Production and distribution of City Club forums and ideastream public media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland, Inc.. Good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland's 2024 State of the City, presented by PNC Bank.

It's Thursday, March 28th.

And I'm Kristen Baird Adams, president of the Board of the Board of the Board of Directors of the City Club, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

On behalf of the City Club staff and board, we are particularly honored to introduce this year's State of the City, as we are broadcasting live from the Mimi, Ohio Theater at Playhouse Square.

Just just steps away from the city club's beautiful new home.

At 1317, Euclid Avenue.

And of course, we are all proud to provide this important platform for Mayor Justin Amberg to update fellow Clevelanders on the progress of his administration during his second year in office, and to provide insights and perspectives on his vision for our great city and the opportunities and the challenges that are ahead.

This year's state of the city is taking to taking place at a remarkable time for Cleveland.

The NCAA women's Final Four tournament is almost ready for tipoff.

The Guardian's opening day is around the corner.

Our beloved Cleveland International Film Festival will open right here in Playhouse Square in just a few days.

And our region is preparing for a once in a lifetime total solar eclipse.

No doubt the energy that surrounds our great city is infectious.

But of course, like all urban centers, we face our share of challenges.

During his first state of the city, of his last State of the City address, Mayor Bibb discussed his vision for an early progress toward keeping Clevelanders safe, jumpstarting business development and job growth, and driving catalytic development, redevelopment and educational access and interventions that create opportunities for and lift up residents across all of Cleveland's neighborhoods.

Mayor.

Bibb Mayor Bibb reinforced his optimism in his administration's ability to get this right and meet this moment, both today and for generations to come.

Today, we will hear directly from the mayor about his progress.

Following his remarks, we will be joined by Cleveland State University President Dr. Laura Bloomberg, who will lead a conversation with Mayor Bibb during the second half of the forum.

Together, they will dove deeper into the mayor's priority issues.

And throughout the conversation, we will hear directly from Cleveland residents about their unique stories, how they're contributing to the work across, and how they're contributing to the work across our communities.

And of course, in keeping with City Club tradition, we also hear their direct questions for the mayor, neighbors, members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland.

It's my pleasure to welcome you to the 2024 State of the City people meeting.

Good afternoon, Cleveland.

Thank you so much for joining me here at the beautiful Mimi, Ohio Theater for my third State of the City address.

We are currently in the country's largest performing arts center outside of New York City and Cleveland.

Folks, we forget that too often that deserves a round of applause.

The work we are doing takes a village.

Transforming our city takes many, many people working hand in hand.

Now, I won't be able to recognize every one of you today, but you know who you are and what an important role you play.

First to the city of Cleveland team.

Together, we've overcome challenges and come together as one force for change.

To the nearly 8000 of you.

You are on the front lines from plowing the snow and picking up the waste bins to the team to maintain our parks and our public spaces to our heroes and EMS, fire and police.

You are the heart of Cleveland, and I couldn't be more grateful for your unwavering commitment to my esteemed colleagues on City Council.

Thank you for your collaboration and for serving the residents of Cleveland so faithfully.

Together, we pursued an ambitious agenda that puts Clevelanders first, and I am proud to work alongside you in special thanks to our incredible county, state and federal partners.

We work together every single day to keep this ship steered in the right direction.

Because if Cleveland thrives, our region thrives.

Our state thrives.

And the country thrives.

And above all, thank you to every resident of Cleveland.

It remains the honor of my lifetime to serve you as a son of this city.

I've witnessed you often and others a feeling that we are a city past our prime, a sense that our best days are behind us.

But I strongly push back on that thinking.

Every chance I get, it's a big reason why I ran for mayor in the first place.

We may forget it, but Cleveland once had more inventors and more millionaires than any city its size.

Cleveland dominated entire industries and created new ones, too.

Our our entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well.

But we've just lost some of our confidence.

But it's time to regain its because I'm confident and the Cleveland of today I'll say it again.

The second largest theater district in the country, the the first major American city led by a black mayor, the birthplace of rock and roll and a global hub for health care, innovation and so much more.

