Right now there is a recession running through Black households that nobody in Washington will say out loud. There is lead in the walls of houses where our children sleep in this county, and the money to take it out went back to Columbus. Somebody has to say that in plain English, on the record, with our name on it.

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That is today’s edition. Politics, community, opinion, and the Cleveland stories that carry a national argument inside them. Click it and read.

But do not just read it. Use it. realpower.tv

RealPower.TV/contact. Deadline is the Friday before each edition.

A community that tells its own story is a community that can defend itself.

Come see what we built.

— Kenn Dowell

On August 22nd, six hours in a Cleveland park will do more for Black political power in Cuyahoga County than most campaigns manage in six months. That's the bet behind Freedom Summer 2026. Not a rally. Not a canvass shift. A civic media festival built to put voter mobilization inside a room people actually want to be in — food, music, spoken word, live podcasts, and a radio signal broadcasting the whole thing to anyone not standing in Garden View Hill Park that day. Here's the strategic problem Freedom Summer solves.

Every cycle, campaigns show up in Black neighborhoods in October asking for something they never built the relationship to earn. They mail a flyer, knock on a door, and disappear until the next election. Cleveland's East Side has been on the receiving end of that pattern for decades. Freedom Summer flips it.

This is infrastructure built in August for a vote that happens in November — trust first, turnout second. Ohio decides races on margins, and Black turnout in Cuyahoga County is the margin. That's not a talking point; it's arithmetic.

A civic festival that puts hundreds of people in direct contact with voter registration, candidate information, and organizing infrastructure — wrapped in music and culture rather than a clipboard — is a mobilization tool disguised as a good time. That's the point. Here's what's actually happening on August 22nd. Real Power TV and the Freedom Summer 2026 coalition are running a full civic media production out of Garden View Hill Park, East 88th and St. Clair, from noon to 6 PM. Free. Everyone welcome.

The anchor conversation of the day: I'm sitting down with Fred Ward to talk about power — what it actually is, who has it, and how you get it. This is the next chapter of the Power storyline we've been building on this newsletter, pulled out of the studio and put in front of the people it's actually about.

Santana Says is bringing her platform into the mix — organizing conversations and call-in forums on what's actually moving in Cleveland and around the region. DJ Aweiss is running his own podcast segment that day, sitting down with entrepreneur and author Derrick Grace, in from Florida. Look him up before he takes the mic — his story is worth knowing going in.

Then the stage turns over to the people. Open mic. A rap cypher through BKA Watts and the Lyricist Cypher League. Spoken word. Live music. This is where “your voice matters” stops being a tagline printed on a flyer and becomes the actual format.

WOVU 95.9 FM is broadcasting live from the park all day, so none of this stays contained to the people standing in the grass. And there’s food — because infrastructure has to feed people, literally. We’re giving away close to 500 free meals throughout the day. The ask is simple: show us you’re subscribed to the channel, eat for free. That’s not a gimmick. That’s the exchange — value for value, community for community.

Every one of those elements is doing double duty. The podcasts build the media record — content that lives on past August 22nd. The open mic and music pull in people who’d never come to a “voter mobilization event” but will come to hear their neighborhood’s own poets and artists. The vendors turn the day into economic activity, not just political theater. The radio simulcast means people who can’t physically be there still get the message. None of that is a coincidence. That’s how you build civic infrastructure that outlasts a single Saturday.

None of it runs without the people who funded it, and they get named, not buried in fine print. Cuyahoga County Council Member Pernel Jones Jr., ArchWell Health School House Production, Pastor Aaron Phillips of the Cleveland Clergy Coalition. Representative Eugene Miller. Fred Ward, The Nelson off 93rd, all are major sponsors of this event. Every one of them put resources behind Black civic infrastructure before they had to. That’s the difference between a sponsor and a supporter, and Freedom Summer has supporters.

This is the anchor event for Freedom Summer 2026, the mobilization campaign building toward the November general election. Cuyahoga County is the anchor. Cleveland is the laboratory. What gets proven here — that culture and civic power can share a stage without either one getting diluted — is the model for what comes next.

If you’re in Cleveland on August 22nd, be at Garden View Hill Park. If you’re not, WOVU 95.9 FM carries it live — and this newsletter carries the strategy behind it, what worked, what didn’t, and what it means for November, every week between now and election day.

Get the strategy behind Freedom Summer 2026 every week: kenndowell.substack.com [insert live Substack link]

This is Kenn Dowell. Cleveland-born, Glenville-raised, and never afraid to say what needs to be said.

Before we get into it — thank you for Realpower.tv. If you’re new here, welcome. If you haven’t already, subscribe for free — it costs you nothing and makes sure you never miss a breakdown. And if this work is worth more to you than the free tier, a paid subscription helps keep this operation running and keeps the analysis coming every week, no matter who’s uncomfortable with it. Either way — glad you’re here. Let’s get into it.

That’s the whole story people will tell you about Cuyahoga County Council and the sheriff. It’s not the real one.

Here’s what nobody’s saying: Chris Ronayne won a fight he never had to show up for. He didn’t need to whip votes. He didn’t need to survive a floor count. He needed one thing: for Sweeney to not have eight votes by August 4th. He got it without ever casting a ballot himself. That’s not losing gracefully. That’s winning quietly, and quiet wins never show up on a scoreboard, so nobody has to answer for them.

Both needed eight votes to reach November’s ballot. Neither got there. Council killed Ronayne’s firing power in July. Tuesday, Sweeney’s bill died the same way: not by vote, but by the sponsor admitting the math wasn’t there.

Now pay attention, because this decides who runs this county going forward. The elected-sheriff question isn’t dead. It moved to a charter review commission that won’t be seated until September 2027, reporting in June 2028. Right now, Ronayne appoints that commission, all of it. Councilmember Michael Gallagher said the quiet part out loud in July: “That cake is already baked.” He wasn’t talking about the sheriff. He was talking about who controls the table where the sheriff question gets decided next.

That’s the move. You don’t have to beat your opposition on the floor if you can move the fight into a room you own. Council’s already fighting to split those commission appointments so it isn’t Ronayne’s board alone deciding what goes back on the ballot in 2028. Watch that fight. It matters more than the vote that didn’t happen.

That’s not an accident. That’s strategy. You take a question about accountability, about who can fire the person running a 1,200-person department and a county jail, and dress it up as a question about representation. Representation is harder for Black elected officials to vote against in public, even when they know exactly what’s happening. It fractures opposition without anyone whipping a single vote.

I need to say this plainly. I was in some of those rooms. For years, Black leaders in this county believed what Ronayne and Miller are arguing now: that getting a Black person appointed was easier, and safer, than getting one elected. An appointment only needs one person to say yes. An election needs a majority of a county that hasn’t always voted the way we needed it to. So the thinking went: take the sure thing.

Cuyahoga’s running that same argument right now, new names attached. Keep the job appointed, diversity gets protected by design. Put it on the ballot, and you’re trusting electorates that run 91 percent white and 98 percent male nationally. It sounds like caution. It functions as control. Convert a fight over who holds power into a fight over who deserves protection, and you don’t have to win the argument. You just make it too costly for the other side to keep pushing.

One more thing, because it’s getting buried. The sheriff Ronayne appointed, Harold Pretel, said publicly he thinks the job should be elected. He called it critical, constitutional, a model that works in the other 87 counties. When the man an executive hand-picked won’t defend the system that put him there, that’s the appointed man telling you the appointed system doesn’t hold.

So no, Tuesday wasn’t a story about a sheriff. It was a story about how you win in this county without ever losing in public. Run the clock. Move the fight to a room you already own. Use representation as a wedge before anyone can call it what it is. Sweeney gets another shot in 2027. Whether it’s a fair one depends on who’s sitting on that commission, and that fight is happening right now, mostly out of sight.

I’ve spent 25 years in the rooms where Cuyahoga County’s decisions actually get made: campaigns, council fights, corporate tables, church basements. If you want the analysis that comes from the room, not the press release, subscribe at Realpower.tv The work continues there.

"This is Kenn Dowell. Cleveland-born, Glenville-raised, and never afraid to say what needs to be said."

Before we get into it — thank you for reading Strategic Moves. If you’re new here, welcome. If you haven’t already, subscribe for free — it costs you nothing and makes sure you never miss a breakdown. And if this work is worth more to you than the free tier, a paid subscription helps keep this operation running and keeps the analysis coming every week, no matter who’s uncomfortable with it. Either way — glad you’re here. Let’s get into it.

I Was in the Room

Twenty-five years in the rooms where this county’s decisions get made. I’ve said that before. I’ll say it again here because it matters for what comes next: I was one of the people at the table in 2009 when Cuyahoga County threw out the old government and built the one we’re operating under right now. Not watching from outside. In the room.

Retired Judge Michael Nelson was in that room too. We said it together, out loud, on my own show this week, because it’s time the record was straight: the elected sheriff was one of the biggest pieces left on the table when we built this government. The reason it got left there wasn’t an accident. And it wasn’t really about the sheriff.

What We Actually Traded Away

Here’s the truth. At that moment, in 2008 and 2009, many of the African American leaders in that room did not believe we could win an elected sheriff outright. Not for lack of candidates. We ran Clayton Harris for it and lost. We looked hard at Sandra Williams, military background, fully qualified, and still couldn’t make it happen. Not for lack of will.

It was the relationship. The relationship between the African American community and the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party at that time was tumultuous, and had been for years. Getting our people elected to anything countywide — judgeships, commissioner seats, recorder, any of it — was a fight in that political climate, at that particular moment.

So when the government got rebuilt, the calculation among Black leadership wasn’t “let’s choose appointment.” It was survival math: we don’t believe we can win this seat right now, so get one guaranteed point of access instead of none.

An appointed sheriff wasn’t the goal. It was the fallback position of people who’d already run the numbers on an election they didn’t think they could win.

One Guaranteed Seat Is Not a Movement

It worked, briefly, the way it was designed to. The first sheriff under the new government was a Black man, appointed under Ed FitzGerald. Then it stopped working, because a single appointed seat depending on one executive’s discretion was never power. It was an arrangement. Arrangements end the day the person who made them leaves office or changes their mind.

Look at what elected countywide power actually looked like when Black candidates could win it outright. Virgil Brown and Peter Lawson Jones, elected county commissioners, running their own departments, answering to voters, not a boss. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, elected prosecutor, four hundred people under her, and when the government got rebuilt in 2009, that’s the office everybody in the room agreed had to stay elected.

There’s a difference between a seat you’re given and a seat you win.

We knew the difference then. We settled for the fallback on the sheriff anyway, because in that specific moment, winning it outright looked out of reach.

That Calculation Doesn’t Hold Anymore

Judge Nelson said it on my show. I’ll say it here without hedging: it should have been elected. The politics in that room in 2009 didn’t allow it, and that backfired terribly. Nine sheriffs in fifteen years, spanning three different executives. A jail with a body count that made the county’s own prosecutor read a number into the record at Council. None of that is what anyone at that table was trying to trade for.

