This is the FCB Podcast Network. This is The l Laws Extra. Welcome to the Outlaws Extra. This is Darveota Kingpenmorrow. 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 Radio. We have a very special guest with US Cleveland Council President Blaine Griffin, who's going to be talking about a whole host of issues that's been going on. Whether it's the controversy over whether or not to issue a cease fire resolution relating to the situation in gazap. We're also talking about the issue that we're having with the dramatic reduction in police forces in the city of Cleveland, as well as the mayor's recent budget announcing that they're going to be budgeting for even less officers as well, and a whole host of other issues that we got into. I'm very grateful that he was able to take the time to sit and talk to us about a lot of things are important not just for the city, but you know nationwide as well. They have national implications. As a matter of fact, his decision making on the Gaza situation made national news. It was in a PBS piece recently as well. So all right, so those of you who are familiar with Outlaws Extras, you know how this goes. We are going to take a break now and then go to the interview in its entirety. So stay tuned you're listening to the Outlaws Extra SA welcome back. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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've already done so, thank you, oh so very much. And now let's get to our interview with Cleveland Council President Blaine Griffin. All Right, we have a very special guest on the show today. He's been on this show many times before. Friend of the show, Cleveland City Councilman Blaine Griffin. Welcome back. How you doing sir? I'm doing good, yo. How you doing today? Man, one of the my main man, one of the guys that called it straight in the city of Cleveland. I appreciate that, man, and thank you for taking the time to speak to us. Man. It's always it's always informative when you come on the show because there's a lot of stuff going on that people don't real and not enough people are asking the questions. So we have a lot of things to discuss. But first, let's start with the news that's just breaking as of this recording, and that is the BIB of administration releasing their projected budget which share which shows another reduction in police officers. Talk a little bit about what you've seen so far with that, I believe it was released today, and just give people your thoughts and your position on that. Well, let me make it clear, I don't want to jump to say that it's a reduction in police officers. Here's what I do want to make clear. When we first started doing this approximately two years ago, we had sixteen fourteen police officers, approximately sixteen hundred and fourteen police officers budget in the budget. Last year, the administration came to us and said, hey, we're not going to probably get to that sixteen even though past folks and past leadership has said they need as much as seventeen hundred. But the bottom line is they, you know, basically said that they would like to budget fourteen ninety eight well, fast forward to this year, and the budget in the amount that they believe that they want to budget is thirteen hundred and fifty. They believe that with the rate of attrition and with the amount of you know, people that they're bringing in the classes, that their budgeting amount is thirteen fifty. I have not seen any independent analysis or anything else in order to show what the optimal amount of police should be in the city of Cleveland. I know that there's organizations that do that, like Police Executive Research Forum, they call it perfect others, but I really like to see what is the baseline, What is the the mount the appropriate amount for you know, cities the size of Cleveland that have comparable crime rates, what's the amount and how does that look and how's the deployment strategy. Plus we're under a consent decree, so I want to make sure and hope that we're in compliance with the staffing levels that we outlined in the consent decree. So all of those things matter, and all of those things are what we're looking at very close. And so obviously, by you being the council president, you talk to the other members of the council all the time. What do you think the temperature is for them? What is what do you think the appetite is for them to go along with this? Or is there going to be some concerns? Do they have similar concerns and similar questions like you do. Most of the body, and most of the people that I've talked to have very similar concerns. You know, you got councilors, seventeen different members. You have some members that you know, hey, they may be cool. I'm not sure. I haven't talked to them yet, but most are the ones that I've talked to are concerned because they believe that this is what caused us not to be able to recover in the first place, because we never really set a level to say this is the line we're going to draw. Way back in twenty fourteen when we laid off more than two hundred and twenty two officers. The city has never recovered from that, and a lot of people feel like if we continue to go to this great and budget for this amount, You're talking about the city with three hundred and seventy or three hundred and sixty four thousand people or so, and you got approximately you know, we got approximately one thousand. You know, probably about eleven hundred foot soldiers on the ground now, So we got to really ask ourselves is that appropriate amount? And we know that we had to spend a significant amount of time bringing in resources from the state, from the Highway Patrol, from the Marshall's office, from the Sheriff's office. We need to look at all of those things because what I'm concerned may happen is that some of these guys may go to some of these other departments and we continue to see a decline in retention rates here. So there's a lot of questions, a lot of concerns, and you know, we'll have that deliberation over the next few weeks. We're talking with Cleveland City Council President Blaine Griffin, and I saw a report recently from Channel nineteen for those of you outside of Cleveland, that is the CBS affiliate here locally, and they said, you know, within the last believe in the two or three years, we've lost like five hundred or