I, I feel this energy when I'm walking in our neighborhoods.

I feel it in our classrooms, among our young people.

I feel it in the corridors of City Hall.

We are taking on our biggest challenges with urgency every day and investing in our city's future for generations to come.

This is our moment.

I took office with a fresh perspective and energy to build a city hall that works for you.

But before you can tackle big things, you need a firm foundation.

So give him a second.

Give me the second.

Give him a second.

Give me a second.

Any second.

October 7th.

You would never send in your support.

You are always wrong.

Let's clap our hands for freedom of speech in this country.

That's why I love America so much.

That's right.

That's why we love free speech.

Now, where was I?

So when I got to office in my first week at City Hall, the roof was literally leaking buckets of rainwater.

In the first six months of my term, I was in a hurry to get everything done.

We needed urgency, don't get me wrong.

We still do.

But just as important is leading with purpose and patience.

Building trust and relationships takes time.

Understanding the complex issues our city faces.

Takes time.

We can't win by rushing to the finish line.

This is our movement and we have to move as one.

To that end, we just completed a ten year strategic audit focused on bringing our city operations into the 21st century.

We did a deep dove with staff from across the enterprise to develop a road map for a meaningful change.

We're making the easy things easy, like streamlining the payment process for our vendors and contractors because it should not take months to pay somebody to cut the grass in our city.

We're also digitizing the procurement process and adding self-service options for things like birth and death certificate requests to make it easier for residents to work with the city and access the resources they need.

And for the first time in decades, we launched a new and improved website that's mobile friendly and built with residents in mind.

And I'm pleased to announce that next week we are launching the first iteration of our new Open Data Portal to provide the public with increased transparency and easy access to a wide range of city records.

Promises made, promises kept our city service hotline free by one is now available 24, seven, seven days a week.

And we are close to launching a Web version that allows our residents to report and track the status of requests just as they would a FedEx package.

And for the first time since President Eisenhower, we we reevaluated our trash collection route system to provide more consistent service that doesn't have our teammates working into the night.

We've we've updated our H.R.

practices to attract and retain the best and brightest of public service, including modernizing our vacation and parental leave policies.

But here's one of my favorites.

I hope you all have enjoyed the new smart parking system.

All across downtown Cleveland.

You see, you have to get the basics right.

And as a sun of a cop, nothing is more fundamental to me than public safety.

If we can't build a Cleveland where every resident feels safe and trust law enforcement to answer in their hour of need, we can achieve much else.

Safety comes first.

It will always come first.

The Warehouse District shooting last summer was devastating.

Another act of senseless gun violence.

And despite the state tying our hands, we need to exhaust every option to prevent these tragedies in our city.

One of the ways my administration has responded is through our RISE initiative, raising investment in safety for everyone.

Rise is an all hands on deck approach to both stop crime before it starts and guarantee an effective response when it occurs.

In collaboration with local, state and national law enforcement agencies, we've made hundreds, hundreds of felony warrant arrests and confiscated scores of illegal guns, endangering our streets.

For the first time in decades, city administration, police leadership and both both police unions, the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association and Fraternal Order of Police work together on an agreement to support officer retention and recruitment.

The agreement increases wages by up to 40% for all officers, raising overall pay by up to 25% in just two years.

Just two years.

We've also established 12 hour shifts for our officers, meaning more time off, less costly, overtime payments and ultimately safer neighborhoods.

This dynamic model spreads out staffing and increases police presence on our streets.

In fact, we're not far from optimal patrol numbers in our five districts.

With this change, we've also raised cadet pay, added new reimbursement options for state trained, certified cadets, and increased the maximum age for recruits to help us bring the best talent to Cleveland, not just to fill our ranks, but to build a force that our city can trust to answer the call.

And it's working.

Cleveland.

Applications to join the police force are up by 45%.

And this past Monday, I welcome a new class of 52 cadets to the police academy.

This this is larger than the previous four classes combined.

We've also doubled the number of social workers in our core response teams across every police district and and in 2023.