But the reason we settled — the belief that Black Cleveland couldn’t win a countywide seat outright in that political climate — isn’t the reality of 2026. Twenty years of organizing. Twenty years of a different relationship between Black political leadership and the county party than existed in 2008. What’s winnable has changed.

The insurance policy we took out because we didn’t believe we could win the real thing isn’t insurance anymore. It’s just a ceiling we agreed to a generation ago and never questioned again.

Dale Miller stood up last week and argued for keeping this exact arrangement, holding up Sheriff Pretel’s appointment as proof the system delivers for diversity. He’s making the same bet Black leadership made in 2009 — from the other side of the table now, defending it. We already know how that bet turns out. We watched it for fifteen years.

Where This Lands

I’m not telling you this to relitigate 2009. I’m telling you because the people who made that trade — myself included — are saying plainly, now, that it should have gone the other way, and the reason we didn’t fight for it then doesn’t hold anymore. Not nostalgia. A correction.

If they can’t answer that plainly, you already know how they’re voting on August 4th. And you know exactly what they think of you.

Tell me what you think in the comments. I want to hear where you land.

If this is the kind of civic intelligence you need, subscribe at kenndowell.substack.com. The work continues there.

This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Before we get into it — thank you for reading Strategic Moves. If you’re new here, welcome. If you haven’t already, subscribe for free — it costs you nothing and makes sure you never miss a breakdown. And if this work is worth more to you than the free tier, a paid subscription helps keep this operation running and keeps the analysis coming every week, no matter who’s uncomfortable with it. Either way — glad you’re here. Let’s get into it.

I Gave Up On Fireworks A Long Time Ago.

When my kids were small, we made a whole day of it. Cook all day. Clean the house. Get everybody dressed and fed and ready to sit outside for two hours. Then drive clear across town, fight for parking, and wait on twenty minutes of sky. After that, you drive home in traffic that doesn’t move, and you still gotta clean the kitchen before bed because you got work in the morning.

Somewhere along the way, that got old. My wife still wants to go every year. This year, our usual spot didn’t even have fireworks. I wasn’t about to drive across town for somebody else’s show. So we stayed home.

Being who I am, I got on YouTube instead. I wanted to see what America did for its two hundred and fiftieth birthday. Missed it live, watched it the next day. What I saw stuck with me more than any fireworks show ever could.

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The Reveal

DC lit the sky for almost an hour straight. Big show, right outside the White House, and from what I saw, the president slept through most of it.

Two hundred fifty years, and the party still didn’t want our contribution. Just our songs.

Now Picture This

I started thinking about what that day would’ve looked like under different leadership. Say Kamala Harris had won. Say it was still Barack Obama’s America. Say Joe Biden got four more years.

Can you really imagine what that day would’ve felt like? Not just who’s on stage. What it feels like to actually be counted in your own country’s birthday.

This Isn’t Just A Feeling. It’s Policy.

That same week, this administration was in court deciding who actually gets to be American. They pulled the Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants. Congresswoman Shontel Brown broke down exactly why that matters when she joined Dr. Heather Burton and me on the show:

“You can’t look at a Haitian and tell they’re Haitian or a Black American and tell that they’re not Haitian. This is a dangerous precedent that they are setting for all Black people.”

The Supreme Court also ruled 6-3 to keep birthright citizenship in place. Six justices got it right. Three didn’t want to. Brown wasn’t about to let anybody celebrate that split like a victory:

“It’s like celebrating that your refrigerator keeps your food cold. That’s what it’s supposed to do.”

Here’s What This Really Means

A cover band on a stage is a symbol. Who gets to be an American citizen is not. Both are answering the same question: who does this country actually count, and who just gets to watch?

Dr. Burton, Congresswoman Brown got into all of it this week — the TPS fight, the birthright citizenship ruling, and what a year under the “big ugly law” has actually cost Ohio families. Listen to the full conversation here →

This is exactly the kind of breakdown you get every week when you’re on this list — the strategy behind the story, not just the story. If you’re not subscribed yet, fix that now. → kenndowell.substack.com

My question for you: If Kamala Harris had won, do you think you would’ve felt like you were part of America’s 250th birthday? Or would it have taken more than just who’s in the White House?

This is Kenn Dowell. Cleveland-born. Glenville-raised. And never afraid to say what needs to be said.

Before we get into it — thank you for reading Strategic Moves. If you’re new here, welcome. If you haven’t already, subscribe for free — it costs you nothing and makes sure you never miss a breakdown. And if this work is worth more to you than the free tier, a paid subscription helps keep this operation running and keeps the analysis coming every week, no matter who’s uncomfortable with it. Either way — glad you’re here. Let’s get into it.

Twenty Deaths Since 2020.

That’s not my number. That’s Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley’s number, said out loud, on the record, to his own county council. Since 2020, we have lost twenty lives in the county jail. — Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley, July 21, 2026

Not one council member voted yes. On that same night, Councilmember Martin Sweeney’s bill to let you elect your own sheriff again cleared committee with six or seven votes already locked in. It needs eight of eleven for final passage. Council votes again on August 4th. That’s thirteen days away, and this is one vote, maybe two, from becoming law.

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He Asked for More Power. He Lost, Completely.

Ronayne wanted the authority to suspend, discipline, or fire the sheriff outright, a power voters took away from the executive back in 2019 after this county’s last sheriff scandal. He compared it publicly to how a governor oversees the Ohio Highway Patrol.

Ask yourself why he wanted more unilateral power over that office at the exact moment his relationship with his own appointee was already broken.

Look at What It Actually Takes to Hold Either Job

The charter requires a sheriff to have at least five years of experience in law enforcement or corrections management, and a degree in the field. Within the first year, that sheriff also has to obtain a professional jail-operations certification. Miss it, and the office is automatically vacant. A hard floor written into law.

A sitting sheriff from Portage County told council the same thing to their faces that day: trying to run a sheriff’s office you’ve never worked inside is like a stranger walking into a kitchen and telling a five-star chef how to cook. Council’s rejection wasn’t a courtesy to Ronayne. It was common sense.

Say That Number Again

Twenty deaths since 2020. Nine sheriffs in fifteen years, six of those in just the last seven, according to Summit County Sheriff Kandy Fatheree, who put that stat on the record at the same meeting.

Not a rumor.Not an estimate. The county’s own prosecutor and a sitting sheriff from a neighboring county, both saying it to Cuyahoga County Council’s face. That’s not stability. That’s a revolving door with a body count, and it happened entirely under the system Ronayne is fighting to keep.

What Happens If You Fall One Vote Short

Ronayne argued for a third option that night: send the whole question to a charter review commission instead. Council President Dale Miller backed him. Here’s what that path actually costs. The commission isn’t picked until September 2027. It doesn’t report until June 2028. The earliest anything it recommends reaches your ballot is November 2028.

I’ve spent 25 years in the rooms where this county’s decisions get made, and I helped build the government we’re operating under right now, back when this county threw out three corrupt commissioners for the executive-and-council model we have today. We never finished the job on the sheriff. August 4th is our chance to finish it.

What We Actually Lost in 2009

In 2009, Cuyahoga County eliminated ten countywide elected offices in one motion. Three commissioners. An auditor, treasurer, recorder, clerk of courts, coroner, engineer, and sheriff. Every one of those offices ran its own countywide campaign. Every campaign built turnout.

We didn’t just streamline government in 2009. We dismantled the machinery that used to turn people out, and never rebuilt it.

Putting the sheriff back on the ballot restores one of those ten. One more countywide race. One more reason to organize.

Why This Isn’t About One Man

I know Chris Ronayne. I’ve watched him govern. This isn’t a verdict on him personally. I sat down with him years ago, before he was ever elected, when he was still just a candidate, and even then he talked about being in charge of the sheriff’s department like it was already settled. This fight didn’t start on July 21st. It’s about the chair itself, and everyone who sits in it after him.

An elected sheriff takes that risk off the table. It stops depending on who we happen to have in that chair. It starts depending on us. That’s true no matter who wins the seat, or who’s sitting in the executive’s office next time. The point was never to win one friendly relationship. The point is to stop needing one.

I helped build the government that put that chair there. I don’t say that to brag on it. I say it because I know exactly which parts of the job we finished, and which parts we left half done. The sheriff’s office is unfinished business, plain and simple.

Where This Lands

Thirteen days. One vote, maybe two. That’s what stands between Cuyahoga County deciding this at the ballot box in November, or watching it disappear into a commission that won’t even be picked until 2027.

Then ask yourself the bigger question I keep coming back to: if this county still ran on ten countywide elected offices worth organizing around instead of two, do you think turnout and accountability would look different than it does right now?

Tell me what you think in the comments. I want to hear where you land.

If this is the kind of civic intelligence you need, subscribe at kenndowell.substack.com. The work continues there.

My name is Kenn Dowell — Cleveland-born and Glenville-raised, and never afraid to say what needs to be said.

Before we get into it — thank you for reading Strategic Moves. If you’re new here, welcome. If you haven’t already, subscribe for free — it costs you nothing and makes sure you never miss a breakdown. And if this work is worth more to you than the free tier, a paid subscription helps keep this operation running and keeps the analysis coming every week, no matter who’s uncomfortable with it. Either way — glad you’re here. Let’s get into it.

Cleveland City Council just voted on two things that got reported everywhere as wins. Neither one closes the door it needed to close.

Here’s the part nobody’s saying out loud.

Council renewed its contract with Flock Safety, the company running the license plate readers watching this city, 9 to 6. In the same amendment, they cut off the Northeast Ohio Regional Fusion Center — a Homeland Security-linked local-federal data-sharing hub — from access to that camera network. They shortened the deal to six months instead of a year. They cut Flock’s fee in half. They added a transparency portal and quarterly reporting. On paper, that reads like accountability is working exactly as it should.

Watch what that accountability actually protects against.

It protects against this specific vendor, under this specific contract, for the next six months. It does nothing about the next fusion center, the next data-sharing partner, the next vendor with a new name and the same appetite for access. The amendment closed one door. It didn’t ask why the city keeps building doors that need closing after the fact instead of getting the terms right before signing.

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Same meeting, same instinct, bigger blind spot.

The city rejected a permit for a $1.6 billion, 150-megawatt data center proposed for a 35-acre site in Slavic Village. This working-class neighborhood found out about the project the same way most residents find out about deals that affect them: after it was already moving.

The mayor’s office cited “serious concerns about hyperscale, standalone data centers being placed in residential neighborhoods.” No further explanation. No public criteria. No standard anyone can point to and say, “Here’s exactly why this one failed and what the next one has to do differently.”

“That’s not a win. That’s a black box that happened to open in the community’s favor this one time.”

Here’s the detail that should be the actual headline.

Council followed the rejection with a three-month moratorium — but read what it actually covers. The freeze applies only to standalone data center buildings. Server farms built inside multi-tenant or mixed-use developments are explicitly exempt.

Nobody covering this story flagged what that means in practice: the same computing capacity Slavic Village just fought off can come back next month, wrapped inside a “mixed-use” development, and the moratorium will never touch it. The loophole isn’t closed. It’s been renamed, and the rename is sitting in the ordinance text right now, waiting for the first developer smart enough to read it.

