Cuyahoga County committee pauses ordinance that would prioritize cities over community development corporations

Cuyahoga County Council’s Community Development Committee held an extended debate over Ordinance 20250001, which would amend section 714.02(e) of the county code to prioritize municipalities and townships when evaluating applications to the community development supplemental grant (CDSG) program.

Councilwoman Simon, who sponsored the ordinance, said the original intent was to ensure cities and townships — which lack the fundraising flexibility of nonprofit CDCs — would not be disadvantaged when county casino-revenue and supplemental grant dollars are awarded. "When I supported this legislation, it was my understanding that this would be going to our cities and municipalities and to provide supplemental needs," she said, arguing that some organizations now receiving funds do not meet her view of a CDC and that the county needs a clear, administrable definition.

Multiple council members asked staff to clarify how the county currently treats CDCs and whether nonprofit applicants require city authorization. Michael King, council staff, explained there is no single legal definition of a CDC in county legislation; current practice allows any nonprofit with a community development mission and at least two years of existence to apply. Kelly Glenn of the Department of Housing and Community Development said the application packet requires a letter of local support — for the city of Cleveland that support may come from the city’s community development director — but committee members said that practice did not resolve broader equity concerns.

Councilman Gallagher and others raised a second concern: the distribution of casino-revenue dollars gives host cities (for example, Cleveland and North Randall) a larger share of funds. "We have communities scraping and getting denied because interior-Cleveland organizations are bumping through our dollars," Gallagher said, urging tighter geographic protections and clearer eligibility criteria so that outer-ring communities are not repeatedly displaced.

Council President Dale Miller urged staff to produce explicit, administrable language that would define who may apply and what "priority" means in practice — for example, whether priority applies only to tie-breakers, to evaluating a subset of eligible projects first, or to a stricter ordering that would favor municipalities whenever they apply. Several members said they wanted all applicants to be treated equally once eligibility is clear; others said a meaningful prioritization was necessary to protect municipalities.

Council staff and department representatives proposed possible fixes: add a requirement that nonprofit applicants obtain a letter of designation or support from their host city; require a clearer organizational eligibility criterion (e.g., municipal designation or formal recognition by a city); or explicitly state how the prioritization rule affects the scoring process. Committee staff said these are policy choices for the council to resolve but that any change should be concrete enough for administrative scoring.

After more than an hour of discussion, the committee held the ordinance for redrafting and further analysis, directing staff to return with proposed language that clarifies who qualifies as a CDC, the role of city endorsement, and the operational meaning of "priority" in the grant evaluation process. The committee did not vote on the ordinance at the meeting.

The next step is for council staff and the Department of Housing and Community Development to prepare revised ordinance language and administrative guidance; the committee indicated it will reconvene the topic before any second-reading vote.