Our crisis intervention team resolved more than 4800 interactions without an arrest or citation.

That's nearly 100% of the calls they were involved with.

And we know that not every police call warrants a traditional response.

And it's critical we provide the mental health support, our residents deserve.

And I would be remiss if I did not mention the major investments we've made in EMS 19 new ambulances hit the street last year, and we're also implementing a lateral transfer program where paramedics with at least one year of experience will be paid $27 an hour upon higher.

We know that partnerships are key to delivering on our promise to keep Cleveland safe.

Last year, we expanded ShotSpotter in all five police districts and grew our smart camera sharing program, integrating more than 2300 cameras at convenience stores, churches, retail shops, office buildings and residences all across Cleveland.

And the latest police data shows that nearly 40 lives, 40 lives have been saved in our city due to faster response times.

Thanks to ShotSpotter.

Cleveland police also worked with the ATF and other agencies to tear down multiple gun trafficking enterprises.

And just this summer, we'll be launching our new Crime Gun Intelligence Center right here in Cleveland.

And the data shows these investments are working.

Homicides were down last year for the second year in a row.

And since the pandemic, homicides have decreased by 14%, 14%.

And our homicide solved rate is currently close to 80%, significantly higher than the 55% national average.

This this is what modern intelligent policing for the 21st century looks like.

This is how we solve cases and save lives in our city.

But when we grieve for the victims of gun violence, we too often neglect the effect it has on the families and friends left behind.

Organizations like the Burning Glass Trauma Center do inspiring work to help survivors of violence piece their lives back together.

But this work shouldn't be needed as much as it is in our city.

This year marks a somber anniversary, ten years since Tamir Rice was killed by a Cleveland police officer while playing with the toy gun in a city park.

That's right.

That's right.

A 12 year old boy doing what 12 year old boys do, but endangering no one.

Hurting no one.

Let him finish.

Let him finish.

Let him finish.

Thank you for supporting CNN.

Thank you, sir.

Okay.

Now, where were we again?

His mother, Miss Mario Rice, who is here with us this afternoon, continues to fight for justice.

Since Samir's murder.

Ms.. Rice has committed her life to Tamir's legacy as a catalyst for change.

And we are committed.

We are committed to honoring Tamir's legacy through community oversight and police accountability.

Now, I want to be crystal clear that as my administration works to support, recruit and retain officers, we remain steadfastly committed to police reform and doing the hard work to get out from under the consent decree and we all have the same goal safer communities, but a safer Cleveland needs comprehensive game reform and tools to crack down on illegal gun trafficking.

And as mayor, I work with anyone in the legislature, regardless of party or politics, who has a passion and sense of urgency to solve our illegal gun problem.

It's time for us to put people over politics on this issue once and for all.

And I know we can work together.

I've seen it with our state and federal partners.

I've seen it with the success of both Rice and our work with Republican State Senator Nancy Manning to pass Senate Bill 88, erasing the records of thousands of Clevelanders with minor marijuana possession charges, eliminating barriers to employment, and giving people a second chance that they deserve to deliver on public safety.

We need to foster community and fix systems where they are failing people.

As a first step, we've established a $10 million Neighborhood Safety fund to provide sustained support for evidence based programs that address the root causes of violence in our community and meet residents where they are.

Last year, we allocated the first $1 million in grantmaking to 29 community programs, and I've been so blown away by the work that these organizations are doing.

Hank Davis started the Icons program in 2002 with the mission to make a positive impact on the community as a violence interrupter.

Today, Icons focuses on the work of preventing violence by getting ahead of it.

Through a mentorship program at Hannah Gibbons Elementary School in Collingwood, Hank works with a group of fourth and fifth grade boys, many of whom have experienced significant trauma to offer new opportunities and a sense of community.

Most of the young men who come through icon's program graduate from high school.

Many are now in college or working in the trades.

You see programs like this work and through the Neighborhood Safety Fund, we can expand them from the ground up.

Under the leadership of people like Hank.

We need to recognize the stress our young people live under.

