CLEVELAND — Supporters of the Palestinian community have packed the past five consecutive city council meetings in Cleveland, seeking declarations of sympathy for their community and for leaders to support an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
“We’re not just a community of Palestinians,” local activist Shereen Naser said. “We’re a community of all different kinds of Clevelanders, from all walks of life. We’re simply asking to be heard, and I think individual council folks are starting to talk and want to understand more, but the ceasefire is needed right now. There’s an urgency to the situation that people here are really feeling, and we’re hoping that there can be some broader and more urgent dialogue as we continue to build longer dialogue over time.”
However, city leaders are now considering tighter rules on public comment, which could prevent the Palestinian community from continuing to use public comment as a platform to amplify their voices.
The most significant change council is considering would limit what speakers can discuss to only items that are under council’s consideration.
Supporters of the new rule, like Council President Blaine Griffin, said it will help maintain decorum in meetings.
“We cannot have people coming into a government body and government institution and not feel safe, so that’s the first thing,” he said. “The second thing that we believe that we really have to accomplish is nobody should be able to come in and just totally take over our meetings. So, we have to have a level of decorum. We have to have some rules in place that when somebody steps across the line, we’re able to remove them or able to restore order in our chamber.”
Opponents, like Ward 12 Council Member Rebecca Maurer, said it’s disrespectful to tighten rules at a time when the community is trying to use public comment to engage with city leaders.
Griffin said the conversations about a rule change are not a result of the Palestinian supporters who’ve been coming here to speak.
In a September meeting, he cut the mic of several speakers, one of whom directly named council members.
Griffin said that resident broke one of the body’s current public comment rules that reads, “Speakers shall address the Council as a body and may not address any individual council member or other person.”
That resident is now being represented by attorney’s from Case Western Reserve University’s First Amendment Clinic, who said that rule is a violation of the First Amendment.
In a phone call, the clinic’s director, Andy Geronimo, said they’re also disappointed in the proposed changes.
Griffin said the new rules are not about restricting speech, but maintaining decorum during meetings.
“We’re not really trying to restrict a bunch of things around their speech,” Griffin said. “What we’re basically trying to say is that it should pertain to something on the agenda. And let me be honest with you — we don’t have to do public comment. This is something that we decided as a council in order to be more transparent and try to be open to the public.”
Monday night, protesters gathered at a forum with Mayor Justin Bibb and state leaders at Playhouse Square and then marched to city hall, where they packed council’s meeting for a fifth time.
Among them were some Jewish community members, who were also calling for leaders to support an immediate ceasefire.
Naser, who has spoken at multiple council meetings, said she doesn’t support the new public comment rules.
“I feel like the change in public comment rules came before we started coming,” she said. “It happened before Oct. 7, but I think our movement here is really putting into stark contrast why the rules as they are stand are not working, and the changes that they’re trying to make are making it even worse. So we are here because we believe in our right to talk, to speak to our representatives, to have dialogue with our representatives.”
Other cities in Ohio run public comment differently than Cleveland.
At Columbus City Council meetings, there are a certain number of slots for comments about agenda items and other slots allocated specifically for non-agenda items.
Cincinnati City Council holds a public comment portion of their meetings 30 minutes before the council meeting officially starts.
And in Akron, city council limits comments to “matters within council’s authority.”
Cleveland City Council has yet to vote on the changes, but Griffin said they’re hoping to implement new rules before the start of 2024.
