This is the FCB Podcast Network. This is the Jeff Show. Welcome to the Jeff Lorian Nick Show. And we're an informative talk show that is focused on finding solutions to today's problems and issues of the day. Today, we are so happy to have with us a special guest. And this person is doing just so much in the community, in his local community in which he serves. Today we have our special guests and he is the Cleveland Municipal Clerk of Courts. His name is Earl Turner. Earl Turner, thank you for being with us. How are you today? I'm doing great. Thank you for the opportunity to come under your show. And they talk about Earl Turner and the Clerk of Courts. Oh, thank you so much. First of all, I think a big question for a lot of us is what is the Clerk of courts? What does the clerk do? And also, Earl, just tell us how long have you been doing this? Well? The state statute say that our job is to record all matters that come before Cleveland Municipal Court. And that's a big broad definition because we have so many different constituencies. For example, where we never closed, we're open twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days out of the year. When people are arrested, they want to post bond. You know, the Clerk of Courts office is the place that you come post that bond. After the court has determined if it's a personal bond or if it's a money bond or whatever it is, you come to the clerk's office and then we process that bond. We set up the court dockets on a daily basis, whether they're criminal, civil housing, we set those dockets up on a daily basis. We also have what's called the Parking Violations Bureau where people can come pay their parking tickets. Several years ago, I convinced the administration, the Jackson administration, that we needed a one stop shop location and now we have a one stop shop location on Quickly Road where you can come. You see the police, you get your release, you play the Clerk of Courts, and then you walk in the back end you can pick up your car. Well before people that would have to come to the Justice center, then they would have to go to the police depart and then they'd have to find the toeyard where their cars were at. And so now it's on Quickly Road where you can go pay those tickets. Now, you said that you worked with the Jackson administration, so are you speaking of former Mayor Jackson. That's correct, former Mayor Jackson. So the clerk of courts, you, as the clerk of courts, worked with the mayor to come up with a one stop shop or where folks would come in and just get everything taken care of. Yes, yes, because you know we're on the back end and we would get so many complaints where people are coming to the Justice Center and they were complaining about they had to go to multiple locations. And one of my strengths is re engineering. I like to take processes and take a look at and see how can I make it better? And number one, customer service. You know that wasn't customer service. People running all over the city to get their card. That just wasn't customer service. So as a clerk of courts, this is something that could happen all across Ohio or in any municipality. Is because I'm just thinking our listeners are all over so yes, yes, there are clerk of courts in every court. There are twenty six clerks that are elected in the state of Ohio, and some are appointed by the judges. Oh, this is very informative. So how long have you been earl? How long have you been clerk? Of course what I was became the clerk of courts. I think it's nineteen ninety five. That's awesome. So so the Clerk of courts is make sure that records are kept, everything is moving smoothly through the courts, all the paperworking, documents and and so on and so forth. So this is this is great. Um. A lot of people just don't realize the duties of the Clerk of courts. Um. Are you the person to go to when they have problems or need um or have questions? Do folks call you? Well, some people do because my phone number is still available. So some people do call the heat or the office. So I have a I have a staff of close to now it's down to about one hundred and forty because of COVID UM, and it's been difficult, um, you know, securing people to work in the office, you know, because of COVID and our low salary structure, which we've just made adjustments to that structure. But you would call the Clerk of Courts office and somebody will serve you. Now is your office. Is the Clerk of Courts office divided into is it just criminal cases or are there civil We have three departments. We have the criminal division, we have the civil division, and then we have the parking violation of division. So we have three distinct departments that cover. Now civil are all matters where people file cases for I'll give you I'll just simplify it, like if a person doesn't pay their charge card, when a charge card company may file, you know, to collect on that charge card. For nowadays, one of the big issues in the city is in housing. You can come. If you have a landlord and he doesn't fix up the house, you can come put your rent in the Clerk of Courts office, and as long as you do that, the landlord can evict you and then it goes the housing court judge to make a determination when you should receive your rent. But you have to you have to pay that rent on a monthly basis. We also have a department where if you're having a problem paying that charge card or you're you're paying some other bills, okay, you can come and pay twenty five percent of your income into the court and then we will pay those folks and then it stops them from garnishing you. So we have some programs too. Is it twenty five percent of your income or twenty five percent of the bill? Twenty five percent of your income? Oh okay. These are programs that a lot of folks aren't just aren't aware