After last year's roundtable with the U.S.

Surgeon General, County Executive Ronayne and I launched the Youth Mental Health Workforce Development Sprint Task Force, which will roll out its recommendations on April 11th.

We're also convening a student council of Young Leaders to hear directly about the challenges they are facing.

But it's not just mental health.

It's physical, too.

For the past year, I've been advocating for a ban on the sale of flavor tobacco products in our city.

And as we all know, the tobacco industry has a long track record of marketing to communities of color, getting us addicted at a young age.

So we'll provide a steady stream of profits, regardless of the costs to our health.

Cleveland.

Cleveland has one of the highest smoking rates in the country at 35%, 35%, three times the national average.

Illnesses cause most by cigarets are the number one killer in Cleveland.

Not guns, but cigarets.

And I remember watching my pops come home every night with their fresh pack of Newports.

My dad.

My dad died at a very young age.

My grandfather died of lung cancer.

I know the impact tobacco can have on a family firsthand.

And despite the fact that the Republican Ohio legislature just overrode Governor DeWine's veto to prevent local control of tobacco, we are not giving up in Cleveland.

Nationwide, nationwide.

Ohio has the second highest number of cities declaring racism a public health crisis.

If we believe this, we need to demand a statewide tobacco control policy once and for all.

Next to health, the most important thing we can do for our next generation is provide them with the best in class education system.

Last year, while visiting the scene of literacy program, I met Melissa, who at nine years old told her teacher she wanted to be a Pulitzer Prize winning writer.

And instead of encouraging this path, her teacher said this You people should cook or clean houses.

And say it again.

You people should cook or clean houses.

Think about that for a second.

Discouraged.

She dropped out of school.

But years later, after raising a family, she went back to school in her fifties.

And today, Melissa is a published author.

You see, we need a system that respects and uplifts the hopes and dreams of every student.

Students like Melissa deserve inspiration, encouragement and attention.

And I believe I believe we can achieve this goal under the leadership of Dr. Warren Morgan.

He brings he brings the fresh perspectives and diverse experiences we need to deliver the high quality education every Cleveland student deserves.

And as you know, we have hard but necessary choices to make to ensure our children's success.

See, MSD deserves our full support and partnership to keep it on the right track.

We must all invest in the future success of our schools.

But we can't continue to operate with an outdated building footprint.

Realigning our vision for our schools won't be easy.

But know this, know this.

Students will be at the center of every policy.

Our schools were built in an era when Cleveland's population was triple the size.

We are overdue to adjust for the here and now.

And instead of allocating funds to keep up aging buildings, let's fund afterschool programs and tools for teachers at Rhodes High School.

The cheerleading squad told me they had to raise their own money for uniforms.

Countless principals have told me they can't afford the latest version of textbooks for their students.

That's not right.

Our kids deserve excellent resources across our schools, from Collinwood to West Park and everywhere in between.

School leaders should not have to choose between cutting programs and keeping the heat on.

And I'm confident in our kids and what our schools can achieve when they have the resources they need.

Again, it's the basics.

Keeping kids safe and healthy and making sure they have mental health support, the tools they need in classroom and Internet access to do their homework.

Change happens.

BLOCK by block.

Street by street.

Over the summer, I walk through each police district on public safety, walks with my cabinet, knocking on hundreds of doors and talking to residents about their concerns.

And do you know what I heard the most?

Not concerns about police presence or crime, but a continuous refrain of that house, that house, that house over there.

Residents are concerned about the abandoned, neglected houses in their neighborhoods, many of which become hubs for illegal activity.

You see, safety and the built environment are intertwined.

And as we walk the neighborhoods, we address residents concerns in real time.

Identifying a code enforcement issue or public safety issue at that house can turn around an entire block and in time transform an entire neighborhood.

One such story came to us from Mrs. Richardson on turbans and avenue.

The lot next to her was plagued by illegal dumping of trees and construction debris.

Our building and housing team investigated and found that the materials had been dumped by an out of state contractor that was fired and skipped town, leaving behind a whole hot mess for Mrs. Richardson and her neighbors.

