Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Newcomer Justin Bibb (pictured), a former Barack Obama intern and progressive who won the Cleveland nonpartisan runoff election for mayor in November of 2021 over then Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley to become the city's fourth Black mayor and its second youngest behind former mayor Dennis Kucinich, gave his second State of the City address on Wednesday evening from a podium in the auditorium at East Technical High School, a forum hosted by the City Club that drew hundreds.

The issues the 35-year-old Black mayor addressed ranged from the pandemic to the costly renovation of the West Side Market, public and student safety, lead poisoning, economic growth, and the selection process for the next Cleveland schools CEO to replace outgoing CEO Eric Gordon. He praised Gordon for his 11 years of service as CEO as the Cleveland schools will welcome a new CEO in coming weeks under the leadership of the mayor, who controls the city schools and appoints school board members per state law.

The mayor much anticipated address focused on safety, education and educational policy and was a bit different from his first State of the City Address where he took a ceremonial oath of office during an invited-guests-only inauguration ceremony held  at the Public Hall Auditorium and prominent dignitaries were on hand to support him like  11th Congressional District Congresswoman Shontel Brown But his speech had similarities to last year's  address.

“We can achieve a safer, more equitable, healthier Cleveland,” the mayor said last year relative to his first state of the city address. “We can be the Cleveland that young people move back to because there are good jobs, safe streets, good schools, quality grocery stores, good healthcare. We don’t just have to dream about Cleveland, we can and will work toward that goal every minute of every single day.”

On Wednesday during his speech the mayor again said that safety remains paramount and a major goal of his administration.

“To become a safer city, we must invest in violence prevention and reduction and address the root cause of violence,” he said, adding that even with a shortage of some 200 police officers safer streets are a priority as is  “data-driven policing” that can be effectively achieved only when all stakeholders are at the table

He highlighted a $10 million investment into a violence prevention endowment fund that came about via American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) monies and said that Cleveland cannot progress until crime is substantially lowered and people feel safe in their school communities and students are safe in school and when they are coming going to school And the mayor said he will continue to support the business community, including a multi-million dollar project to revitalize the West Side Market that has some city council members griping that the price tag is too high.

As to the pandemic, the mayor said that Cleveland will regroup and recoup, and he discussed the impact that COVID-19 has had on students and their mental health. he also said that education will remain a key focus throughout his tenure as mayor

In spite of never holding office before, Bibb, a Democrat, was the top vote-getter in a seven-way primary in 2021  He ran on the political platform of decreasing crime and reforming the city's troubled police department. Armed with endorsements from key people like former mayors Michael R. White and Jane Campbell, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Cleveland, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, he went on to win the Cleveland nonpartisan prinary election over then council president Kevin Kelley, a former White west side councilman and now common pleas judge who placed second

With the wisdom of campaign manager Ryan Puente, the former executive director of the Cuyahoga County Democratic party who is now the mayor's chief of governmental affairs, Bibb won the November general election with a whopping 63 percent of the vote compared to Kelley's 37 percent, even though Kelley had been endorsed by Bibb's predecessor, four term former mayor Jackson and a handful of other city council persons, including Black councilpersons Blaine Griffin, who is now the city council president, Kevin Bishop and Kevin Conwell. It was an upset of large magnitudes, and a mandate by voters, Black voters in particular.

The son of a social worker and Cleveland cop who grew up in Cleveland's Mt Pleasant neighborhood, Mayor Bibb is a former banker who holds a law degree from Case Western Reserve University. He interned for Barack Obama when Obama, who later became president, was a junior U.S. senator.

He ran a cleverly crafted grassroots campaign with the support of young progressives across racial lines who embraced his ideas and political stances.  He knocked on doors and met with small community groups across the city long before the primary election got underway, and it paid off in the end as it catapulted him to victory, and to City Hall.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and blog in Ohio and in the Midwest Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL

Warren Morgan, who is Black, and Ricardo “Rocky” Torres, a Hispanic man, will be interviewed for the top position in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District on April 24 and 25 by Mayor Justin M. Bibb and by eight community panels that will include teachers, staff, parents, students, community partners and union and district leadership. Both of the finalists slated to be interviewed next week for the CEO position are credentialed.

