Hi! I'm Keith and I will be live-tweeting today, Wednesday, September 22, 2021, Cleveland City Council's Transportation Committee "TC" Meeting starting at 10:00 AM for @cledocumenters#CLEdocumenters & @NeighborUpCle
Cleveland City Council's Transportation Committee "handles all matters relating to the city-owned airports, aviation, bridges, harbors and river and lake travel, as well as public transportation and limousine and taxi operations."
TC is composed of
CHAIR: Joseph T. Jones, Ward 1
VICE CHAIR: Charles Slife, Ward 17
MEMBERS:
Kevin L. Bishop, Ward 2
Kevin Conwell, Ward 9
Delores L. Gray, Ward 5
Jasmin Santana, Ward 14
Jenny Spencer, Ward 15
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As indicated on both the Notice of Public Meeting and the Agneda, Cleveland City Council's Transportation Committee will review at least 7 emergency ordinances.
W9 CM Conwell, "If some kind of way can we get the children exposed to what you're doing. If we can by some way of contract have a site visit to learn about the aviation field would be a great thing."
W1 CM Jones joins in on the conversation with CM Conwell and Director Kennedy.
"So, Mr. Conwell I would love for you to work Director and connected with CMSD to develop a preliminary framework [on creating school visits to Hopkins airport to provide educational career insight].
EO689-2021 is a the first renewal of a contract with Wadsworth & Associate, INC. to "expand the integrated access control security and CCTV systems, for the various divisions of the Department of Port Control" in the amount of up to ~$600,000.00.
Director Kennedy, "There are other security systems at the airport that includes artificial intelligence, CCTV, over $650,000 .... Wadsworth maintains it well."
W14 CM Jazmine Santana asks if the RFP bids are placed at the end of the intiial contract period, before renewal.
Director Kennedy, "Yes."
W2 CM Kevin Bishop inquires about the amount of the allocated to Wadsworth and the amount it cost last year.
Director Kennedy will have to follow up.
W17 CM Slife builds off that line of questioning with details from the Executive Summary. He notes that the document has an additional $50,000 above $600,000.
Director acknowledges the mistakes that the amount allocated should be up to $650,000 instead of $600,000 per year.
W9 CM Conwell criticizes the Director for not having all this information correct before today.
EO689-2021 will be adjusted, but is presumably signed up.
EO692-2021 would employ environmental services to "comply with applicable requirements, including but not limited to those imposed by the U.S. and Ohio Environmental Protection Agencies, the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District."
EO692-2021, if approved, would hire up to 11 companies to address provide certain services.
5 of the 11 categories have contractors lined up. 6 categories have yet to be hired.
TC members inquired with the Director Kennedy about the contractor process/RFP process and the amounts awarded. They are concerned this effectively is a blank check that contractors could take advantage of tax dollars.
After discussion, Director Kennedy proposes tabling this.
W14 CM Santana, "The vendors that are listed are previous vendors that we are hiring for 5 years?"
Chief, "We are asking for the authority to enter these agreements instead of having to come back every year, it is not as if these contracts will last five years."
W1 CM and Chair Jones summarizes TC concerns to be addressed by the Director and Chief,
"We want to make sure we know what the total cost is; understand the schedule of terms for the contracts that are being proposed in this; & have clarity on what contracts you will use."
W9 CM Conwell disagrees with holding EO692-2021. "These are just resources."
W1 CM & Chair Jones explains again why holding EO692-2021 makes sense.
Chief, "To level expectations, when we return, it is likely we will not who the contractors are as we will not have gone out to bid."
W1 CM & Chair Jones responds, "It is our responsibility to vet the contracting process out. You give us the amount of money you want to spend, you go through the RFP process, and we review it. ... The matrix of accountability."
TC reviewed EO783-2021.
Director Kennedy, "We are asking permission to replace ['one (1) aircraft rescue and firefighting vehicle']."
W1 CM Jones, "It is used to fight fires?"
Director, "It's a truck, specialized equipment to put out fires. Slightly different than the standard fire truck."
W1CM Jones, "The one we have is 46 years old. It's in good condition?"
Director, "Yes, and it has to be."
W17 CM Slife, "This piece of equipment has been in service of the City longer than Councilman Polensek."
Everybody laughs.
EO783-2021 is approved and signed up.