Our inspector not only helped secure a new contractor, but also found one that worked with neighbors to make sure things got cleaned up and stayed that way.

This is how we create the conditions to restore hope in our communities.

Last year, we began a cleanup project on Kinsman Road.

Efforts as simple as picking up trash and planting trees inspired a whole group of neighbors to continue to keep up the street.

Hope has the power to create change, and that's a great example of why I'm so confident in Cleveland progress, as sometimes as simple as picking up trash.

And projects like this are popping up across our neighborhoods.

Last year, we launched a citywide Parks and Recreation Master Planning process, the first in our city's history.

Collecting resident input.

We found that half half of Clevelanders don't frequent our parks or rec centers due to quality and safety concerns.

This startling finding inspired us to act with urgency to address neglected playgrounds, pools and parks.

The foundation of growing up in a neighborhood we allocated $30 million in American Rescue Plan funding for capital improvements to roadways, playgrounds, parks and traffic calming efforts all across the entire city.

Again, we doubt in on the basics to work smarter.

Updating our snow and ice control service with route optimization technology and adding an additional paving crew to perform in-house road resurfacing.

Already this year, the Division of Streets has recycled over 600 tons of asphalt for road and pothole repairs.

Thank you, Frank Williams.

And that's before the plants are even open for the regular season.

Our public works teams are knocking it out of the park.

They picked up over 6700 tons of illegal dumping debris off the streets last year.

And for that great work, I awarded the Illegal Dumping Task Force with the inaugural mayor's innovation Award.

Some of them are here this afternoon.

Let's show them some love.

Let's give a round of applause so we can.

In our $50 million site, readiness for a good jobs fund will clean up thousands of acres of vacant lots and brownfields in the shovel ready sites.

With the potential to create 60,000 jobs in our neighborhoods, this is how we get Cleveland working again and working for everyone.

We've also implemented a new municipal income tax credit program, which reduces the amount of income tax a business pays to the city as an incentive to create and retain good jobs.

And these credits are already delivering results.

City Council recently approved both property and income tax credits to bring international food solutions, along with 225 new jobs to the central neighborhood.

In addition to job creation, the company has committed to robust community benefits under the city's new CBA law, including childcare subsidies, food donations, a pocket park for the community and so much more.

And these aren't the only new jobs coming to Cleveland.

Frontier Airlines just landed a new crew base at Cleveland Hopkins Airport with more than 400 new jobs, generating nearly $80 million annually in local wages.

2024 is all about jobs, and we're making changes to our economic development process to create the conditions for growth in our city.

We're hiring a director for business attraction and growth, creating a team of neighborhood based economic development specialists, and streamlining archaic permitting processes and outdated building codes to make starting a business in our city easier.

Family sustaining jobs that make homeownership possible are the key to building generational wealth.

There's a reason owning a home is the American dream.

It certainly was for my grandparents when they moved up north from the segregated south.

But we have an aging housing stock in Cleveland.

Too many of our seniors and residents live among blight and decaying conditions.

Last year, we allocated $15 million to make overdue home repairs.

These funds will also go towards accessible loans for lower income, home buyers and minority developers.

But it's not just homebuyers.

City government.

City government has fallen short when it comes to protecting renters from absentee landlords.

Residents and our city's housing stock has suffered as a result.

With council support, we recently passed Residents First's new legislation that ensures that every resident, regardless of their address, has access to high quality housing.

The Comprehensive Housing Reform Package closes loopholes that have allowed predatory landlords to take advantage of our residents.

It puts a stop to a disturbing trend of out of town investors and local slumlords acquiring Cleveland homes, renting them out, and allowing these properties to deteriorate.

Before the main way we held slumlords accountable was to bring them to court.

But guess what?

They don't live here.

They don't show up.

Councilwoman Gray had to go all the way to New York City to find a landlord who operated in her ward.

Councilman Pulisic sees folks from Belgium buying up properties in Collinwood.

It's hard to hold people in Europe accountable for the conditions of homes here in Cleveland.

