CLEVELAND — Amid a First Amendment lawsuit, Cleveland City Council voted to approve new public comment rules Monday night.

What You Need To Know

  • Cleveland City Council approved new public comment rules on Monday night, as they face a First Amendment lawsuit

  • The new rules clarify what can get someone kicked out of council chambers, whether they're speaking or just an attendee

  • Attorneys representing the man who is suing city council for cutting his mic during a meeting in September said the new rules are an improvement, but "still contains some vague and problematic portions that we will have to evaluate in terms of the litigation”

  • Council President Blaine Griffin said the new rules will help ensure an orderly and fair process

“We really just revised the language that we had in order to make sure we didn’t violate anyone’s free speech,” council president Blaine Griffin, who represents Ward 6, said.

The new rules clarify what can get someone kicked out of council chambers: hand clapping, stomping of feet, whistling, making loud noises, yelling or making similar demonstrations.

Despite talks of limiting what speakers can say to items on council’s agenda, the new rules do allow speakers to talk about any topic, as long as their comments are not frivolous, repetitive, obscene or likely to produce imminent unlawful action.

The rules also ban food, drink, and any signs, posters or banners, and the requirement for registering to speak, limiting comments to 3 minutes and only allowing 10 people to speak per meeting are staying in place.

The move comes as resident Chris Martin is suing council for cutting his mic in a September meeting, during which he used his three minutes of public comment time to read the names of council members who received contributions to the Council Leadership Fund, a political action committee controlled by the sitting council president.

Griffin cited an old public comment rule that prevented speakers from directly addressing council members when he cut Martin’s mic in September.

That rule has been removed, but a new rule reads, “Speakers shall address all comments to the presiding officer”.

“They are our elected officials,” Martin said. “They should be accountable to us, but all they can seem, all they want to do, is hold us accountable to them.”

Martin said he hasn’t had a chance to deep dive into the new rules and is unsure of what the next steps in his lawsuit will be, but he’s disappointed in council’s lack of transparency as the rules were created.

In a tweet, the First Amendment Law Clinic at Case Western Reserve University, which represents Martin in the case, said, “This new policy, though an improvement on Council's prior policy (currently enjoined by a Federal Court), still contains some vague and problematic portions that we will have to evaluate in terms of the litigation.”

Supporters of an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East also returned to council, as they have at every council meeting since Oct. 13, this week with a letter signed by over 1,500 local businesses, organizations and residents, urging council to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire on both sides of the conflict. 

No council member has introduced the proposed resolution in Cleveland, but city councils in Akron, Detroit, and other cities have passed similar resolutions.

Council did pass an ordinance distributing $225,000 in funding to the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless and Metanoia Project Inc. to help shelter unhoused people in the dangerously cold weather, amending the legislation to require monthly reports from the organizations on their efforts.