This is the pattern underneath both stories, and it’s the same pattern every time.

The city doesn’t get ahead of the terms. It reacts, after the fact, to whichever version of the problem showed up first and made enough noise to force a response. A camera network gets a data-sharing hookup nobody approved, and the fix is a six-month patch on one vendor’s contract.

A data center gets proposed on land nobody consulted, and the fix is a three-month pause with a hole in it big enough to drive the same project through under a different label. Neither fix asks the actual question: what’s the standing rule, applied before the crisis, that prevents this category of problem regardless of which company or which neighborhood shows up next?

That’s the difference between winning a fight and building a floor. Slavic Village won a fight. Cleveland still doesn’t have a floor.

This isn’t unique to Cleveland, and that’s exactly why it matters here first. Every city adding data center capacity right now is running this same reactive playbook — approve first, regulate after the backlash, patch the specific loophole that got caught, and leave the adjacent one wide open.

Full breakdown — the fusion center language, the exact moratorium carve-out, and what a real standing policy would need to look like — on the newsletter this week.

What’s the version of this “temporary fix, permanent loophole” move happening in your city right now? Drop it in the comments — I’m building the file on this pattern, and I want your entries in it.

My name is Kenn Dowell — Cleveland-born and Glenville-raised, and never afraid to say what needs to be said.

Before we get into it — thank you for reading Strategic Moves. If you’re new here, welcome. If you haven’t already, subscribe for free — it costs you nothing and makes sure you never miss a breakdown. And if this work is worth more to you than the free tier, a paid subscription helps keep this operation running and keeps the analysis coming every week, no matter who’s uncomfortable with it. Either way — glad you’re here. Let’s get into it.

Cleveland City Council just voted on two things that got reported everywhere as wins. Neither one closes the door it needed to close.

Here’s the part nobody’s saying out loud.

Council renewed its contract with Flock Safety, the company running the license plate readers watching this city, 9 to 6. In the same amendment, they cut off the Northeast Ohio Regional Fusion Center — a Homeland Security-linked local-federal data-sharing hub — from access to that camera network. They shortened the deal to six months instead of a year. They cut Flock’s fee in half. They added a transparency portal and quarterly reporting. On paper, that reads like accountability is working exactly as it should.

Watch what that accountability actually protects against.

It protects against this specific vendor, under this specific contract, for the next six months. It does nothing about the next fusion center, the next data-sharing partner, the next vendor with a new name and the same appetite for access. The amendment closed one door. It didn’t ask why the city keeps building doors that need closing after the fact instead of getting the terms right before signing.

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Same meeting, same instinct, bigger blind spot.

The city rejected a permit for a $1.6 billion, 150-megawatt data center proposed for a 35-acre site in Slavic Village. This working-class neighborhood found out about the project the same way most residents find out about deals that affect them: after it was already moving.

The mayor’s office cited “serious concerns about hyperscale, standalone data centers being placed in residential neighborhoods.” No further explanation. No public criteria. No standard anyone can point to and say, “Here’s exactly why this one failed and what the next one has to do differently.”

“That’s not a win. That’s a black box that happened to open in the community’s favor this one time.”

Here’s the detail that should be the actual headline.

Council followed the rejection with a three-month moratorium — but read what it actually covers. The freeze applies only to standalone data center buildings. Server farms built inside multi-tenant or mixed-use developments are explicitly exempt.

Nobody covering this story flagged what that means in practice: the same computing capacity Slavic Village just fought off can come back next month, wrapped inside a “mixed-use” development, and the moratorium will never touch it. The loophole isn’t closed. It’s been renamed, and the rename is sitting in the ordinance text right now, waiting for the first developer smart enough to read it.

This is the pattern underneath both stories, and it’s the same pattern every time.

The city doesn’t get ahead of the terms. It reacts, after the fact, to whichever version of the problem showed up first and made enough noise to force a response. A camera network gets a data-sharing hookup nobody approved, and the fix is a six-month patch on one vendor’s contract.

A data center gets proposed on land nobody consulted, and the fix is a three-month pause with a hole in it big enough to drive the same project through under a different label. Neither fix asks the actual question: what’s the standing rule, applied before the crisis, that prevents this category of problem regardless of which company or which neighborhood shows up next?

That’s the difference between winning a fight and building a floor. Slavic Village won a fight. Cleveland still doesn’t have a floor.

This isn’t unique to Cleveland, and that’s exactly why it matters here first. Every city adding data center capacity right now is running this same reactive playbook — approve first, regulate after the backlash, patch the specific loophole that got caught, and leave the adjacent one wide open.

Full breakdown — the fusion center language, the exact moratorium carve-out, and what a real standing policy would need to look like — on the newsletter this week.

What’s the version of this “temporary fix, permanent loophole” move happening in your city right now? Drop it in the comments — I’m building the file on this pattern, and I want your entries in it.

My name is Kenn Dowell — Cleveland-born and raised, and never afraid to say what needs to be said.

Before we get into it — thank you for reading Strategic Moves. If you’re new here, welcome. If you haven’t already, subscribe for free — it costs you nothing and makes sure you never miss a breakdown. And if this work is worth more to you than the free tier, a paid subscription helps keep this operation running and keeps the analysis coming every week, no matter who’s uncomfortable with it. Either way — glad you’re here. Let’s get into it.

A Senate seat changed hands in three days. No primary. No debate stage. No vote from a single South Carolina resident. A recommendation from the President, a signature from the governor, a blessing from the sitting senior senator — and a woman who has never run for anything in her life is sworn in holding the gavel her brother held for twenty-four years.

Here’s what makes this one different.

The same coalition spent two years telling federal workers, university staff, and corporate employees that their jobs “never should have existed” — that DEI meant unearned, unqualified, handed out on identity instead of competition. Strip it out. Make them prove it. Zero tolerance.

Watch what happens the moment the seat is theirs to give away.

By their own definition — a position awarded on identity, zero competitive process attached — the seat that just went to Darline Graham Nordone is the textbook case. Except nobody on that side is reaching for the phrase. They’re calling it a tribute.

Pay attention to the detail that makes it impossible to walk back.

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I had this conversation over a year before it had a name.

In May 2025, Dr. Heather E. Burton sat across from me on this show, days after Case Western Reserve shut down its Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusive Engagement and laid her off from her post as associate vice president. She had a bachelor’s, two master’s, and a doctorate behind her.

“I am more qualified than half the folks within spaces that I occupy. But yet, because I worked for an entity to improve the services of marginalized community, I no longer have a job.” — Dr. Heather E. Burton, Strategic Moves Radio Show

Then she named the whole game before South Carolina ever handed her the receipts.

“Folks that have been laid off from the federal government, they’re more qualified than the people who’ve been appointed to lead these new entities within the government. But yet this is DEI.” — Dr. Heather E. Burton, Strategic Moves Radio Show

She said it again months later, sharper, still talking about her own building:

“How many people at that institution has a doctorate, two master’s, and a bachelor’s, plus twenty years of experience? It’s aggravating to see the mediocrity that can still be in a place.” — Dr. Heather E. Burton, Strategic Moves Radio Show

She was fifteen months ahead of Columbia. She just didn’t have the name for it yet.

Same mechanism, every time. Every appointed board seat. Every council vacancy is filled without a special election. Every “caretaker” position is handed to whoever’s closest to the outgoing officeholder instead of to whoever earned it. Cleveland runs this play at a smaller scale. The zip code changes. The move doesn’t.

They don’t have a standard. They have a switch.

Flip it on for the people they want out. Flip it off for the people they want in. The rule was never the rule — the rule was whoever’s asking and who is controlling the switch.

Call this Entry One in a pattern I’m going to keep building — the Double Standard File — because South Carolina won’t be the last place this move gets run this year, and I intend to catch every one of them.

Somebody’s going to explain the seat as tribute, as family, as grief. Fine. Just don’t let anybody tell you it was earned through a process the rest of us get held to — because the same week they proved the process was optional for her, they were still telling somebody else their job never should’ve existed.

Listen to the full conversation with Dr. Burton — she called this before it had a face → Case Western Fired Her After DEI Success

Where else have you watched this exact switch get flipped — on you, or on somebody you know? Drop it in the comments. I’m building the file, and I want your entries in it.

If this is the kind of civic intelligence you need, subscribe at kenndowell.substack.com. The work continues there.

This is Kenn Dowell. Cleveland born. Glenville raised. And never afraid to say what needs to be said.

Somebody in Washington is supposed to save us every election cycle. That’s the story this district has told itself for almost sixty years. It was true, twice. It stopped being true in 2021, and nobody’s updated the plan.

Three Different Washingtons, One Congressional Seat

Carl Stokes won the Cleveland mayoral office in 1967 with twenty percent of the white vote and near-total Black support, a year after Hough burned. His brother Louis spent the decade as a civil rights attorney before becoming Ohio’s first Black congressman in 1968.

Carl learned his politics from John O. Holly, who organized Black economic boycotts decades earlier to force white businesses to hire. Leverage first, ballots second, built by the community itself.

I ran point for Congresswoman Fudge as her political director for all thirteen years she held that seat, and I still work with her today. Fudge was never the loudest person in Washington — that was the strategy, not a limitation.

Thirteen years of quiet relationships got her a national budget to work with as HUD Secretary, the highest office anyone from this seat has held: millions into first-time homeownership, housing protections restored, targets beaten on rehousing the homeless. That’s what the discipline was for.

Here’s the most important difference in this whole story: Shontel Brown is the first person in this seat’s modern history who wasn’t handed it by the machine. Fudge couldn’t do for Brown what Stokes did for her — not because she didn’t want to, but because federal law wouldn’t let her. A sitting Cabinet secretary is bound by the Hatch Act, which bars using a federal office to pick a successor.

Same seat. Three different Washingtons — and only one of the three had to win it in the open. Brown isn’t the exception to this district’s tradition of machine-built power. She’s proof of what happens when the machine is gone and you have to build real power instead of inheriting it.

Here’s The Argument That History Sets Up.

You can see what that crutch cost in the apathy sitting in front of you right now. My generation lived that fight and felt what it cost.

Cyrus Carmack-Belton — fourteen years old, shot in the back over four bottles of water he never took, and the man who chased him down walked out of that courtroom a free man.

Karmelo Anthony — convicted by a jury with zero Black members, in a Texas county where exactly three Black jurors qualified and the prosecution struck every one of them.

Nolan Xavier Wells — eighteen years old, gone missing on a boat trip with friends, found two days later, and a family still waiting on a coroner’s report nobody’s finished. Three different states, three different circumstances, one lesson landing on the same generation over and over: the system doesn’t explain itself to you, and it does not remove itself for you.

This generation, the one coming up right now, has never been shown power working in the one form that would actually convince a skeptical seventeen-year-old: removal. Addition, we’ve done. Subtraction, we haven’t.

Here’s What I Mean, Plainly

Here’s what I mean, plainly. We tell a young man to vote for good judges. Fine. But when’s the last time we showed him the other half — a judge who hurt people, actually removed because we organized to do it? If the only lesson is “vote, and maybe something good happens eventually,” that’s a weak sell to somebody who’s never seen the reverse: vote, and something is removed, on purpose, because we said so.