So here's what we're doing today.

Whether you live in New York or Belgium to rent property in our city, you have to identify an actual human being who lives in the county to be held responsible for the property.

And we're going to stop and we're going to start issuing fines against landlords that don't keep their property up.

Just like parking tickets.

When you get a parking ticket because you parked in front of a hydrant, you move your car.

Predatory landlords have been getting a free ride in Cleveland.

Those days are over.

Over.

It also sickens me to my core to think our children are still living in lead infested homes.

When it comes to lead.

Cleveland will not tolerate noncompliance, and we're actively streamlining the process to make compliance easier.

Particles early for landlords with 1 to 3 unit properties.

Led inspections are a requirement for every landlord when they apply for rental permit, and we will aggressively prosecute landlords that fail to follow this law.

Last year alone, 50 property owners were issued multiple misdemeanor charges.

After it was determined a child at their property had been lead poisoning.

And a few weeks ago, we got our first conviction and there are many more in the pipeline.

We are certainly turning the tables on negligent landlords.

The pandemic exposed Cleveland's massive digital divide as well and forced us to acknowledge that Internet access must be a right, not a privilege.

Last fall, we announced two major efforts to bridge this gap.

First, we partner with private telecom developer sci fi networks to invest over a half a billion dollars and the citywide fiber network reaching every home and business in Cleveland at no cost to the city and installed and maintained using union labor.

But I couldn't ask our residents to wait seven years for broadband access.

The need is too urgent.

Using federal stimulus dollars, we are working with nonprofit Digital City to expand our broadband network.

They are offering high speed Internet across Cleveland for just $18 a month.

It's already up in Glenville and Collinwood and will be available to every single Cleveland resident next summer.

And thanks to the state of Ohio, digital C just received $10 million to speed this process along.

Clevelanders, living in predominantly black and brown communities, are no longer forced to accept being overcharged and underserved for this basic necessity.

And we're using the same public private partnership model across all our work to deliver for Cleveland residents.

We can't do it all from City Hall, nor should we.

By transferring management or share responsibility with experts and organizations whose sole focus is our asset success.

We can focus our resources on progress.

Ensuring our work carries on for generations to come.

We transfer care of the historic Highland Park golf course to a local nonprofit, maintaining it as a space for black golfers, both aspiring and seasoned to enjoy.

Now, more than a year into new management, it was ranked one of the most improved public golf courses in America.

I was also proud to support Cleaver Neighborhood Progress and Burton Belle Carr in their purchase of Shaker Square to save this historic shopping center work in Shaker Square and market corridors in Lee, Harvard, Mt.

Pleasant and Buckeye are ensuring our southeast side vision promise is no longer just a vision.

In addition to a $15 million ARPA investment in the southeast side, I'm pleased to announce that this afternoon we will launch a search for project teams to enhance several publicly owned properties in Cleveland's Leigh Harvard neighborhood, totaling totaling nearly $100 million of new investment coming to the South Eastside.

We believe that this is a model for reinvestment and renewal.

Citywide, renewed hope and economic prosperity have profound effects on a neighborhood.

Here's one of my favorite examples.

For 70 years, Dr. William Walker practiced dentistry for the Lee Harvard community.

In that building that housed the family practice, his daughter in law recently opened Docs on Harvard, the first upscale sit down restaurant to come to the neighborhood in decades.

The restaurant is hiring folks from the neighborhood while bringing new excitement and energy to the corridor.

To my southeast side family, I see you.

City Hall sees you.

And Crain's are coming to the south east side.

We are celebrating the vitality of the neighborhoods that I came from and working hand in hand to address the issues that we face as a city.

We have historically underinvested in our greatest assets.

Our waterfronts are a glaring example.

Our lakefront is the place where kids grew up fishing, where families went to grieve after losing a loved one.

Where Clevelanders, from all walks of life, gather to watch fireworks on the 4th of July.

Our waterfronts should be places of healing and community.

But access to the lakefront is far from equal due to decades of division and disinvestment.