W14 CM Jasmin Santana, "How is life at the airport after COVID?"
Director Kennedy, "We've had a hell of 18 months. We've seen passenger traffic go down to less than 600 a day when we used to normally have 35,000 a day. "
"The biggest thing I take personally is - the best advantage of an airport is what happens outside the fence, it's the economic vitality. We lost 43% of our workforce, 3200 jobs."
Director Kennedy continues,
"These our are people in Cleveland and NEO that need their jobs. fighting back and making our airport efficient and effective is important to getting those jobs back."
"We've got 200 jobs back today but I'm bound and determined to get those other jobs back. We are accommodating about 20,000 passengers per day. It's still a far cry from the 35,000/day we would have. Good news is that we are leading above the average recovery rates for airports."
"To be the last to drown is no honor, but we are doing steps to We can't share this openly but we got an email from an air carrier that is expanding their footprint in Cleveland and other investments in Cleveland. We've submitted our master plan recommendation to the FAA."
Directory Kennedy, "That will bring more trade jobs, more construction. Next year, we think we will be better off and still reacting to this mess we are in. I hate to see it and the toll it has on families."
Chief updates,
"Only 3 of the concessions are still closed. So we've had great recovery there. We have the CLE club reopening next week. This is club that is not essentially tied to an airline, any travelers can use it privately. It is minority owned and backed."
Director states, "None of us had a playbook for this. We did the best job we thought we could have done. Our airport corporate partners have told us that what we, the team, have done is industry leading. It's been tough but the right direction."
Director Kennedy, "We are top ten percent of commercial airports in the USA. We are the number one and busiest airport in Ohio. We are above the national average for recovery. We are doing innovative work."
Director Kennedy, "Corporate partners want to accelerate the master plan for the airport because they see a great investment. ... We are going to try to do an economic impact report next year to assess our impact."
Transporation Committee member W14 CM Santana inquires about staffing opportunities.
Dir. Kennedy states the Opportunity Center has reopened.
W1 CM Jones follows up about janitorial staffing.
Dir. Kennedy opines on wanting paying staff more.
Today, Wednesday, September 22, 2021, Cleveland City Council's Transportation Committee adjourned at or around 11:27 AM.
Summary:
Cleveland City Council's Transportation Committee approved and signed the following Emergency Ordinances,
Ord. No. 682-2021
Ord. No. 686-2021
Ord. No. 687-2021
Ord. No. 688-2021, conditional based upon updating language of amount allocated
Ord. No. 783-2021
Summary continued:
Ord. No. 692-2021 was held until an unknown date to address Committee concerns.
Remember to check out McKenzie Merriman's recorded notes of this meeting. They should be posted soon on the Cleveland Documenter's website, access past meetings here:
To become involved and for more meeting coverage, check out documenters.org. Have questions? Think we got something wrong? Send any enquiries on the meeting or these tweets to @cledocumenters
Hi, I'm Keith. I'll be live-tweeting today's, January 17, 2023, Cleveland City Council's Development, Planning, and Sustainability Committee Meeting at 9:30 AM.
Hi, I'm Keith & I'll be providing coverage of the Wednesday, May 25, 2022, Cleveland City Council's Safety Committee meeting on behalf of @cledocumenters and @NeighborUpCle.
Hi, I'm Keith, today is May 10, 2022, I am live-tweeting Cleveland City Council's Development, Planning and Sustainability Committee Meeting at 9:30AM on behalf of @cledocumenters#CLEdocumenters & @NeighborUpCle.
Hi, I'm Keith and I'll be live-tweeting today, Wednesday, February 9, 2022, @CleCityCouncil Development, Planning and Sustainability Committee's COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT HEARING ("CBDG") for @cledocumenters & @NeighborUpCle.
This is the afternoon session that ran between 1:30 PM and 3:30PM.
Hi, I'm Keith and I'll be live-tweeting today, Wednesday, February 9, 2022, @CleCityCouncil Development, Planning and Sustainability Committee's COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT HEARINGS ("CBDG") for @cledocumenters & @NeighborUpCle.
Hi, my name is Keith and I'm post-tweeting Monday, January 31, 2022, Cleveland City Council's Finance, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee ("FDEIC") Meeting that started at or around 2:00PM.
The stream for this Commitee was broadcasted by @TV20Cleveland and is accessible on the Council's Youtube channel,