five hundred and fifty officers or something like that. It seems like the things that are trying to be done to slow to stop the proverbial bleeding, if you will, we're still losing officers. What do you think the cause of that is in your view? Why why are we losing officers at a rate that we were not losing just a few years ago. What's your thought. I think it's multiple things. I don't think you can put it on one. But if I was to just put it on a couple of things. Nationwide, they called for, you know, police reform and realing police in And let me say this, I agree with police reform. I believe that you should keep police accountable. I believe that the police department should be reported to civilians. However, the structures and the pushback that police have gotten, whether right or wrong, I think have discouraged a lot of people from trying to get into that law enforcement profession. So I don't think this is just a Cleveland problem. I think it's a national problem. But locally, I will tell you that the job has probably become tougher, probably has become more cumbersome. There's probably a significant amount of burnout, and once again, we're not bringing in people at the rates that we used to bring them in. So our departments are authentic fast and we got to find a way to really try to beef up and onboard people to be police officers in the city Cleveland. Yeah, it seems like a lot of times the conversation gets swung from one extreme to the other. I think most people want police to be held accountable when they do wrong, But there's also the understanding that if you're good, if they're good officers, you want those people. You want those people in your city to help keep people safe. And does it seem like the conversation around this issue has been swinging so dramatically in one direction or the other that it's hard to get sensible solutions in order to be able to attract people to the profession who can do their job when they do their job the right way, but also be held accountable if they do something wrong. I think that there's a need and that's what people really want the leadership to stand behind them. I mean they want to, you know. I think most people that me being an administrator, a former administrator, and me being god a legislator. Now, I think most people just want you to be upfront, straight with them. The police have been under a tremendous amount of scrutiny. They feel like they're a political ping pong ball, and they feel at the end of the day that anything that they do to effectuate their task of trying to make sure that they keep us safe will be challenged by formal institutions as well as informal institutions. Formal institutions like the Cleveland Police Commission and the scrutiny that comes with the consent decree, as well as informal which is, you know, everybody has these phones now, so anytime that you do anything, somebody's going to record you. And the minute that you say or do something that is not aligned, the people are going to blow you up. So a lot of people have taken the standpust and say, why would I put myself through that, or why can't I go somewhere where they give me the flexibility to do what I need to do and where there's not like this group that does not know my profession to do that. Now. I happen to believe in civilian oversight. I believe that we have, you know, strong mechanisms in the city of Cleveland for civilian oversight. I just really hope that once those cases start coming in front of them, that everybody feels fair and hopefully that will restore the confidence and the police that they don't have to fear this commission to consent decree or any other retribution for just trying to be professional law enforcement officials. We're talking with Cleveland City Council President Blame Griffin. And another issue that you've been dealing with, I mean, you got to you gotta plate full, man. You've been dealing with a lot of stuff lately. But another one that's obviously been in the news is the whole issue in the fight over a ceasefire resolution, whether to do it or not to do it, and things like that, And in my view, I think there's been a lot of unfair pressure put on the members of the City of Cleveland City Council. You know, like like members of council can solve a problem that has been going on for thousands, literally thousands of years, and you issue a statement coming to you know, explaining to people what what the conclusion is and what you would like to see happen. Talk a little bit about how that process, how you came to that conclusion, the how members of council were feeling about going through all of this, and then let people know, you know, why you decided that it would be best for you know, the the communities that are most impacted by this to come to the table and reach a solution together versus council trying to superimpose it. Well, I'm a jokester, and I tell people that I don't think any of us signed up to do this job to be Henry kissing Chip. But here we are because Cleveland City count So is the windshield to local, state, international, and national affairs. So at the end of the day, a lot of people rely on us to be their voice. So I get it. I understand. The frustration with a lot of people don't know is that there have been significant conversations with leaders from all of those communities that are affected by this, and quite frankly, if you don't have certain language in a resolution, then one side has concerns. If you do have certain language in a resolution, then the other side is concerned, and you can flip that on both sides. It's everything from you know, you know, everything from I learned this week that some people in the Palestinian community feel like if you say things like Israel has a right to defend itself, which one resolution actually said, then the Palestinian community has concerns. The word cease fire that the Palestinian communities want embedded in a resolution. They don't want us to say peace in the Middle East, they don't want us to say any loss of life is tragic. They want a specific language that said we are requesting a ceasefire, and that is very offensive to the Israeli in the Jewish community. So I came to a conclusion that hey, why don't you guys have a conversation with each other, since you're the closest to the matter, and give us, at the very least language that