of, especially that house. I know, we look in the news and we hear about the issues of housing and folks some landlords not taking care of violations and and and that, And I think this is a great program here to actually just pay you your office, the clerk of courts, put that money there and then have that landlord make those repairs. And I think that's pretty powerful. And that was bad about it? A lot of people don't take advantage of it. Yes, so it's good to make these things awad. Now we want to get into your man. This innovative program that you started called in the Neighborhood. Tell us about that. How long has it been in existence? Well? No, but I started now fourteen years old and we've served over sixteen thousand people. Because I feel that my responsibility is not just to send in the justice center and collect, you know, revenue for the City of Cleveland. I felt that we needed to take our office to the community, and that's what we do every single year. We take our office to the community because a lot of people are scared of the court. You know, if you're not somebody to work there, you don't you don't have the fear, okay, but if you have a case and if you miss a court date, then your fear goes up. Okay, Naturally, when you walk into Justice center and you're gonna pay a ticket, you know, you're scared. You know, what are they gonna do? What's gonna happen? It's the Justice Center. I don't like the Justice Center. So we take our office into the neighborhood to service people and to help people with their problems in front of the court. And it's a no arrest program, so they can have warrants. They come into our program, we get them back into court. Sometimes we get them into community work service. And then we took a holistic approach. We now have fourteens suburbs that work with us. Because sometimes people come to our in the neighborhood and they have issues with Perma Shaker and we can't help them. So I went to those jurisdictions and got them to partner with us. So if you come to our program, we would then give you documentation to take to send you to Garfield Heights and then they respect, they respected, and no, you came from our program. So you actually went and forged these relationships, working relationships with other suburbs to allow those citizens to come into your court. You're in the neighborhood sessions and resolve a lot of these issues that they have legal issues, absolutely, because we found there was no good for us to just try to service just the issues in Cleveland that you know, taking that holistic approach to try to solve all their problems so that they don't we try. We try to solve it and clean, but you still got something to shaker that just doesn't work. And so have been able, you know, to resolve their problems. And then we have agencies, employment agencies, health agencies. It's not just court. We have all kinds of So we have Kihager Community College they come out to out, you know, going to college, the training programs. We just have so many different agencies. So when you come there, we have child support. Child support you know, suspends a lot of license because of a failure to pay child support. So we we have child support. They come and so it's a holistic approach, not just us. But Okay, he's got a problem over here, how do you solve the problem over here? So we brought all those agency so when the individual leaves, he has the necessary help to try to resolve his problem once and for all. I think this is Uh, it's a it's an incredible program in the neighborhood. What type of numbers are you seeing in participation? Uh? And you said something that really strikes a chord with a lot of people, and we see it. A lot of us know that there are folks out there that are driving with warrants and suspended licenses, et cetera. They won't stop, and it's I think they're afraid. They're afraid to go. And we know that they're afraid to go into the justice center and go through the metal detectors and give up their idea and show identification, et cetera. And sometimes they may not even have by spific gage and I don't know, but um, so it's very intimidating to go downtown to park and go through all of these hurdles and and like you said it could be very asking the different police and a lot of these folks are afraid of law enforcement, which they shouldn't be. But here you are, as the clerk of courts. You want to clear up all of those problems that they have and get rid of all those fears so that they can literally just get all their records cleaned up. I think that's awesome. Earl Turner. We're gonna take a quick break and with our audience, we're gonna come right back. We're gonna tell you just stay with us, and Earl Turner, Clerk of course, has got some exciting stuff to share with you. We'll be right back. Thank you, Thank you to our audience for staying with us. We have an very respectful guest today, mister Earl B. Turner, who is the Cleveland Municipal Clerk of Courts, and we're talking about a very innovative program that he's launched fourteen years ago, seeing much success helping many people, and a lot of us have someone in our family or may know of someone that needs help with some legal matter. Earl, you were just telling us about the end of neighborhood and let me ask you this, what inspired you to get this program started. Well, it started when I was a city councilman and I couldn't affect any change in a lot of the areas that I had complaints from my constituents. So when I became the Clerk of courts, I said, wow, now I have an opportunity that I can affect change and help people. So that was one of the first things that I did. You know, because people would come to me about driver's license, they were coming to me about the court and I just I couldn't do anything as a councilman, and so as the Clerk of