CLEVELAND — Justin Bibb became Cleveland’s first millennial mayor when he took office nearly two years ago in 2022. 

“I feel really great as we wrap up our second year in office,” Bibb said. 

The position was previously held by Frank Jackson, who led the city for 16 years over four terms, making him the longest-serving mayor in Cleveland’s history.

In the last mayoral race, Bibb appealed to voters seeking a more energetic leader who could pick up the pace of development across the city.

Now almost halfway through his first term, he said he’s proudest of giving Clevelanders the permission to dream again. 

“It’s that sense of hope and optimism that I’m always going to be focused on, even as we confront these hard, vexing challenges of structural racism and poverty, of violent crime of our lead paint crisis,” Bibb said. “These are all hard things for us to tackle and confront, but Cleveland has a can-do spirit, and this administration has a sense of urgency like never before to tackle these problems.”

Coming out of the Jackson era, Cleveland residents complained about a lack of transparencies and action in city hall. 

One of Bibb’s big priorities was to modernize and speed things up, which he said the new city website is helping to accomplish.

“We have the first new website our city has seen and nearly two decades,” Bibb said. “We’ve also modernized key internal policies and procedures: everything from the fact that we now have a paid parental leave policy, one of the most progressive policies in the state, and we now have a brand new vacation policy for our employees as well too. So, we can do a better job of attracting and retaining good talent.”

However, hiring and retaining police officers has been a struggle for cities across the country post-pandemic, and Cleveland is no exception.

Combined with increased instances of violent crime over the summer and a recent shooting in Public Square, the issue has only become more pressing.

Bibb said public safety will always be his number one priority. 

“We’ve made a lot of great progress already in just two years in terms of our historic investments in police,” he said.

His administration pushed for the recently approved pay increases and sign-on bonuses for officers and trainees. 

He’s also invested in new technology for the department, from their smart camera system to shot-spotter.  

Still, increased youth-involved crime has been of particular concern for many residents.

Bibb said one cause of this issue is high levels of isolation and depression in children coming out of the pandemic.  

Another challenge, he said, is that Cleveland is still one of the poorest big cities in America. 

“We as a city are not going to solve these problems that we’ve been trying to solve for the last 75 years, in 23 months,” he said. “But the actions we’ve taken since I took office last year, I believe, will put us on the right pathway to ensure that we get more young people hope.”

Various studies have pointed to lead posing a critical public health problem here in Cleveland, especially for children.

According to the Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition, 90% of homes in the city were built before lead paints were banned for residential use in 1978. 

When Bibb took office, he created the first ever lead cabinet to tackle the issue more head-on and got $16 million of ARPA funding to fully fund the city’s lead safe initiative.

“There’s more work to do, particularly when it comes to more aggressive enforcement regarding lead prosecutions,” Bibb said. “For the first time in our city’s history, we are now enforcing and using our prosecutorial power to hold lead landlords who are negligent, accountable.”

Another one of Bibb’s “big bets” is to revitalize historically dis-invested parts of the city, particularly the southeast side where he grew up. 

When Cleveland got the nation’s 8th largest allocation of ARPA funding during the pandemic, Bibb leveraged $15 million dollars to invest in commercial corridors and homes in southeast neighborhoods. 

“When you look at the data, that’s where a majority of our violent crime is taking place,” he said. “And one of the best things we can do, one of the best things we can do to be a safe city, is to provide hope, and provide economic opportunity. And that’s what our South Eastside promise initiative is all about.”

Bibb’s office has also put forward ambitious plans to improve waterfront access across the city.

Bedrock’s Riverfront Development and the North Coast Harbor Lakefront Plan make up his “core-to-shore” approach to connect downtown to the water. 

“We have a unique moment in time right now to be one of the truly first two-waterfront cities in America, and that’s important for a couple of reasons,” he said. “Number one, it’s going to allow us to truly reimagine our downtown for the next generation. But number two, it’s going to continue to make Cleveland a globally competitive city that can attract and retain good talent for the 21st century.”

Those long-term plans are something he’s hoping to secure a second term to continue to see through, but hundreds of Clevelanders have been using public comment in recent council meetings to vocalize disappointment in the mayor for initially issuing a statement in support of Israel, but not expressing sympathy for the civilian lives lost in Gaza.

“I made my tweet on Oct. 7, in response to a terrorist organization in Hamas, attacking the State of Israel,” he said. “My heart grieves for any loss of life through the casualties of war, and my heart grieves for the civilians that have been killed in Palestine and the civilians and the casualties that have been killed in Israel.”

He said he’s proud of President Biden’s “smart diplomacy” to bring hostages back to Israel. 

 “But it’s also important for me as mayor to say this: we need to always address hate,” he said. “We need to always address anti-semitism, and always address Islamophobia in our society. And those things have no place in our city. And I want to protect, protect those in our city who experience any form of hate every single day.”

Bibb has also said he wants to prioritize improving the quality of life for Black women in the city after a 2020 Bloomberg Study ranked Cleveland last in terms of livability for Black women in the U.S.

He proposed the legislation to create the city’s Black Women and Girls Commission that passed over a year and a half ago, but the commission has not yet begun meeting, after some council members said there were miscommunications between council and the mayor’s office.

“I’ll have more to come soon on the Black Woman’s Commission,” Bibb said. “We’re going to have an update regarding that by the end of the year.”

Otherwise, Bibb said his priorities heading into the next part of his term remain the same. 

“We’re going to continue to focus on executing the core priorities of our administration from doubling down on our commitment to public safety, to making sure we execute our plans for the lakefront and the riverfront, and sing our vision through,” he said. 

Most recently, Bibb’s focus has been on housing. 

He proposed a “Residents First” legislation package that would put measures in place to hold out-of-state landlords more accountable, and to help crack down on vacant properties across the city. 

Council will likely vote on that legislation in the coming weeks.