we should stay away from, and language that you can mutually agree upon that we should be included, as opposed to just saying if you don't put this in here, then you're basically disrespecting us, or if you do this, then you're disrespecting us. So we're in the heck of a position, and I think it's unfair that Counsel has to be in a position that pretty much people have asked us to pick aside. Listen, nobody can't condone in their right mind. They'll say that we are cheering for twenty seven thousand, almost thirty thousand and the a lot of children. I don't know what the accurate numbers. Some tell me it's as much as ten thousand. Nobody can cheer or say that that loss of life is acceptable. We all speak out against that. But we also know that there were thousands or more thousands of people who were attacked over in Israel that made this latest conflict kick off. And you know, sometimes people don't want us to acknowledge that because they say, hey, this is going on way before that, and this was just a visceral reaction to the oppression that has happened to the Palestinian people. Well, we understand that it's very complicated, very nuanced, and it just got to a point where many of my colleagues asked me to stay away from it. They said they didn't want to engage in it. Two thirds of Council does not follow international conflicts. I just happen to be into it because quite frankly, I have a passion for understand geopolitical issues, and I've been to Israel and I've been to the Middle East. So at the end of the day, you know, I just didn't feel that this Council, after talking with my colleagues, because I'm only one to seventeen, was in a position to present an unbiased and fair resolution that would have accommodated the needs of folks. I mean people literally got up and yelled and shouted people down in the middle of meetings because they would not put the ceasefire. They only condemned the violence. They wanted specific language to say the seaspire. And then the other community, the Jewish and Israeli community, was like, no, that is just basically allowing Hamas to take a break so that they can get back in control. So why are we in the position to negotiate that and to try to put it in place, and that anything that we say would probably be used against us, like it already has. Well. And I also saw to some comments that you made. I think it was with Idea Stream where you pointed out too like when there were people trying to shut down council meetings and trying to interrupt the other important work that you have to do for the city. It's like, well, those those those things matter too, right, I mean, there's there's issues we as we just talked about. We have problems going on in our streets right here right now, so you know, it also just it seemed to be it was unfair in my view, and it's my opinion it was unfair to put that kind of weight on council for something that you really don't have any control over anyway, versus the things that are happening in this city right now. Darv. Let me be clear, no federal stating or other municipal communities have been under as much pressure as Cleveland City Council to make a statement on this issue. No other. Not not our national representatives, not our state representatives, you know, not the governor, not the state legislature, not county council, not the county executive, not any of these suburban communities, even though I hear that Lakewood and Cleveland Heights are considering doing something like that, but nobody has been under the amount of pressure of Cleveland City Council. Now I should be flattered, you know, hey, are we that important that people are coming to us to try to deal with some of the most pressing and complex investing issues in our community. You know, you know, you could look at it as being flattered, or you could look at that is you know, they know that this is the only place that they could come that are rules, and the way that we are set up gives them an opportunity to voice their opinion, but in doing that, they crowd out so many other people that want to speak about so many other issues in the city of Cleveland, for example, safety, people talk about safety, abandoned houses. We have a very comprehensive Residents First package that is going to change our Building and Housing department that people want to come and speak about. I have a bank on Buckeye Road that is leaving because they have concerns about safety and are taking a six month break, and hopefully we can convince them to come back after six months because of safety. They want to come down and talk about, you know, their issues, but they can't because one, they get drowned out or they can't get a space on public comment because soon as public comments come up, those spots get filled up by people that want to talk about the Seaspire resolution that they like to see. And then number two, they basically some people don't feel like they want to come down in an environment that in a lot of ways they feel is not conducive, you know, or not safe or not relaxing where they can actually come and have their voice heard and being a democratically protected environment. So we had to you know, redo our rules in our comments for public comment, which we submitted and passed this past Monday. And then in addition, we had to put some protocols in place in order to make sure that we can run an orderly meeting that has decorum and the publics and the people. We should be able to conduct the people's business in a in a proper and orderly way. And that's all we're trying to do. And I know everybody else creates all kinds of other narratives around you know, Blaine Griffin, the big bad over that's trying to throw people out of meetings that are just exercise their democracy. No, you got to come and you got to take a look. Somebody who tried to tell me that yesterday I sent them the video and they said, oh my god, Blaine, I didn't know you guys were dealing with. Right, we're talking with Cleveland City Council President, Blaine Griffin. I know you've got a few minutes stuff. I got a couple more questions for you. So another thing that this news world, I think maybe a week or two would go was your endorsement of County Prosecutor Michael Maalley for reelection talk a little bit about that and why you thought it was important to endorse Prosecutor Mounty. You know, I'm