courts, you know, I had the opportunity to affect that change. And so when you come to our in the neighborhood, I talked about a holistic approach. A lot of people don't know about how do you get your license back? Well, when you come, we tell you how you can get into a license program reinstatement program for fifty dollars where your license has been suspended. And over the years there were some people that had five hundred five thousand dollars in license reinstatement and so, you know, our goal was to get those people back on the road so they could drive again, you know, and wouldn't have to become victims of being stopped. Well, now we tell you how to go to the bureau, the BMD, how you can get into payment plans if you economically qualify. There's some programs with the state that were reduced those costs. And so when we first started the program, we started going to churches. No, when we first started, the first place we went was a vacant lot on Central because we wanted people to trust us, because it's all about trust, you know. You know, some people would think it's a trick. Oh, come, I got a warrant army that they're asking me to come to this program. They're gonna arrest me and put me in jail. So we started on Central Avenue in a vacant lot, and then over the years we morphed into going to churches and the WRECT centers and all kinds of different agencies. When we started at the Word Church, we sat five hundred people. It would be so crowded we would just get overrun. And so now we still go to places like the Words and we see about because there's such a demand for our services. We see a hundred people, we can only see a hundred people at a time, and we hit that number. Every time we announce a location, we hit that number. And so now we've also added we added several years ago, we added an organization called Legal Works. Okay, now, Legal Works as an organization that fouls the motions for people to get their records sealed or expunged. So we were like way ahead of the game and they would come out and you know, do the documentation and try to get their records expunged. So now that has turned into a tremendous demand. People are trying to change their lives because that's what in the Neighborhood is all about. Helping people change their life once and for us so they get out of that circle. Because if you stay in a circle, it's hard to get out of the circle. And only happens is you just stay in it, and then all kinds of negative things could happen. So Legal Works files emotions and we're helping hundreds of people get their records expunged so they can change their careers or there's better career opportunities. You know what happens when people have records, they have warrants on them. They couldn't get the record exponge. Well, you know, if people take advantage of them, and so what happens. You know, It's like they'll look at their record and say, okay, i'll pay you five dollars an hour, where nobody can live on five dollars an hour, you know. So some of those people were taking advantage of them. So we're trying to help people change their life. Hey man, it reminds me of a song. I'm gonna clean up what I messed up, bess up my life all over again. Right, so this is you're doing. This is actually God's work. And what is it? What is it? What is his name? I'm gonna clean up what I messed up, started my life all over again. So yeah, so you're actually doing God's work. This is God's work helping people get their lives fixed up, cleaned up, get it together so you can get started and be more productive. Earl Turner, Cleveland Clerk of Courts is setting a great example. You've raised the bar for Clerk of Courts. How successful has it been for the clerk's office in terms of bringing in revenue and also increasing the number of people. Well, as far as the revenue is concerned, we do a really good job of collecting, but again, sometimes it's difficult to collect from people that just don't have it, and so the law does allow for those people to go into community work service so that they if they don't have the money, then they can go to some of the nonprofit agencies in the city of Cleveland and they can work it work it off. This year we collected in one area over three hundred thousand dollars, So we collect millions of dollars in revenue. They go to the city and that's the part of the job that sometimes it's very difficult, and sometimes it's it's not very nice. It's not the part of the job that I like, but unfortunately it's it's my responsibility statutory by the state of Ohio. So just to talk talk about the success of the program, are you seeing what two hundred people there are there? Like fifty people? If a person comes to one of these events, will they be a loan or are they going to be in a line where it's just two or three people or there other are there other tens of people? Are what kind of numbers are you seeing? Um, we'll have in the neighborhood event and we take about one hundred and ten people because we can't handle more than that into the system at one time. Okay, but what we do is we have you to come at nine o'clock in the morning, and then we were able to go downtown get all the paperwork together electronically, and then we have you to come back at one o'clock and then we're able to process very quickly from one to four. So we have a team that comes in the morning, and then we have a team that comes after lunch that looks up all your cases and tells you you know what you need to do, directs you to a court, directs you to some other places. We even to tell you what I like about the program. We even have the Police fire MS recruiting recruiting recruiting people at the event, telling people how they can become a policeman in the city of Cleveland, how you can become a firman in the city of Cleveland, how you can get a job at MS. So they