Shannon Fang, of Fairfax, urges council members to introduce and pass legislation regulating retail sales of tobacco. She was one of two medical students who gave public comments related to health challenges.
Shannon Fang, of Fairfax, urges council members to introduce and pass legislation regulating retail sales of tobacco. She was one of two medical students who gave public comments related to health challenges. Credit: YouTube

Covered by Documenters Yorel Warr and Chau Tang

What happened: Cleveland City Council greenlighted a plan to invest $10 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding on the city’s workforce pipeline. That includes training for lots of construction and infrastructure jobs that will be created to increase broadband access, remediate lead and brownfields, and support green building and transit growth. The aim is to connect people to training for specific jobs and projects. 

And also: Council approved spending $4 million on a system to collect and respond to resident complaints and requests for city services. The revamped 311 system would help log tree-trimming and pothole-filling requests as well as reports about vacant homes and problem rodents.  

Say Yes: Council approved spending $600,000 in ARPA money that will temporarily plug a gap in paying Family Support Specialists who work in more than 100 public and charter schools as part of Cleveland’s Say Yes to Education plan to make college or advanced training possible for more Cleveland students. Without that money, the specialists could have been laid off. The money, however, only covered several weeks of pay for the specialists, so additional funding will be needed.  

Signal Cleveland’s Paul Rochford dug into the issue. Read his story.

Read more from Documenter Yorel Warr

Read the live-tweet thread from Documenter Chau Tang:

Cleveland Documenters pays and trains people to cover public meetings where government officials discuss important issues and decide how to spend taxpayer money.