gonna put this in a broader context, Darvo, because this is happening across our region and across our nation that a lot of people yearn to bring new, young, progressive voices into the political sphere, and in doing that, they take people who have experience and who have worked in this field and work their way up, and they basically labeled them as status quo. And we just need to throw out everybody and bring in this new experience. And I tell people oftentimes changes a process, not an event. So just because you've arrived, don't mean you're going to change the whole world. There's a lot of other structures you need to do this. And I just believe that Prosecutor Or Mounty more experience. And I know that people have, you know, concepts and conversations and oh we just want to get rid of the old guard, or we just want to get rid of folks whatever. But out of the candidates that have been presented, he has shown me or he you know, has the credentials and he has the experience, and I don't consider him just status quote. There's things that I disagree with him, and I may challenge him, but he has my support because, quite frankly, I think that he's the most experienced professional candidate in the race. And I don't want to put my justice system to a whim to an unproven leader who really hasn't been in that line of fire. And I just think that that's where society is going, where they want to try to throw out even people like myself to say, hey, your status quote, No, we're experienced. We actually have been in these situations and understand how government is supposed to operate. Talked by one of the best, Frank Jackson and some of the people who he had in his cabinet, and I want to be helpful and be supportive of this next generation, but just to try to prop somebody up and have him to run for a position against an experienced litigator who has had years on the job and who's worked in multiple leadership positions, who has been in city council, and just to try to, you know, create this narrative that somehow he's a problem. I don't think it's fair. Now, once again, are there things that I would like to see to you know, to make mister Olmalley more appeasing to the public gift. And those are things that he and I will talk about. But just because I disagree with somebody on one or two things does not mean that I have to throw out the entire body of work, right right, And you know, you talk about like this this wave, and you kind of mentioned that that I think anybody who has experience unfortunately gets put in this in this box of being establishment and status quo. I mean, and I understand that people want change. Sometimes change for the sake of change isn't always a good thing, because that's because it's different, doesn't mean it's going to work. But talk a little bit about why it's important to have Like, somebody got to know where the bathrooms are. Somebody got to know how to work this thing. If you want change, but you don't understand how how to go about that, how to get that done, you're still going to end up with disappointed people because you're not going to be able to implement what you're trying to do. It's about having institutional knowledge. Okay. City Hall is a very complex bureaucracy. And one of the things, and not just city Hall, but just any of these bureaucracies, whether it's the county, the prosecutor's office. You can have a little old lady or a little old guy that sits in the Cuba cole that nobody hardly knows, that can hold your stuff up if you don't. And just having that kind of institutional knowledge and experience is important to understand why some of the guardrails are put in place and not too just totally dismantled. Now, let me say this, I'm not always about doing business as usual either, but I think that there's a sweet spot that we have to get to that we basically inject new ideas, innovative strategies, new leaders, and new people, but we don't just demonize and throw out all of these folks that people want to try to call the establishment. Listen w O. In two thousand and six, when Frank Jackson brought me in the city hall, I was the most popular guy in town. I can go to any activist meeting and I had an afro and a beard. You can tell the job to stress me out from the last ten to fifteen years, but I was an activist and people accepted me as that. When I was out there in the streets, struggling and protesting. But then when I got inside and learned how to affect the outcomes of policy and the quality of life for the people in our community, I learned how to do it from the inside. So I took my passion as an activist and and implemented, you know, and applied myself to the internal operations. And it took a while to understand and be able to pull those levers. And I just think it's unfair that people that are getting and gaining experience, like Prosecutor o'mali are now being demonized by parties that quite frankly, he has spent years trying to help build and years trying to help make successful supported candidates like myself and others throughout the years that now everybody expects for us to turn our back on them. I don't do that, And at the end of the day, I think I made the right decision. I strongly believe that Prosecutor O'Malley is the best qualifying candidate for the race, and I'm a stand on that. And let me say this to you, darv. A wise man once told me that a scared man get you killed. People always wanted to threaten you with consequences because oh, you supported this guy or whatever else. Listen breathing, I ain't scared of nothing, and I'm tired of everybody trying to see it act like they can threaten us with our job. Listen, do me a favor if you can come and take me out. I ain't gonna give it to you, but do me a favor, because once you come, I'm gonna compete. We're talking with Cleveland to the Council President Blank Griffin, and the last question for me, I know you got to get out of here to kind of switch it up because we've been talking about some real heavy stuff throughout the whole interview. Man, there's one thing, and this is one of the first conversations that you and I had, and I've always been kind of fascinated to delve into this topic with you because you're one of the few people that I hear actually talking about restoring the middle class in the city, growing the middle class in the city, and how