Power you can’t see work doesn’t feel like power. It feels like a rumor.

There’s a reason we default to waiting instead of removing. This community has always been told which way to move — by King, by Malcolm, by whoever the machine picked — and the few who said build it yourself, like Huey Newton, got labeled dangerous for saying it. That’s a hard lesson to unlearn, and it’s still standing between us and real leverage right now.

Here’s What Real Leverage Looks Like

if this community were organized year-round — not reactivated every two years — voter registration here would be at an all-time high without anybody spending a dollar.

Campaigns already know our turnout runs low, and they know the ones of us who do vote go Democrat almost every time. That's not luck — that's a number they count on. A small, guaranteed return is cheaper to bank than a big one they'd have to work for, so they take the sure thing and spend real money elsewhere.

Build the organizing first, and the math flips. Right now, we wait to be activated. Real power means somebody else has to worry about activating you the wrong way.

Which is exactly why building our own turnout infrastructure changes the negotiation. Right now, we’re a cost campaigns have to build from scratch every two years, so they triage, and we lose. Build it ourselves, and we stop being a cost.

We become a delicacy — something already built, already counted, that they need and can’t build in time. That’s a different position to negotiate from.

None of that requires building anything new. It requires using what’s already standing — the churches, the schools, the fraternities and sororities, the Masons, the nonprofits already doing work here — and pointing them at civic organizing and voter education twelve months a year instead of four.

The real power was never only the vote total. It’s what the vote total buys afterward: the jobs, the appointments to boards and commissions that make the real decisions, whether the legislation that follows actually builds something here or just thanks us for showing up.

We treat the win as the finish line. It’s the starting line for the part that matters most.

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What New Black Power Has to Look Like

Shontel Brown isn’t a question mark anymore. Three elections in, sitting in that seat like she plans to keep it — and she’s not alone. Justin Bibb runs the mayor’s office. City Council is the youngest it’s been in a generation.

This isn’t just Cleveland, either — across the Eleventh District and the eastern suburbs, a whole new slate of Black and white officials is coming up where our people live. This district is its first fully post-machine generation of Black leadership.

Neither got handed anything — no closed-door meeting, no godfather on the phone. They won it the hard way, in a political culture that rewards loud over careful. Shontel ran through that twice; some say it helped elect Bibb, too. Neither built that water, and nobody knows how to reach a generation more comfortable posting than showing up. That’s the job now.

Heavy is the crown. Real leadership isn’t a press conference — it’s rolling up your sleeves until people feel like somebody’s fighting for them. Carl Stokes carried that weight, and so did Michael White and Frank Jackson. It’s a seriousness you grow into, not handed to you — and it’s Bibb’s turn now to build that thing between men.

None of this runs one way. Bibb needs men willing to follow — leadership nobody follows is just a title. Same with Shontel: one person can’t hold up a roof and call it a system. This was never only a men’s project — rebuilding this takes women too; we all know that women are much better organized.

I was in the room in 2020 when Fudge and I tried to organize local elected officials, just to keep some order. Even that isn’t built out for what’s needed now.

This seat mattered to Louis Stokes and Carl Stokes. It mattered to Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Marcia Fudge. It has to matter the same way now — to Shontel, to Bibb, to everybody named here — or everything argued for stays exactly where it is: waiting.

This isn’t a call to vote in one election. It’s a wake-up call — figure out what it takes to get out of a situation we helped build, and set a blueprint the next generation can use, here and across the district. Two years to the next presidential election. This year’s a real chance to win.

If you want to read every week — subscribe. → kenndowell.substack.com

"Safety in Black Cleveland has been privatized. Not by ordinance. By abandonment." — Kenn Dowell

This is Kenn Dowell. Cleveland born. Glenville raised. And never afraid to say what needs to be said.

I asked him twice because I didn’t want to believe the answer.

Chairman Fahim runs New Era Cleveland. Ten years on the southeast side, a community center at 117th and Buckeye, seventeen active members doing the intervention work most institutions won’t touch.

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir.”

This is Kenn Dowell. Cleveland born. Glenville raised. And never afraid to say what needs to be said.

I asked him twice because I didn’t want to believe the answer.

Chairman Fahim runs New Era Cleveland. Ten years on the southeast side. A community center at 117th and Buckeye. Seventeen members doing intervention work most institutions won’t touch. Mothers call him at two in the morning to come take a gun out of their own house. He is not talking from a studio. He lives in it.

So I asked him straight. Has Cleveland become so unsafe that a young man with no gang ties, no street beef, no enemies still needs to arm himself just to make it home? He said yes. I gave him room to walk it back. I asked again.

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir.”

Let Me Be Clear About Where I Stand

I want no confusion about this part. We did not agree. We did not find common ground. And I’m not going to soften my position to be polite.

A child carrying a gun is not protected. He is one bad second away from a casket or a cell. There is no version of that story that ends in safety.

And I’ll say this with respect, because the work New Era does is real: when a man leading a community organization says young kids ought to be carrying, I can’t ride with that. Not from that chair. The work is right. The answer is wrong. Both things are true.

But here’s the thing. I can reject his answer and still hear what’s underneath it. Because the question his answer forces on all of us is the one nobody wants to sit with.

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Why Do Our Kids Believe This?

That’s the real story. Not whether Fahim is right. Why a twelve-year-old already believes he is.

He told me about a boy new to the neighborhood. Knows nobody. In nothing. And that child runs survival math on a walk to buy a drink — because somebody might decide not knowing him is a reason to end him.

These kids skipped the fight and went straight to the funeral. The fists got replaced by the trigger. That’s a generation that never built the muscle to take an L.

And social media pours gas on all of it.

A kid gets clowned online by strangers who will never know his name — and he’s ready to take a life over what they might think. That’s how a joke becomes a homicide.

Fahim broke up two boys at his own program because one stared too long. The boy staring had cognitive delays. He couldn’t help it. That is how thin the line has gotten.

Abe’bre’anna Jackson. Fourteen. Straight-A student, home in her own bed. A house shot full of bullets took that baby’s life where she slept. Columbia Avenue. Glenville. The same streets that raised me.

Four failures. All of them ours to fix.

The City Owns This

Now watch the numbers. Cleveland spends more than $400 million a year on public safety. Over half the General Fund.

I know the city is trying to staff up. I know the police force has been shrinking for years, and they’re offering $5,000 signing bonuses just to get recruits in the door. That’s a real problem and I won’t pretend it isn’t.

When a fourteen-year-old dies in her own bed and a community organization of seventeen volunteers is carrying the intervention load, the city has not done its job. Period. Recruit harder. Fund the prevention workers. Show up before the funeral.

And This Is Exactly Why the Cameras Matter

Now let me connect this to something I wrote about a few weeks back, because some of you will think I’m about to contradict myself. I’m not.

My position hasn’t moved an inch: the cameras can stay, the blank check has to go. Rules written down. Limits with teeth. Reporting to council in public. I broke all of that down in the surveillance briefing — put it next to this one.

You cannot tell me we should accept armed twelve-year-olds and rejected cameras in the same neighborhood. That math doesn’t work. If the block is dangerous enough to justify a child carrying, it is dangerous enough to justify accountability that can see.

Where This Lands

Two wrongs are on the table in Cleveland right now. Arming our children. And abandoning them. I reject both.

The full conversation goes deeper — the police question, the church question, the money. Watch the episode here →

Tell me straight in the comments: do you side with me or with Fahim? Should young people in a violent neighborhood carry — or is that the surrender we can’t accept?

If this is the kind of civic intelligence you need, subscribe at kenndowell.substack.com. The work continues there.

Cleveland Has 90 Days. Here’s Who Owns Every One of Them.

The mayor has a position. The council has a deadline. The developer has an invitation. Nobody gets to stay neutral.

Part 1 laid out the argument nobody made at City Hall. Part 2 names names. Both sides of government. The private sector. Everyone with a seat at this table gets a direct question and a deadline. The 90-day clock is running.

This is Kenn Dowell. Cleveland born. Glenville raised. And never afraid to say what needs to be said.

Before we get into the names, catch up if you need to. Last week I published the paper trail showing City Hall knew about this project a year before the moratorium vote — while telling the public they were surprised. That post is kendowell.substack.com “They Said They Didn’t Know. The Paper Trail Says Otherwise”]. This one picks up where it left off.

Now. Before I get into what I have for you today, I need to correct something from Part 1.

A Correction. And Why It Matters.

In Part 1 I said Cleveland fumbled the IX Center deal. That framing was incomplete.

I hold this Substack to a higher standard. When I get something wrong I say so. Then we move.

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The County Already Moved. Cleveland Is Still Standing Still.

On June 10th, Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne released a Data Center Development Guide — built to help local communities evaluate proposals and protect residents before signing anything.

He said it plain.

“We owe it to our residents to stop bad deals before they start. Left unchecked, data center projects can drain our power, our water, and our tax dollars without creating enough new jobs or tax revenue.”

Jenita McGowan — the county’s deputy chief of staff for sustainability — backed him up.

“Communities must make decisions that carry significant long-term implications. This guide helps local governments understand energy use, infrastructure demands, environmental impacts, and economic benefits.”

That document is published. Free. Available right now. Cleveland’s working group should have it on the table at their first meeting. If it is not there — somebody needs to put it there today.

The Warning Nobody Said Out Loud.

Cuyahoga County recommends that local officials decline to sign nondisclosure agreements with data center developers.

Pay attention here. A developer approaches a council member. They request a private conversation. They ask for an NDA before revealing the project. Once signed — that official cannot tell their constituents what is being planned in their own neighborhood. Not until the developer is ready to announce it.

That is not a courtesy. That is a strategy.

A Republican state legislator introduced House Bill 695 this year to ban local officials from signing NDAs with data center developers. His argument — communities deserve honesty on major economic decisions. A Republican introducing that bill. A Democratic county official saying the same thing. When those two line up from opposite ends of the political spectrum — pay attention.

Any working group member approached by a developer in the next 90 days needs to know this before they sit down.

Where Does Mayor Bibb Stand — And What Does He Owe This City?

On May 27th at the City Club, Bibb said hyperscale data centers have “no future” in dense city neighborhoods. Residents’ concerns are valid. A 150-megawatt facility cannot show up without community engagement and expect a yes.

But he did not say no to everything.

“The city of Cleveland has data cloud facilities. The county has data cloud facilities. We’re not saying no to that.”

His administration denied Lakeland Equity’s permit on a technicality. No site plans submitted. Procedural rejection. Not a policy one. The door is still open.

The Administration Owns More Than It Admitted.

And there is one more thing the administration owns now. Because last week the story changed.

Cleveland.com’s Sean McDonnell reported that Cleveland Public Power Commissioner Ammon Danielson signed a letter of support for Lakeland Equity Group. That letter is dated June 25, 2025.

Read that date again. One full year before council voted on this moratorium.

Now hold that next to what the Bibb administration told the public. They said City Hall was caught off guard by this proposal. They said they didn’t know.

The paper trail says otherwise. I broke it down in full last week.

Here is why it matters for the next 70 days. You cannot claim surprise and claim leadership at the same time.