A former CMSD administrator and student services assistant superintendent for Seattle Public Schools, Torres holds a Ph.D. in urban education from Cleveland State University. Also a former Cleveland schools administrator, Morgan, who is currently the chief academic officer for Indianapolis Public Schools and a former White House fellow under presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, has an E.d D. from the University of Illinois-Chicago

Whether the selection process for the schools CEO is legal in terms of  the mayor and eight panels usurping the role of a duly appointed board of education to help it choose the finalist remains to be seen.

While it sounds community oriented, it has legal implications, and people are now questioning how such panels came about, and why it was necessary to usurp the authority of the board of education, a nine-member largely White school board that consists of some suburbanites and corporate-types and is led by board president Anne E. Bingham, a  White woman who is vice president of First Federal Bank Lakewood. Others say that Bibb, 35 and Cleveland's fourth Black mayor, is a progressive mayor who has latitude under state law to craft his own rules for the selection of a CEO, within reason. They say  that it is time for a change, no matter how it comes about, a change that includes White folks no longer running a largely Black public school district in a majority Black major American city while Blacks are simultaneously subordinated.

Under Bibb's predecessor, former mayor Frank Jackson, the city's third Black mayor and its longest serving mayor, the school district's central office administrators have become increasingly White over the years, particularly during Jackson's last two terms.  In fact,  a former elected Cleveland school board member referred to central office employees and administrators in the district as "nearly lily White and collectively un-certified and unqualified to be over Black children."

Cleveland schools are under mayoral control per a state law that took effect in 1998 when Mike White, the city's second Black mayor, was mayor and the school district and the state of Ohio were released from the longstanding Cleveland schools desegregation case, a case officially titled Reed v Rhodes. Such law, which was sponsored by Republican state lawmakers, eliminated an elected school board and gave the city mayor the power to appoint school board members. Cleveland voters, via a ballot referendum, later sanctioned the mayoral control law (House Bill 269)  at the ballot box following a cleverly crafted referendum campaign pushed by district officials  and then mayor Jane Campbell, the city's first female mayor, and a White woman. Campbell lost reelection to the popular Jackson, then a city council president embraced by Black leaders and Black  clergy, and obviously Black voters who helped to keep him in office for four terms until he chose to retire in 2021.

How Mayor Bibb, who took office in January of 2022, became personally embroiled in the selection process for the school district's next CEO to replace the likable Eric Gordon, who is White and credentialed, is intriguing, sources have said. Also at issue are community panels that may or may not have authority under the law to choose the next CEO since they are, by design, composed of teachers, parents and staff members, a possible conflict of interest. This is coupled with the fact that it is the role of the board of education to hire a superintendent, or if the public school district like Cleveland's is under mayor control, a superintendent or a CEO. (Editor's note: Under the state law for mayoral control in Ohio the CEO does not have to be a certified superintendent, which is why the position is dubbed "CEO" and not "superintendent," and top level administrators at central office also do not have to be certified. This setup is unlike all other public school districts in Ohio, a scenario questioned as perpetuating a double standard in terms of qualified school district personnel or the lack thereof serving in impoverished largely Black public school districts that are more likely to be under mayoral control as compared to affluent predominately White school districts. However, CMSD principals and assistant principals, like teachers, must be certified pursuant to the mayoral control law ).

This is a continuing story per an ongoing investigation by Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and blog in Ohio and in the Midwest Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Today, state Sen Nickie J. Antonio (D-Lakewood), a Lakewood Democrat and House Minority Leader whose 23rd state senate district includes state legislative districts 13, 14 and 15, parts of the cities of Lakewood, Euclid and Parma, and 14 of Cleveland's 17 wards, provided sponsor testimony on Senate Bill 100, which she is jointly sponsoring with state Sen. Nathan Manning (R-North Ridgeville), The anti-stalking bill, if passed, would prohibit the installation of an electronic tracking device or app on someone else's property without consent and a conviction for doing so would constitute a first degree misdemeanor, which under Ohio law is punishable by a possible fine and up to six months in jail.