important that is and how that can really grow the city. So we're not in a situation where we're just managing decline. We're actually growing the city well. And there's one thing that happened in your war that I was just so impressed by, and that's the Fairfax Market, the Maya Fairfax Market, particularly because there are Cleveland based businesses in general, and black owned businesses specifically that have some of their products stocked in that supermarket. Talk a little bit about the Fairfax Market and why it was important that they did that and what you're looking forward to having that in your community. There's a heck of a story behind that. And I'm going to tell you the statement that I made when I was at the Fairfax Market, and I would call it that we built a pack. It was a partnership, it was alignment, and it was collaboration. The Cleveland Clinic was involved where they invested in it because one of the things that I told them is that I want them to do what they do best, which is promote and give access to healthcare. I told them that I wanted access to some of those great jobs that they actually have so that we could train people for their workforce. But last, but not least, the fair and equitable development, because quite frankly, if you go to that part of Cedar, it looks like the clinic almost turned their rear end or their back to the community, and we wanted to change that narrative. So one of the things that it took seven years to have this conversation and what we did was we originally they originally wanted to put a freezer. This is no exaggeration, a freezer with eight to ten jobs that wouldn't have had a lot of foot traffic or interaction. And I didn't think that was acceptable now here. I am a rookie council person, even though I got years of community activism, I was faced with a decision, and I made a decision to sit at the table to tell the clinic that I didn't want that freezer there. Which is what's called a bio repository where they collect you know, urine samples, tissue samples, blood samples in the story and they do research. And there's an important need for that because a lot of people don't know this, but ninety percent of the medicine that we take is tested on our white counterparts, and African Americans need more testing and those kinds of things so that we can have better blood pressure, medicine, diabetes and other things so on. For that research. But I wanted that corner at one hundred and fifth and Cedar to reflect the rich history of Fair Facts, and that was what it was for. How can we make sure we have a triple bottom line impact that social because we see this as a gathering place where people in the Fair Facts and surrounding communities can come. We see it having an environmental impact because it was in the middle of a food desert. Even though it's in the shadow of the largest employer in the state of Ohio and the city of Cleveland, it was a food desert in that area, and more excited about that. And then also having an economic impact because not only are we making fresh food available to everybody, but we're also really working to deal with making sure that people have an opportunity to work, admire, and also attract more people to the neighborhood. So all of those things are one some of the reasons why that was so important for us to really really get that supermarket there. So I consider that a success story. We got a couple more chess mods we're trying to do. There's probably about two thousands or sole units rooftops that have been built in that neighborhood and that surrounding neighborhood. There was a report that Richie Preparing has done about the Opportunity Corridor that the job growth is on the east Side and the edds and beds institutions of university circle. So if we really want to repopulate the east Side and bring back that middle class that you're talking about, we got to make sure that we invest in the amenities and the housing and the solutions that are needed in order to bring back, you know, people who are working class folks in that neighborhood. So I'm very passionate about the things I do, which is one of the reasons why sometimes people say, blame you too close to this stuff. But I really love people, man, and I'm here to do a job. I'm here to provide a service. And you know that's why I like doing your show because you call it straight. You don't come in here and sugarcoat stuff. And that's why anytime you call me, I'm gonna make myself available, sir. I appreciate that, man, and it's, you know, congratulations on all the stuff that you're doing in Fairfax. I consider Fairfax is a very important part of the city. It's like our Harlem, you know what I mean. So it's Fairfax is very, very important to the city of Cleveland, and congratulations on everything that you're doing and all the stuff that you got going on. And maybe one of these days when we do one of these interviews, we can spend more time talking about your economics thoughts and some of your plans on growing the middle class. But it just so happens that there's always some stuff jumping off when we talk, so we end up having to talk. Listen number a dull moment in my world. And I tell people, that's what makes the job fun, that's what makes it exciting, but that's what also make your man tired sometimes. Right If you see these big Gucci bags under my eyes, it's because I'm up late at night trying to figure out how we can make Cleveland a better place. So I really appreciate the opportunity to be here. And at the end of the day, with all of the struggles and trials and tribulations we go through as a city, Cleveland's a great place. I won't give up on it. I know you love this city. I love this city. I love the people of this city. And at the end of the day, let's just keep on working hard. Man to try to make Cleveland the best we can. All right, and man, I appreciate you always being a great public service man. Thank you for coming on the show and spending time with us. I appreciate it. Thank you do I appreciate your memage. All right, one more time, want to give a special shout out to Blame Ripping for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. We are out of here. We'll see you next time. Peace. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast network, where Real Talk lives. 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