Now, I know that in the last 100 years, there have been dozens upon dozens upon dozens of lakefront plans since Tom Johnson.

I think.

But I'm confident that this is the plan.

Here's why.

We founded the North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation to carry the plan forward across changing leadership and administrations.

We put people at the center of every decision.

More than 5000 Clevelanders told us what they want from their waterfronts and taking a shore to core to shore approach our riverfront and lakefront plans will work in tandem to holistically reshape our city and by implementing the tax Increment Financing District passed by City Council on Monday, we're using a portion of increased property tax value to pay for the public infrastructure.

That plan requires this.

This is how we stop managing decline and begin to grow once again.

The TIF district has the potential to generate between 3.3 to $7.5 billion over the next 40 years.

To make Cleveland one of the nation's finest two waterfront cities with additional growth to invest in neighborhoods and green spaces, city wide.

Real progress on our waterfronts.

And as Chair of Climate Mayors, I'm committed to ensuring federal funding benefits communities of color and those most vulnerable to climate change.

Our plans for the lakefront and riverfront are designed to prepare us to combat flooding and extreme weather.

In fact, the city of Cleveland has pledged a 50% greenhouse gas reduction by 2030.

And as our nation and our planet continue to feel the effects of climate change, what we have here in Cleveland is increasingly attractive an opportunity to grow our population after decades of stagnation and decline.

This is our time, Cleveland, and people are taking notice of the transformation happening here.

Recognize housing us as a competitive, attractive city that thinks outside the box to tackle systemic problems.

You see, meeting this moment will require hard choices, but greatness.

Greatness takes hard choices.

And over the past two years, we haven't shied away from our toughest challenges.

And we won't start now.

We've we've reset relationships.

We've taken on predatory landlords.

We've delivered on a modern city hall.

We've been bold in our vision for our waterfronts and the southeast side.

We've achieved real results and our strategy to address public safety.

But many of the challenges we face today have been built up over generations.

That's not an excuse.

It's a reminder that change doesn't happen overnight.

But I'm not going to tell you to be patient.

Instead, I ask you to stay engaged.

Demand better and be proud of the progress we are making together.

A few weeks ago, during his State of the Union, President Biden reminded us that America is the land of turning setbacks into comebacks.

When we get knocked down, we get back up.

We keep going here in Cleveland.

We keep going.

Together, we have set in motion a wave of renewal.

We're creating new jobs, paving pathways to homeownership, improving our neighborhoods, and building a safer, stronger city for every resident.

Together, we are making Cleveland a place in this country where the American dream is still within reach for everyone.

The state of our city is strong and we're just getting started.

God bless you all.

God bless our great city and God bless our great country.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Bibb.

And thank you to Dr.. President Bloomberg for being with us today.

And thank you to the Cleveland residents who took the time to share their stories and their questions with the mayor.

We'd also like to thank all of all of you who have joined us live at the Mimi, Ohio Theater at Playhouse Square Online or on our live broadcast at 89.7 WKSU.

On behalf of the city, I also want to recognize all of our partners who made tonight or today possible, including my colleagues at PNC Bank, the Cleveland Foundation, Cleveland.com and KeyBank.

Additional gratitude to ideastream Public Media for their continued partnership and their support, as well as our generous hosts, Craig Hassall and the entire Playhouse Square team.

There are many other sponsors and community partners listed in the in today's program whose support helped make sure that this event was accessible to all, including to so many Cleveland residents from all across neighborhoods in our great city.

Thanks as well to our partners at City Hall, to the mark, to the mayor's hardworking staff and the wonderful Playhouse Square Red Coats, and of course, as always, our city club volunteers.

Finally, there are a number of wonderful, wonderful programs, as always, coming up at the City Club.

You can find out more, as well as access our archives, including that for today's program at City Club Dawg.

Thank you once again to Mayor Bibb and to Dr. Bloomberg.

I'm Kristen Bird Adams, and this forum is now adjourned.

For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club, go to City Club, dawg.

Production and distribution of City Club forums and Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland, Inc..