If the administration knew about Lakeland a year out, then the administration had a year to prepare zoning language, a community benefits framework, and a public education plan. It produced none of that. That is not a knowledge problem. That is a choice.

The mayor owns the administrative side of this moratorium. He owns what the working group produces. He owns the draft zoning language. He owns what Kate Nielsen and Shannon Leonard deliver to that table.

And now he owns one more thing — a straight public accounting of who inside City Hall knew about Lakeland, when they knew it, and why the public heard “we were surprised” when a city commissioner’s signature was already on paper.

Leadership is not an Instagram post. It is a zoning ordinance with your name on it before September 14.

Mayor Bibb — Cleveland is watching what your administration produces. Not what you say about it. The clock you are on did not start when the cameras showed up. It started June 25, 2025. You just didn’t tell us it was running.

Cleveland Already Has the Tool. Blaine Griffin Built It.

Most people in that hearing room did not know this either. Cleveland already has a Community Benefits Agreement ordinance. It passed in June 2023. It is already law.

A CBA is not a promise. Not a handshake. It is a legally binding contract. It spells out what a developer delivers before they break ground. Hiring targets. Apprenticeship programs. Environmental monitoring. Direct contributions back into the neighborhood.

Let me give credit where it is due. Blaine Griffin built this tool. He championed it. The 2023 ordinance requires a CBA whenever a developer receives a city incentive of $250,000 or more.

The tool is on the shelf. The only question is whether Cleveland picks it up.

That happened because the city kept its leverage every time it sat down at the table.

The Lakeland Equity proposal is $1.6 billion. Eighty times Cleveland’s $20 million CBA threshold. Cleveland’s own law already requires an expanded community benefit agreement at that scale. Nobody said that clearly at the June 25 hearing. So I am saying it here.

Griffin built the tool for exactly this moment. Now he has to use it.

This Is Personal.

I am not writing about data centers as an abstract policy question.

Early in my career I digitized records for Cuyahoga County government. I watched paper become data with my own hands. I know what this infrastructure is because I helped build an early version of it.

When I speak up for data centers with the right guardrails — I am speaking up for them.

What This Moment Requires of Blaine Griffin.

The people do not know what a data center is. Not because they are not smart. Because nobody has told them in a language they can receive.

A few committee meetings that most working people cannot attend on a Tuesday morning is not a public education campaign. It is a checkbox. Cleveland needs a real campaign. Organized. Coordinated. Taken into every ward. The city leads it. But everybody shows up to deliver it.

Lakeland Equity wants to build in this community. Then come be part of the conversation that educates this community. Bring your engineers. Bring your data. Sit in the room with residents and answer questions directly.

And if 70 days is not enough time to do that right — say so. Extend it. Griffin has that authority. Use it if the people need it.

Now let me say something else. Plain.

Leading this council right now is not easy. What Griffin is working with is fifteen members — and some days it feels like fifteen little mayors. Each one protecting their own zip code. Each one convinced their corner of Cleveland is the whole story.

Griffin is one of the last people in that building who knows how this game is actually played. Coalition built quietly. Real work done before the vote. Leverage held without burning the room down.

That knowledge matters right now more than it has in years.

Set the differences aside. All of them. Whatever is happening inside that chamber — put it down for 70 days. Get your council aligned. Not for any one member’s agenda. For the 360,000 people in this city who need their government to function.

You built the tool. You know the history. You have the relationships. Lead.

Everybody In This Room Has To Own Their Position.

It belongs to all of them. Equally.

Every day of these 70 days is owned jointly by the people who voted for it and the administration that shaped it. Twenty of those days are already spent. Show me what they bought. If September 14 comes and Cleveland has something real — they all share the credit. If it comes with nothing — they all share the blame.

No pointing across the aisle. You are all in this together.

The Administrative Side.

Mayor Bibb — define what a yes looks like under your administration. Not in a press release. In a zoning ordinance with your signature on it. You pushed for three months. That was your call. Own every day of it. And answer for June 25, 2025 while you’re at it.

Kate Nielsen — you sat at that table on June 25th as the mayor’s senior policy adviser. What is the administration delivering to the working group and when? That is an administrative question. It needs an administrative answer. On a timeline. In writing.

Shannon Leonard — you are the chief zoning administrator. The entire working group is waiting on you to define the difference between a server room and a hyperscale facility. Everything else depends on that definition. What does the draft language look like and when does it land on that table?

They deserve a public education campaign — funded, organized, and delivered into their neighborhoods — not just a legislative deliverable handed to council in September. That is also an administrative responsibility. Own it.

The Legislative Side.

Brian Kazy — you chair the Utilities Committee. You set September 14. That deadline has your name on it. Not as a suggestion. As a commitment.

And you owe this city one more answer. You told cleveland.com that you and several city officials met with Lakeland before CPP sent that letter in June 2025. Credit where it’s due — you said it on the record when the paper called. Nobody dragged it out of you.

But that honesty opens a harder question. You knew a multi-megawatt data center was being planned for this city a full year before the moratorium vote. You chair the committee that oversees CPP. What did you do with that knowledge for a year? Where was the zoning conversation in 2025? And did Deborah Gray — whose ward this project landed in — ever get a heads up from you or anybody else?

You called last month’s blowup a wake-up call. The alarm went off in June 2025. It just rang in a room the public wasn’t in.

What does the legislation look like when it comes back to that room?

Blaine Griffin — you said Cleveland cannot be closed for business. You mentioned a $7 billion investment watching this debate. What does the regulatory framework look like that protects that investment and the neighborhoods at the same time? You have 70 days. Answer it with a vote.

Charles Slife — you wrote the moratorium. Finish it. What is the specific zoning language you are introducing in September? That bill started with you. It ends with you too.

Kevin Conwell — your history is real. Your anger is earned. But anger without a specific ask is just noise. What protection do you want written into the zoning code for Ward 9? Name it. Bring it to the working group.

Councilwoman Gray — you represent Slavic Village. Your ward is ground zero. And here is what should make your blood boil. Lakeland says city officials knew about the Slavic Village site since October. Months of warning inside this government — while your residents found out from the news. So ask your colleagues who knew and never told you. Then tell us what your residents need written into law before this comes back to a vote.

Councilwoman Hudson — you connected grid reliability to this debate. Good. What is the specific grid requirement you want in the zoning code? Not a concern. A requirement.

The Private Side.

Greater Cleveland Partnership — you said moratoriums shift investment elsewhere. Then write the zoning language you would accept. Put it on the table. A press release opposing a moratorium is not a policy position. It is a complaint.

IBEW Local 38 — Mike Bremmer. Jamie Davis. You showed up to that hearing and made the strongest case in the room for what this city could become. Now back it up. Come to the working group with specific CBA language that protects local hiring. Put the pre-apprenticeship program requirement in writing. That is your seat at the table. Use it before September 14.

We’re Coming to You Direct.

Sam Khouri. You are the man behind this project. Lakeland Equity Group. Westlake-based. Cleveland-rooted. $1.6 billion on the table.

You have not sat down for a long-form conversation yet. Not one where somebody asks the hard questions and you answer them on the record.

Strategic Moves is extending that invitation right now. On the record. Come sit down with us. Bring your water plan. Bring your hiring commitment. Bring your community benefit language. Lay it out where Cleveland can hear it directly from you.

If this project is as good for this city as you say it is — prove it. The invitation is open.

Here is the bottom line.

The moratorium buys 90 days. Seventy of them are left. September 14 comes whether Cleveland is ready or not. Every person named in this post has a deliverable. Not a position to hold. Not a statement to issue. A deliverable.

Cleveland does not have a knowledge problem. The county published the playbook. The law already requires a community benefit agreement. Other cities already negotiated the deals.

What Cleveland has is a will problem.

Seventy days is enough. The only question is whether the people in power want it badly enough to do the work. I will be watching. And so will you.

What Comes Next.

Part 3 is the deep dive. Community benefit agreements line by line. What Cleveland must demand. What the working group needs to deliver by September 14. And the experts — people with no financial stake in this outcome — telling you exactly what a smart yes looks like in writing.

Part 4 is the panel. The developer. Labor. A Slavic Village resident. A policy expert. All in the same room. All answering the same questions. That conversation is going to be the most important hour of civic media produced in Cleveland this year.

Subscribe right now so you do not miss a single part of it. And drop your question below — what do you want asked at that table before Cleveland votes?

— Kenn Dowell, Strategic Moves Media Network

A letter dated June 25, 2025 is raising serious questions about what Cleveland City Hall knew — and when they knew it — about the $1.6 billion data center proposal that rocked this city. This is Part of the Strategic Moves Data Centers Series. Based on reporting by Sean McDonnell, cleveland.com, published July 2, 2026.

The city gave a developer the green light to bring a hyperscale data center to Cleveland — a full year before they told you they were surprised.

This is Kenn Dowell. Cleveland born. Glenville raised. And never afraid to say what needs to be said.

On June 25, 2025 — exactly one year before Cleveland City Council voted on a moratorium — Cleveland Public Power Commissioner Ammon Danielson signed a letter.

That letter went to Lakeland Equity Group. The same company behind the $1.6 billion data center proposal that supposedly caught City Hall off guard.

The letter told Lakeland they could use it to pitch major national data center operators. It said CPP was willing to provide up to 125 megawatts of power if a data center came to Cleveland.

One hundred and twenty-five megawatts. Nearly half of CPP’s entire 300-megawatt system. Offered in writing. To one developer.

That is not a courtesy note. That is a statement of intent.

Now Here Is Where It Gets Interesting.

Council member Brian Kazy — the same man who chaired the June 25 moratorium hearing — confirmed that he and city officials met with Lakeland before that letter was even sent.

His words. Not mine.

“The administration definitely knew a multi-megawatt data center was being planned for the city.”

Lakeland went further. The company says city officials have known about the Slavic Village site specifically since October. October 2025. Seven months before the permit hit the public portal and Cleveland found out.

Lakeland also says it reviewed commercial sites across Cleveland with city cooperation. That officials met with them frequently. That there was a shared intent to work together from the beginning.

Let me say that again slowly.

Shared intent. Frequent meetings. City cooperation. Since at least June 2025.

Now Go Back to What Mayor Bibb Said.

May 27, 2026. City Club of Cleveland. On camera.

“When you come at the last minute and want to propose a hyperscale standalone facility without talking to residents, without engaging in thoughtful conversation with the administration — that’s a problem.”

Last minute.

Without talking to the administration.

Neither one is a good answer.

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What CPP Is Trying to Do Right Now.

After this letter became public today, CPP put out a statement calling it a technical document. Just about grid capacity. Not an endorsement from the city.

Two independent experts pushed back immediately.

Now CPP wants to call it nothing.

Pay attention to that move. When an institution tries to minimize its own documented actions — that tells you everything about what those actions actually meant.

This Is the Pattern the County Warned About.

Cuyahoga County released its Data Center Development Guide on June 10, 2026. It specifically warned local officials not to sign nondisclosure agreements with data center developers. The reason — developers use private agreements to keep communities in the dark while negotiations move forward.

