, the whole city, the needs of the whole city. And when we're talking about you know, these arfor dollars is one time there's one time dollars that can really be used to great benefit of the city if they're used properly. What from the things that you've seen, you're you're in every neighborhood across the city, what do you think is the most pressing need for the city right now in terms of using what's left for the arbor doogars? Housing, housing, housing and more housing, getting more infield high housing, making sure that we get more home repair dollars, making sure that we have money to demolish houses, making sure that we have grown fool mediations so that we could have site acquisition and try to make sure that we make sites available for business growth. The other thing that I think, you know, something that we did pass as well that I think is critical for trying to recruit some of our safety forces, our retention bonuses for a lot of the police officers. Council passed that. Um, I know the officers are waiting for that to get to hit with the administration, but we have looked at that as well with retention bonuses. And also we're talking with Cleveland City Council President Blaine Griffin, and once again I want to take you for your times always and though not very busy, got a lot of things going on, so as we get ready to wind down here in a little bit so you can get to your meeting. One thing that I've heard you say before, you said it on the show before, and I heard you at at a community meeting yesterday mentioned it again, and that is rebuilding the middle class in the city. When you when you first when I first heard you say that, that really stood out to me because I don't know of many politicians in the city who were that even on their radar. Talk a little bit about why it's important and some of the things that you think the city can do to help rebuild that middle class. So Cleveland is a Dickensium model of a city. You know, have you ever read Charles Dickens tale to Tell of Two Cities. It was the best of times and the worst of times. Just the best of times in certain areas that are affluent, growing, booming areas like Ohio City and Treemont in downtown. You know, areas similar to where the west side market is that, but then we have areas that are struggling, areas that the market, not west Side market, but the capital markets won't go. We have various across this city that are struggling from extreme poverty and have islands of poverty. So if any society, the way to address that is really to try to make sure we grow middle class people in middle class jobs for with family sustaining wages. So what do I mean by that? You know, our parents and our grandparents, the greatest generation that ever lived. Really most of them put us through college and got us educated by working as factory workers. That made it as working in hospitals, made it, working on assembly lines, made it, working in you know, all those different industries. So what my goal is is to try to really bring family sustaining wage jobs back to the inner city of Cleveland, to the core city of Cleveland, not Soling, not way out in broad View or other places like that, but really make sure that we put them where they're accessible, where people can actually walk to work, people can take public transportation to work, and make good family sustaining wages, and then deal with the best way to create wealth possible, which is start dealing with homeownership, and then that's the way that you build strong neighborhoods. A lot of people, I think sail well. If you fix schools and you fix crime, and you fix all those things, then everybody will come back to your neighborhood. I think that the poor, dilapid, dilapidated and deteriorated schools, and the crime that we're experiencing is because we don't have strong, stable neighborhoods. So we really need to reinvest and double down on population increase and bringing back family sustaining ways, jobs, and people that are in the middle class back to the city of Cleveland, because right now we're dealing with two extremes, extremely poor and extremely and people that are doing pretty good right right, And you mentioned the population issue. Obviously there's been a population decline across the city. Some neighborhoods have done better than others, but in a lot of the areas that you're talking about, a lot of that is concentrating on the East Side, and you cannot get the population to go up and in the city until you address some of the issues that are going on in these East side neighborhoods. And I know that you mentioned briefly as some of the housing developments that you guys are supporting. Talk a little bit more about some of the infield housing and some of the other things that you have to have done with the arper dollars, you know, trying to address this issue. But we put a lot of money aside and trying to help with infield housing, down payment assistance and those kinds of things because a lot of people don't en gap assistance. Let me just give you a case in point. If I'm building the house and Solon, it caused me the same amount of money to build a house and Solon as it does for me to build a house and fair fans. But the issue is the amount that I can probably get for the house and Solon is going to probably be the market price. Whereas in the inner city, because of some of the things you just mentioned around the perception and reality of prime and other things that we have to deal with, people aren't willing to pay the same amount for the same kind of house in the city as they would and herbs. So a lot of times you need gap financing in order to cover that amount because if the house runs let's say two hundred and twenty thousand dollars. You know, you can probably get that amount and sold them. But in Cleveland you probably won't get two hundred and twenty, but you can maybe get one hundred and fifty, which means that somebody needs to step in and right off that seventy thousand dollars that is lost because the house really cost two hundred and twenty thousand dollars to build. That's where you make investments in gap financing and help around community development so that we could try to do more infield housing. So that's what we do when you talk about infield housing. Now, what we're really trying to do and what we're really trying to copple together is a lot of the edge communities and middle neighborhoods. Your Collingwoods or Lee Harvards, your North and South Collinwoods or Lee Harvards, your cams Corner bell Air period is Old Brooklyn. Those are edge and middle neighborhood communities that to find. That's what's edge and middle neighborhoods. So edge and middle neighborhoods are like those neighborhoods that are competing with are entering suburbs. So the ones that are like competing against you live Lakewood, Shaker Heights, Parma. Those are edged neighborhoods because their competition is not dealing with downtown, but they're really you know, people could move two blocks over and live in Warrensville insteadily harder. So that's why we're really trying to focus on infield housing and growing some of those areas as well, especially in those areas that I just mentioned. And so I would assume that the edge or you know, soak on middle neighborhoods, their their needs are a little different than the really wealthy neighborhoods or the really poor neighborhoods, right exactly. They often don't fit. It's one of those situations where most people in life find themselves where you make too much money to qualify for programs for poor people, but you make don't make enough money to live like you really would like to, and you fall right in that middle, you fall right on that edge. And that's exactly the kind of population that we want to reinvest in. That's the population that has made America great. That's the population that lives primarily in entering suburbs. Now that we want to try to make sure to say, hey, the same stuff is happening in these entering suburbs we need to do in Cleveland. We need you in Cleveland so that the heart of the region can survive. Yeah, absolutely, so, all right, I know you got to get out of here. Let everybody know how to follow you on social media if they want to get in touch with you, all that good stuff. So on Twitter is Griff for cle six, On Instagram is Griff for cl six, and then on Facebook is President Blaine A. Griffin. All right, thank you so much, mister President for coming up the show. I really appreciate it. Sir, all right, thank you, keep up the good work and join you guys. All right, appreciate it. Once again. Thank you to Blank Griffin for coming on the show. Were really appreciated. We are out of here. We'll see you next time. This has been a presentation of the FCP podcast Network, where real talk lifts visit us online at FCP podcasts dot com.