"Right now, Ohio's stalking code does not include the use of electronic tracking devices," Antonio said. "Clearly, that law was put into the code long before we ever had small electronic tracking devices, like Apple AirTags, thus the application of the law is inconsistent. These easily accessible and relatively inexpensive devices have plenty of useful purposes, but should never be used without consent. Ohioans deserve protection from all forms of stalking, especially as technology continues to evolve."

The idea for this legislation came from a WKYC story involving Kar'mell Triplett, a woman from Akron who unknowingly had an AirTag attached to her car that tracked her movements for 24 hours.

The bill is a reintroduction of Senate Bill 339 from the last General Assembly. Under current law, stalking and menacing statutes are relied upon to address cases of unwanted tracking. However, the current statute regarding tracking is unclear when it comes to defining a "pattern of conduct" with an electronic device.

Senate Bill 100 now awaits further hearings in the Senate Financial Institutions and Technology Committee.

Like House Bill  672, which is also pending and is similar to SB100, SB100 creates exceptions for law enforcement officials installing tracking devices as part of a criminal investigation, parents monitoring their minor children, and caregivers keeping track of elderly adults. But even those exceptions have provisions designed to prevent their abuse.

The use of gynecology in stalking has become more common place, though physical surveillance is often the most frequently cited tactic (when considering all the varieties of physical surveillance), followed by phone calls, and then by other unwanted contact. Data also show that men are more frequent stalkers in comparison to women.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com the most read Black digital newspaper and blog in Ohio and in the Midwest Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Today, state Sen Nickie J. Antonio (D-Lakewood), a Lakewood Democrat and House Minority Leader whose 23rd state senate district includes state legislative districts 13, 14 and 15, parts of the cities of Lakewood, Euclid and Parma, and 14 of Cleveland's 17 wards, provided sponsor testimony on Senate Bill 100, which she is jointly sponsoring with state Sen. Nathan Manning (R-North Ridgeville), The anti-stalking bill, if passed, would generally prohibit the installation of an electronic tracking device or app on someone else's property without consent and a conviction for doing so would constitute a first degree misdemeanor, which under Ohio law is punishable by a possible fine and up to six months in jail.

"Right now, Ohio's stalking code does not include the use of electronic tracking devices," Antonio said. "Clearly, that law was put into the code long before we ever had small electronic tracking devices, like Apple AirTags, thus the application of the law is inconsistent. These easily accessible and relatively inexpensive devices have plenty of useful purposes, but should never be used without consent. Ohioans deserve protection from all forms of stalking, especially as technology continues to evolve."

The idea for this legislation came from a WKYC story involving Kar'mell Triplett, a woman from Akron who unknowingly had an AirTag attached to her car that tracked her movements for 24 hours.

The bill is a reintroduction of Senate Bill 339 from the last General Assembly. Under current law, stalking and menacing statutes are relied upon to address cases of unwanted tracking. However, the current statute regarding tracking is unclear when it comes to defining a "pattern of conduct" with an electronic device.

Senate Bill 100 now awaits further hearings in the Senate Financial Institutions and Technology Committee.

Like House Bill  672, which is also pending and is similar to SB100, SB100 creates exceptions for law enforcement officials installing tracking devices as part of a criminal investigation, parents monitoring their minor children, and caregivers keeping track of elderly adults. But even those exceptions have provisions designed to prevent their abuse.

The use of gynecology in stalking has become more common place, though physical surveillance is often the most frequently cited tactic (when considering all the varieties of physical surveillance), followed by phone calls, and then by other unwanted contact. Data also show that men are more frequent stalkers in comparison to women.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com the most read Black digital newspaper and blog in Ohio and in the Midwest Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.