No NDA was needed here. The result was the same.

Lakeland and city officials met for over a year. They reviewed sites together. CPP offered power in writing. The Slavic Village site was identified months before the public knew anything. And Cleveland residents found out when a permit appeared in an online portal in May 2026.

That is not transparency. That is a managed process where the community is always the last to know.

The Questions That Need Answers. On the Record.

Mayor Bibb — your CPP commissioner offered 125 megawatts in writing to a developer a full year before you told Cleveland you were caught off guard. Kazy confirmed the administration knew. So answer this directly. Who in your administration knew about this letter. When did you know. And why did you tell Cleveland you were surprised.

These are not gotcha questions. They are the minimum that Cleveland residents deserve answered before this working group produces a single word of zoning language.

Here Is What This Does Not Change.

This letter does not settle whether data centers are good or bad for Cleveland. That debate is still open. The moratorium is still running. September 14 is still the deadline.

A community that finds out about a $1.6 billion project through a permit portal — after city officials and a developer have been meeting frequently for over a year — is not a community with a seat at the table.

This post is what happens when the paper trail catches up to the press conference.

The moratorium is running. The working group is meeting. And now we know the whole city was not starting from the same place on June 25.

Some people had a head start. And the rest of Cleveland is just finding out.

Stay with this series. Because we are just getting started.

— Kenn Dowell, Strategic Moves Media Network

This post is based on reporting by Sean McDonnell, cleveland.com, published July 2, 2026.

Subscribe at kenndowell.substack.com. Drop your question below — what do you want Mayor Bibb to answer first?

This is Kenn Dowell. Cleveland born. Glenville raised. And never afraid to say what needs to be said.

We are in July. November is four months away. And I have been in enough of these cycles to know exactly what is about to happen — because it happens every single time.

I am going to tell you what went wrong. Right now. In July. While there is still time to do something about it.

The Number That Should Embarrass Everyone

Let me start right here in Cuyahoga County. Because the numbers from our own May 5th primary tell you everything you need to know about the size of the problem.

Cuyahoga County has 862,843 registered voters. In the May primary, 672,791 of them did not cast a ballot. That is not a typo. Nearly 78 percent of registered voters in this county sat out an election that determines who controls the ballot, the bench, and the budget.

Now zoom out to the general election picture. In the 2022 midterm, the City of Cleveland recorded only 29% voter turnout. Countywide it was 44%. Those numbers are not the floor. They have become the expectation. And campaigns have built their entire strategy around managing that expectation instead of changing it.

Now look at what AARP’s June 2026 survey shows. Sherrod Brown leads Jon Husted 48% to 45% — within the margin of error. Amy Acton leads Vivek Ramaswamy 47% to 44% — same story. Both races are coinflips. Both will be decided by who turns out.

Black voters back Brown by 65 points. Black voters back Acton by 55 points. The support is overwhelming. It has always been there. The question is whether the people who hold that support show up to express it.

In a county where 672,791 registered voters stayed home in the primary, that is not a small question. That is the whole game.

Every cycle they run the same play. Every cycle Black turnout underperforms what it could be. And every cycle the margin is close enough that you can draw a straight line between what didn’t get invested in June and what didn’t show up in November.

We are in July. That line is already being drawn.

There’s a Third Force Working Against All of This

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Before I get to our own accountability — and I’m getting there — I have to name what happened on June 11th.

Hundreds of FBI agents fanned out across Ohio. They raided the Cleveland offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative — a nonpartisan voter registration organization that helped register approximately 160,000 Ohioans in 2024.

Agents showed up at staff members’ homes. They followed people in their cars. They seized computers and phones. They contacted more than 100 current and former affiliates across the state.

Not one person has been charged with a crime.

Congresswoman Shontel Brown said it plainly: “Voter registration is not voter fraud. Urban communities voting is not voter fraud. Black Americans voting is not voter fraud.”

She is right. And I’ll add what she didn’t say. What that raid did is send a message to every person doing ground-level civic work in Ohio. The message is: this work is dangerous. You could be next. Organizers pull back.

Volunteers get nervous. Organizations that were already underfunded now have to think about whether registering voters makes them a federal target.

That is what intimidation is designed to produce. The response is not to go quieter. It is to go bigger.

Now Let Me Talk to Us

The campaigns’ failure does not excuse what I’m seeing on our side.

We have organizations. We have elected officials. We have civic groups and people who carry the title of leader. And right now, in July, too many of them are waiting. Waiting on a campaign to fund them. Waiting for someone else to convene the room.

That is not leadership. That is dependency. And we built it ourselves.

The resources from campaigns should be an offset. They should supplement infrastructure that already exists — not build it from scratch in October. Voting is not a campaign activity. It is a civic practice. And until we fund and run our own infrastructure year-round, we will keep having this same conversation.

The Asset Nobody Is Using

Let me talk about the biggest missed opportunity of this entire cycle.

First, let me tell you who she is running against. Frank LaRose signed Senate Bill 293 into law — a monthly voter purge system removing voters from the rolls without meaningful notice. The ACLU called it discriminatory and unlawful.

Federal lawsuits argue it violates the National Voter Registration Act and the 14th Amendment. The man purging Black voters off the rolls is now asking Ohio to send him to the U.S. Senate. The woman running to hold the office he is leaving is one of our own.

That contrast is not a talking point. That is a reason to show up.

In 2016, Blackwell became the first woman and the first African American elected mayor of Maple Heights — walking into a city in state-declared fiscal emergency with a $2.7 million deficit. She fixed it in four years.

By 2021, Maple Heights was earning the Ohio Auditor’s Clean Audit Award — every year through 2023. She is not a symbolic candidate. She fixed a broken city. People across the inner-ring suburbs know exactly who she is and what she did.

That is not history. That is right now. Ohio passed a voter purge law. The Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. The FBI raided a voter registration organization in Cleveland. Different tactics. Same objective.

That is why we are calling this Freedom Summer 2026. The work started in 1964 is unfinished. Finishing it means showing up this November organized, fearless, and too large to stop.

Annette Blackwell is part of that answer. A coordinated ground operation centered on her presence in Black communities across Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, and Montgomery counties is capable of producing a 5 to 7 point turnout increase. She is not the only variable. But she may be the most underutilized one.

She is one election away from becoming the first Black woman elected Ohio State Auditor in state history. She is running against the man who tried to purge our voters. She gives every low-propensity Black voter a second reason to show up that feels personal.

In a race this close, leaving that on the table is not a small mistake.

The Clock Is Running

In May, 672,791 registered Cuyahoga County voters did not cast a ballot in the primary. Not statewide. Right here. Our county. Our neighbors. Our people.

The math is sitting right there. It will still be sitting there in September when everyone finally decides it’s time to move. The question is whether we keep letting the calendar run out before we act like we mean it.

I mean it now. In July.

Subscribe to this Substack if you want to follow what happens next. The strategy conversation continues here.

— Kenn Dowell, Strategic Moves Media Network

I want to take a moment before we get into anything else.When you build something real, you have to be intentional about who you bring into it. Not everybody deserves a seat at the table. Not everybody has put in the work to carry the name.Joe Little III has put in the work.

This is Kenn Dowell. Cleveland born. Glenville raised. And never afraid to say what needs to be said.

So when we talked about expanding Strategic Moves Media Network, Joe’s name was never a question. It was a conversation that made sense from the first word.

Today I want to give a big, official, long-overdue welcome to Joe Little III — host of A1 Conversations on Strategic Moves Media Network.

This is his house now too.And he came in the door swinging.Two episodes are already live. Both of them demand your attention. Here’s why.

CLEVELAND. YOUR CHAMPION IS FIGHTING AT HOME. WHERE ARE YOU?

Abdullah Mason | A1 Conversations

Let me say something that needs to be said.

Cleveland has a history. And it’s not a good one. We have watched our own people climb to the top — and then acted surprised when nobody outside this city knew their name. Because we didn’t show up. We didn’t make noise. We let the moment pass and then wondered why the world moved on without us.

That ends July 4th. It should.

On the Fourth of July — one week from today — he defends that title at the Wolstein Center. In Cleveland. His hometown. For the first time in his professional career.

This city needs to be in that building.

Joe sat down with Mason before fight night and what came out was bigger than boxing. Mason talked about the weight of carrying a world title at 22. The discipline nobody sees. The sacrifice that doesn’t make the highlight reel. He talked about his family — four of his five brothers are also fighters. This isn’t luck. This is a family that built something on purpose, right here in Cleveland.

The question is whether Cleveland is going to show up for him before the rest of the world does. Because the rest of the world is coming. They always do. The only question is whether we get there first — or show up late like we always have.

Watch the episode. Then get your tickets. July 4th. Wolstein Center. No excuses.

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THIRTY YEARS OF EXCELLENCE. NOBODY KNEW HIS NAME. THAT WAS BY DESIGN.

Eric Nolan Grant | A1 Conversations

We celebrate the wrong people.

That’s not an opinion. That’s a pattern. We put our energy behind the name on the marquee and walk right past the people who made the marquee possible. Every single time.

Eric Nolan Grant has been one of those people for thirty years. And I need you to understand something about that — because this is not a sad story. It’s a strategic one.

Two hundred thousand people in Amsterdam. Eighty-seven thousand at Essence Festival — four times. Everywhere the O’Jays went, Eric was there holding it down. Quietly. Consistently. At the highest level.

And when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction came in 2006 — he stood at the bottom of the steps and didn’t go up.

Now pay attention here. Because this is the part most people will miss.

Eric Nolan Grant didn’t stay below the radar because he had no other choice. He stayed because he understood something that most people chasing the spotlight never figure out. Mastery is the work. The stage is just where you prove it. For thirty years he was in the room — sharpening his craft, building his reputation, doing the thing at the highest level without needing the world to watch him do it.

That is Black excellence. Not the loud kind. The kind that compounds over time. The kind that lasts.

Thirty years building somebody else’s stage. Now he’s building his own.

Joe Little sat down with his big brother for a conversation that has never been told publicly. Not like this. You need to hear it.

This is what A1 Conversations brings to this network. Real people. Real stories. No filter.

Welcome to the network, Joe. Cleveland is ready.

Subscribe to this Substack so you don’t miss what’s coming next.

— Kenn Dowell, Founder — Strategic Moves Media Network

This is Kenn Dowell. Cleveland born. Glenville raised. And never afraid to say what needs to be said.

200 Million People Are Making Money Online. Cleveland Just Voted to Block What Powers Them.

Today, Cleveland City Council’s Utilities Committee voted to block new data centers from being built in this city. No new permits. No new reviews. No new licenses. The full council could make it official as early as July 15.

I understand the concerns that got us here. But before this city makes a decision it cannot take back, Cleveland needs to hear what nobody said in that hearing room today.

I Understand Why They Did It. Start-1:12:39

A proposal for a 150-megawatt hyperscale data center in Slavic Village caught public officials by surprise. The Bibb administration denied the permit. Residents are worried about noise, power outages, and who benefits when Big Tech moves into their neighborhood.

Those concerns are real. I am not dismissing them.