have been a partner with us trying to say to people, all because you have one incident on your record, you could still become a firman, you could still become a policeman, or you could still go to MS. So they come in the most positive way, just recruiting people and telling some of those people have given up. Jeff, I'll tell you last week I was at Philip Sweetly and a mom got her son on the phone and she said, would you please talk to my son? And so I said, what would you know? What would She said, what would you like for me to talk to him about? She said, Phillie Phillis Sweetley is a rec center. No, Phillis Sweetly is where people live down down on It's like thirty eighth Street. So I called her son and he says, I have one event on my record and he says, nobody cares. He said, they're never gonna take it off my record. He said, you know, I try to get jobs, I try to get housing, and I can't get housing. And so he said nobody cares. I said, well that's why I'm here. He said, they're not going to take it off my record, you know, And I said, well, what's on your record? And it was so small, It's like but he had given up. He had given up hope that he could clean his record up, which was something small that he didn't think anybody cared. And so now he's just his mother said. He runs from Nickel Dame job to nicol Dame job. And you know, I spent a long time trying to convince him that there are people who care about you, you know, but a lot of people in our society, you know, they lose hope, and so my job is to give them hope. That's real. I'm not selling them hope without reality. You could get your record expunge, you can go to court, you can get your record cleaned up. You don't have to live a certain way. You can now what you clean up your record, you can apply for better jobs. You don't have to go to some store and the guy tells you I'm gonna pay you five dollars an hour because you got a record you don't have. You know, you don't have to do that. And so helping people in changing lines is something that for me is important because there was always somebody standing in front of me trying to help me when I grew up. And what I what I do in closing, I share my life at the end of neighborhood. You know, I tell the folks that the neighborhood, how I grew up. You know, my family, you know, so that they don't think that. You know, folks like myself are just you know, life was easy. You know, it was just handed to me. And you know, I try to share with them that my situation and growing up was no different than yours. But you have to pull yourself up, okay, and you got to have hope and you got to keep trying. And that's why community college is there. Take advantage of community college. Get into job training programs. You know, there are so many truck driving jobs out there today, it's unbelievable. There's so many jobs of Cleveland Clinic. It's unbelievable. There's so many jobs in the city of Cleveland. It's unbelievable. But you gotta Once you get your record clean, those opportunities of twenty dollars twenty five dollars become available to you to live a better life. Folks, Folks who are listening to this right now, the best thing that you could do is share this with someone. Let somebody you know that we have an advocate in our Clerk of Courts, in the Cleveland Clerk of Courts, mister ARLB. Turner, who is making opportunities available for you to get your life together to get your records cleaned up. And that was a very powerful testimony that he just gave about a young man who had one little thing on his record that was preventing him from getting real gainful employment. There's so many opportunities out here, so take advantage of this in the neighborhood program that is moving right along through communities locally in the city of Cleveland. Other Clerk of Courts across the country and state are able to use maybe use this model to get other folks together in their communities. And that's what it's all about. We want to help somebody, We want to empower the individual. And before we close, I want I'm going to ask the clerk of mister Old Turner to tell us what type of things you need to bring to these events and and how we can find out more information about the Clerk of Courts in the neighborhood as their website is their phone number, and tell us what type of things an individual will need to bring to an event. So in closing, just bring bring your body to the event. When you hear my voice on the radio or in the newspaper I'm sorry not newspaper, but on the internet. Just come and we'll help you. Do they need to not any ID needed? Well, no, we we we know people don't have ID. We know. So bring what you can, Bring what you can. We're gonna work with you. This program has been used by other states. They have contacted us and took our model across the country and they're using it. And that's that's what makes me so happy about in the neighborhood because other people across the country are utilizing our model in some form. Just come, don't don't worry, don't get up and say I gotta have this, gotta have this, I gotta have this. No, just come, Just come as you are, Come as you are. Thank you. So don't worry about ID or anything like that. Just come and help. Yeah, just just help us. Get yourself together, Yes, get the individuals together. Thank you so much. Mister ARLB. Turner, who was the Cleveland Municipal Clerk of Courts, gave us such an empowering UH interview today. And again, thank you to our audience for listening. And let's remember to keep fighting the good fight for our communities, for our families, for our friends, and for ourselves. And let's all remember that we can all do better? Thank you again, God bleas you Wow wow. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network where real talk lifts. Visit us online at FCB podcasts dot com.