He also said he has a $7 billion investment on the cusp of coming to this city. And the language coming out of this debate is being watched carefully — because the wrong words send the wrong message to every major investment looking at Cleveland right now.

Cleveland has a long habit of ignoring that second part.

This Is a Pattern. Not a Policy.

Walk through downtown Cleveland right now. Count the empty storefronts. Count the buildings that have been dark for years. Look at the vacant land sitting and sitting while other cities build on theirs.

There is not one Amazon facility inside the city limits of Cleveland. Not one. The largest employer of warehouse and logistics workers in the country looked at this city — all its available land, all its workforce — and put every operation on the outskirts. Never inside the city.

That is not an accident. That is a reputation.

Utilities Committee Chair Brian Kazy said it plainly. “Data centers are here. They’re probably not going anywhere anytime soon. But what we need to figure out is, do we have infrastructure that’s going to support them?”

He also said this. “Data centers are the boogeyman. You either believe in him or you don’t. If you believe in him and he’s there, you’re scared. If you don’t believe in him, you’re never scared.”

That is exactly the problem. And it is exactly why education matters more than emotion right now.

So What Is a Data Center?

In plain English.

A data center is a building full of computers. Stacked floor to ceiling, running around the clock. When you check your MyChart and your test results are waiting. When you log into your bank at midnight from your phone. When you make a payment, stream a show, send a text, post a photo — all of that is hitting a data center somewhere.

There are already 22 data centers in the Greater Cleveland area. Nearly 50 throughout Northeast Ohio. They are already here. The question is not whether Cleveland will have data centers. The question is whether Cleveland will have any say in how they operate — and any share in what they produce.

The Jobs Nobody Is Counting.

Some council members argued that data centers don’t employ many people. IBEW Local 38’s Mike Bremmer pushed back hard. “Cleveland needs an identity. It’s not steel. It’s not railroads anymore and it’s not auto. We could be the tech capital of the Midwest.”

Jamie Davis — a Black Cleveland man, born and raised here, 30-year union member — talked about pre-apprenticeship programs. Skills that last 30 and 40 years. Electricians making $120,000 a year who started as apprentices at $36,000. A ticket to the middle class nobody can take away.

I want to go further than that.

There are over 200 million content creators working right now. Food bloggers. Fitness coaches. Black-owned businesses running their entire operation through Instagram. Gen Z entrepreneurs who have never held a traditional job and don’t plan to. Young people right here in Glenville, in Hough, on the east side — building audiences, selling products, making real income from their phones.

That creator economy alone is worth $254 billion this year. Add the broader digital economy and you are talking about the foundation underneath almost every job that exists in the modern world. When you vote against data center infrastructure, you are not just voting against a server technician. You are voting against every business owner, every entrepreneur, every professional, and every creator in this community who uses the internet to earn a living.

The construction jobs are real. The electrical trade careers are real. But those are the jobs that build the building. The economy that runs inside that building — and the economy that runs because of what that building makes possible — that is what nobody in that hearing room yesterday was talking about.

So I am talking about it here.

The East Side Argument. And Why the Facts Matter.

Councilman Kevin Conwell said what a lot of people on the east side are already feeling. Everything negative ends up in Black neighborhoods. Not by coincidence. By economics. Cheap land. Communities with less power to fight back.

He is right about the history. But in this specific case, the facts tell a more complicated story.

The site in question is the old Morabito Enterprises trucking property on East 55th Street. Dormant. Zoned industrial. Generating nothing — no jobs, no tax revenue, no activity. The Ohio EPA came in, inspected it, and issued a finding of no further action needed. The contamination has been cleaned up.

Norman Edwards — 40 years fighting for Black workers in this city — said it plainly. That site has been sitting contaminated and abandoned. A $1.6 billion investment wants to do something positive with it.

One analyst said that site, developed as a data center, could produce $6 million a year in taxes for Cleveland schools. Right now it produces zero.

And Jamie Davis said it directly in that hearing room. Slavic Village is 50% Black, 42% white, and 8% Hispanic. “It’s not even a Black or white issue for Slavic Village. It’s not.”

Real regulations solve the protection problem. A reflexive no solves nothing. Three Months Is Enough — If Cleveland Uses Them Right. Three months is not the problem. What Cleveland does with them is.

Council does not need ninety days of hearings where misinformed people repeat things they half-read on the internet. That is not engagement. That is theater.

But education cannot only flow one direction. Residents also need to see their council members doing homework. Meeting with companies that got this right in other cities. Learning what water recycling systems Washington State requires. Studying noise reduction standards and buffer zones already written into law elsewhere. Looking at closed-loop cooling technology that cuts water use by up to 90 percent. Building community benefit agreements that require local hiring and direct reinvestment.

Other cities already built this playbook. Cleveland does not have to invent it. Just study it and put it in writing before a single new permit gets approved.

We Get to Learn From Their Mistakes.

I want to take a personal moment. This conversation is not abstract to me.

One of my first professional jobs was with Cuyahoga County. We were taking the Recorder’s Office off the old dumb terminals — green text on a black screen, no mouse, just commands typed into a box. Moving everybody over to Windows. From there we scanned recorder documents. Then other county departments. Then the county built its own data center to store what we were digitizing. Then the city followed. Then the banks. Then the municipalities. Those little server rooms tucked into the back of office buildings all over this region — that is the legacy of what we were building in the early days.

Meta did not build its first data centers knowing what we know now about water consumption, cooling systems, noise, and community impact. They opened a trail nobody had walked before. And when you open a new trail, sometimes you damage things you did not expect to damage.

But here is what comes out of that. Better technology. Smarter systems. Closed-loop cooling. Noise reduction. Filtration standards. The solutions being demanded in Cleveland today exist because other communities demanded them first.

Cleveland does not have to be the guinea pig. Cleveland gets to show up after the trail has been cut and say — here are our terms, built on everything we learned from everyone who came before us.

That is not a disadvantage. That is leverage.

A Tip for City Hall.

One question needs to be answered before anybody votes on anything.

What happened to the IX Center deal?

The IX Center is a 2.2 million square foot building on 159 acres of city-owned land right next to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Electrical infrastructure already in place. Away from residential neighborhoods. Away from every concern raised in today’s hearing.

Last year, sources reported it was being converted into a data center — with Amazon Web Services as the likely tenant. The city projected 250 jobs. Council voted to extend the lease. The paperwork never got signed. The tenant walked away. Nobody has fully explained why.

That building is still sitting there. That land is still city-owned. And Cleveland is still arguing over whether data centers belong here at all.

Stop fighting over whether to say yes next to someone’s house. Start building the city’s own data infrastructure at the one site already purpose-built for it. Sell capacity to Cleveland Clinic. Sell it to MetroHealth. Sell it to Cuyahoga County. Every hospital and government agency in this region pays someone else to store their data right now. Cleveland could be collecting that money instead.

Own the asset. Set the terms. Profit from what you build.

That is what a smart yes looks like.

What Comes Next.

The moratorium gives Cleveland three months. If council is not ready by September 14th, the moratorium sunsets and it is fully open for business with no guardrails at all. That is not a win for anyone who showed up in that hearing room today — pro or anti.

Use the time. Do the work. Come back in September with something real.

I am not willing to watch Cleveland waste another opportunity. That is why I am doing this series.

Subscribe right now so you don’t miss Part 2. And drop your question below — what do you want Cleveland’s working group to get right before they bring this back to council in September?

— Kenn Dowell, Strategic Moves Media Network

"Same contract. Same company. Same risks. One city governed. One city is still trying to figure out what it voted for."
— Kenn Dowell, Strategic Moves Media Network

This is Kenn Dowell. Cleveland born. Glenville raised. And never afraid to say what needs to be said.

Last Week. Same Issue. Two Cities. Two Completely Different Responses.

A lot happened last week in Northeast Ohio. But two things stood out to me — and I don’t think enough people have put them side by side yet.

On Wednesday, June 17th, Cleveland City Council’s Public Safety Committee sat through nearly two hours of debate and voted 3 to 1 against renewing the city’s contract with Flock Safety. The contract expires June 29th. The legislation now heads to another council committee, but no date has been set for a hearing. The clock is running.

Two days later, on Friday, June 19th, Shaker Heights Mayor David Weiss quietly did something different. He signed a new Flock Safety contract. No drama. No three-hour hearing. No unresolved questions hanging in the air.

And the difference between those two responses tells you everything you need to know about the state of governance in this region right now. It tells you why families pack up and leave cities like Cleveland. Not because they stopped loving it.

But because at some point they get tired of watching a smaller community down the road solve in two days what their city couldn’t figure out in three years. People don’t leave Cleveland for the suburbs because the grass is greener. They leave because the government actually works.

Same Contract. Two Different Cities. One Answer.

Let me be clear about what I am and am not saying.

I am not comparing Cleveland to Shaker Heights as cities. That is not a fair comparison and I am not going to make it. Different size. Different population. Different resources. Different challenges entirely.

But here is what is the same.

Both cities signed a contract with Flock Safety. Same company. Same technology. Same national network. Same questions about who can access the data, whether federal agencies can pull it, whether ICE can use it, whether residents are protected.

That contract is the apples to apples.

Cleveland looked at the same contract and three years later showed up to a renewal hearing with no data, no outcomes, no case numbers, and no answer to the most basic question a council member could ask.

Same contract. Same company. Same risks. One city governed. One city is still trying to figure out what it voted for. That is not a size problem. That is not a resource problem. That is a governance problem.

What Should Have Been There From The Start.

Here is what this hearing actually revealed — and it is bigger than whether you trust this mayor or the next one. Three years. 100 cameras. 12,000 searches a month. And when council finally sat down and asked for the numbers — the administration didn’t have them.

Now I want to be fair to both sides. Maybe council asked for performance reports and the administration never delivered. Maybe nobody asked and nobody reported. We don’t know for certain. And that itself is part of the problem.

But here is what we do know. One of two things is true. Either council asked for this information and never got it — in which case the administration failed them. Or nobody asked — in which case both branches failed the public. Pick one. Neither answer is acceptable.

What is not debatable is this. A $250,000 a year surveillance contract should have had benchmarks written into it from day one. Annual reviews. Required reporting. Data on outcomes — delivered regularly, not on the eve of a deadline.

All of that oversight infrastructure. And nobody asked for a benchmark.

Shaker Heights didn’t make that mistake. Their new contract requires on demand audit logs, built-in performance reporting, and a termination clause if Flock violates any of it. That is what guardrails look like. Cleveland still needs to build them.

Two Branches. One Failure.

When Cleveland’s Public Safety Committee finally held a hearing, council members asked the Bibb administration a simple question. How many cases have these cameras actually helped solve? Three years of 12,000 searches a month — show us the results.

The administration had no answer.

And here is what makes it worse. Even Council Safety Committee Chair Michael Polensek — the one member who voted yes — said publicly that this could have been done months ago. “They knew when the contract was running out, and yet they didn’t take the appropriate action.”

Read that again. The administration’s own ally on council called them out.

The administration should have been reporting. Council should have been requiring it. The public deserved answers at every step — not just the last one. That is a failure of governance. Both branches own it.

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What Cleveland Can Do Right Now.

Let me be straight about where I stand. The cameras have real value. Shaker’s own mayor credited Flock with helping solve homicides, sexual assaults, and aggravated robberies — and with recovering a missing juvenile. I am not arguing to pull them out.

But Shaker just proved what Cleveland keeps treating as impossible. You can keep the cameras and write a contract that actually protects your community. You can bar ICE access. You can require warrants. You can demand audit logs. You can build in a termination clause with a refund if Flock violates any of it.

The answer for Cleveland is not “Flock No.” The answer is a contract that looks like Shaker’s. Warrant requirement. No federal access. No ICE-connected jurisdictions. Full audit logs available to council on demand. Mandatory performance reporting — actual case numbers, actual outcomes — delivered to the full council on a regular basis.

And this time the administration brings the data before the vote. Not after someone asks. Not when the contract is already running. Before. That is not a radical ask. That is basic governance. And the city down the road just proved it can be done.

The Trust Argument Is the Problem.

Let me sit with something that came out of that hearing. Because it matters more than people realize. Someone stood up and said they trust Mayor Bibb with this data.

I want to take that seriously. Because I understand why someone would say it. Mayor Bibb is not the enemy in this conversation. But here is what that statement actually reveals — and why it should concern every single person in that room.

When your only protection is trusting the person currently in office — you have no protection at all.

What exists right now is faith. Faith that the current mayor will do the right thing. Faith that the next one will too. Faith that somewhere down the line nobody in this chain decides to use 12,000 searches a month worth of data in a way this community never authorized.

That is not governance. That is hope.

And now layer in what we actually know about how this administration has handled this program. Three years of operation. 12,000 searches a month. And when council finally asked the most basic question — how many cases has this helped solve — the administration had no answer. Nothing. Empty.

This is the administration people are being asked to trust with surveillance data on every vehicle moving through this city.

Let that sit for a minute.

You cannot ask a community to extend blind trust to an administration that has not been transparent about the most basic facts of a program it has been running for three years. Trust is not declared. It is demonstrated. And on this issue the Bibb administration has not demonstrated it. That is not personal. That is the record.

Shaker Heights did not ask their residents to trust anybody. Mayor Weiss wrote the protections into the contract. Warrant required. Federal agencies locked out. ICE-connected jurisdictions removed. Audit logs available. Termination clause with a refund if Flock violates any of it.

Shaker’s residents do not have to trust the next mayor. The contract protects them regardless of who wins the next election. That is what accountability looks like. Not a promise. Not faith in one person. Written protection that survives the next administration and the one after that.

Cleveland can have the same thing. But it requires both branches of government to stop asking residents to trust them — and start giving residents something written down that they can hold them to.

The people of this city deserve more than trust. They deserve a contract with teeth.

— Kenn Dowell, Strategic Moves Media Network

They’re Watching You. The Question Is Who Gave Them Permission.

Two Rooms. One City. The Same Fight.

Tuesday started with one room and ended in another — and I don’t think the people in either one realized they were in the same conversation.

The first room was City Hall. Cleveland’s Public Safety Committee debated whether to renew the city’s contract with Flock Safety — the company running 100 automated license plate reader cameras across Cleveland. Those cameras capture every vehicle that passes. The data is stored and searchable by law enforcement agencies nationwide, without a warrant. Cleveland police run an average of 12,000 Flock searches a month.

A few miles away, Congresswoman Shontel Brown stood at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections with elected officials, faith leaders, and civic organizations. She was responding to something that shook this community last week. On June 11th, hundreds of FBI agents fanned out across Ohio — raiding the Cleveland offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, following staff in their cars, showing up at their homes, attempting to enter. The OOC registered approximately 160,000 Ohioans to vote in 2024. As of today, not one person has been charged with a crime.

She is right. I am with her on that completely.

After sitting with both events, something became clear to me that I think belongs in this conversation.

These are not two separate stories. They are the same principle playing out at two different levels of government — one federal, one local — on the same day, in the same city.

What the FBI did to the Ohio Organizing Collaborative — deploying hundreds of agents against a voter registration organization, following people to their homes, and doing all of it without a single charge being filed — that is government overreach. Most people who watched Congresswoman Brown’s press conference can see that clearly.

But now stay with me, because here is where it gets closer to home.

So here is what I came away with. The concern is not just about the FBI. And it is not just about Flock. It is about who gets to authorize power over a community — and whether the people in that community ever get a real say before it is already done.

The Cameras, My Position, and the Real Problem

Let me be straight. Flock cameras have demonstrated real value — locating missing children, tracking murder suspects, supporting active prosecutions. I am not arguing for pulling them out.

But the national data is also clear: these cameras are disproportionately concentrated in Black and low-income neighborhoods. The system has been accessed by federal immigration enforcement in cities that never authorized it. Congress has demanded the FTC investigate Flock after stolen police credentials exposed the entire network to hackers.

The answer is not “Flock No.” The answer is a contract with teeth.

Other cities have already shown how. Washington State passed legislation in March 2026 restricting data retention, limiting who can access the system, and requiring attorney general oversight. Cities from Austin to Evanston have written enforceable data-use restrictions directly into their contracts — no selling data, no sharing with immigration enforcement, mandatory performance reporting to the full council twice a year.

Cleveland can do the same. The cameras can stay. The blank check has to go.

And here is the deeper issue that came up — and it is the most honest thing said in either room this week. Someone raised the point that they trust Mayor Bibb with this data. But what about the next mayor? What about the administration after that?

The same logic applies to what happened with the OOC. The FBI’s power to deploy hundreds of agents across a state to investigate a voter registration group did not appear overnight. It was built over years, handed from one administration to the next, and is now being used in ways that should concern every American regardless of party.

The Thread That Connects Both Rooms

Congresswoman Brown is right to demand that Kash Patel explain what warrant authorized the OOC raid, who ordered it, and why this operation targeted a group that committed no crime.

Accountability does not get to be selective. It does not apply only when the overreach is federal. Government overreach sometimes starts in Washington. And sometimes it starts right here — in an ordinance that calls surveillance an IT upgrade and hopes nobody reads the fine print.

The November election is 139 days away. Ohio’s voter registration deadline is October 5th. Register. Vote. And hold every level of government to the same standard.

— Kenn Dowell, Strategic Moves Media Network

I need you to watch that video before you read another word.

Not because I’m going to recap it. Not because I need you to catch up. But because what Pastor Howard John Wesley did from that pulpit at Alfred Street Baptist Church is something most people with a platform — including people who call themselves leaders — don’t have the courage to do.

This is Kenn Dowell. Cleveland born. Glenville raised. And never afraid to say what needs to be said. Before I get started shouts out to Roland Martin for bring this to light.

He named it. All of it.

The cowardly Congress. The scared Senate. The justices too afraid of presidential retaliation to use the power the people gave them. And then — right when the congregation was fired up and ready to point the finger outward — he turned the whole thing around and pointed it directly at us.

That took something. Real something. And I respect every word of it.But I’m not a preacher. I’m a political strategist. I’ve been in these rooms. I’ve worked these campaigns. I’ve sat across the table from the very people he’s talking about. So when I say what I’m about to say — understand it’s coming from somebody who has been inside this fight for a long time.

The sermon is true. And it’s not enough.

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We’ve Known This. That’s the Problem.

Former Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson — the longest-serving mayor in the history of this city — used to say something I’ve carried with me for years:

Read that again slowly.

We know who’s selling us out. We’ve known for years. We know that non-participation is betrayal. We know that celebrity is not leadership. We’ve been saying this since Malcolm said it — and Malcolm said it decades ago:

Brother Malcolm said it. Mayor Jackson said it. Pastor Wesley just said it again — from the pulpit — with the whole congregation on their feet.

And here we are. Still having the same conversation.

So my question isn’t whether the sermon was right. It was. My question is: what are we going to do differently this time?

The Receipts Test

Pastor Wesley laid it out plain. If you don’t vote, you sold us out. If you sat home because you didn’t like either candidate — you sold us out. If the only time you showed up to the polls was to legalize marijuana — you sold us out.

I want to add one more layer to that.

If you’ve been using your platform, your celebrity, your name, your influence — and you haven’t poured anything back into this community — you don’t get to speak for it.

Not a check to an HBCU. Not a mentorship. Not a single young person you pulled up behind you. Not one organization you supported when there was nothing in it for your brand.

No Receipts. No Mic.

And before we put all the weight on entertainers — let’s be equally honest about the elected officials who know what’s wrong and say nothing. The people in positions of power who go along to get along because they’re afraid of what happens if they don’t. They are just as responsible. Wesley called them out too.

Looking like us is not the same as being for us. And 2026 is not the year to keep letting that confusion slide.

Civic Courage Is Not a Sermon Topic. It’s an Operating Requirement.

We are in an election year. The Voting Rights Act has been weakened. States are moving fast. The people who claim to represent Black America are lining up to cash checks while the infrastructure burns around them.

This is the year your voice has to be louder than your silence. This is the year the receipts get checked.

So I need you to do three things right now.

One — watch that video again and share it. Send it to somebody in your circle who’s been sitting on the sidelines telling themselves their vote doesn’t matter.

Two — tune in this Tuesday to Strategic Moves Radio on WOVU 95.9 FM, noon to 1 PM. Me and Dr. Heather Burton are going to break this down live — who has the receipts, who’s been misrepresenting us, and what civic courage actually looks like when the cameras aren’t rolling.

A sermon can convict you. But strategy is what moves you.

It’s time to move.

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too can become great that’s why it’s hard to be big when little gotcha.”

Kenn Dowell

"They didn't come with poll taxes. They came with badges and subpoenas — and they showed up at people's front doors with their kids watching. The raid was not a sign that Ohio Organizing Collaborative (OOC). was doing something wrong. It was a sign that they were doing something right. And so are you." — Kenn Dowell, Strategic Moves

Hey. Welcome back Substack. Kenn Dowell here, Cleveland born, Glenville raised, and never afraid to say what needs to be said.

That’s what voter suppression looks like in 2026.

On June 11th, over 100 FBI agents fanned out across Ohio — knocking on doors, questioning volunteers, seizing devices from people whose only crime was helping their neighbors register to vote. The Ohio Organizing Collaborative has been doing this work since 2007. No charges filed. No explanation given. The FBI still isn’t talking.

OOC didn’t operate alone. Organizations like that are the connective tissue between dozens of community groups and civic builders working across the state. When you raid the hub you send a message to every spoke on that wheel. Cut off the head and watch everything go quiet.

To the Collective PAC, Building Freedom Ohio, the Khnemu Foundation, and every organization doing ground-level civic work in Ohio — hear me clearly:

We see you. We got your back. Keep going.

The raid wasn’t a sign OOC was doing something wrong. It was a sign they were doing something right. And so are you.

Now here’s what I need everyone else to understand.

I’m talking about the Black church — historically the most powerful organizing body our community has ever produced. From the Montgomery Bus Boycott to every Freedom Summer before this one the church was never just a place of worship. It was the war room. We cannot let confusion or fear silence it now.

Let me be clear about what the law actually allows. Any church, nonprofit, or community organization can legally register voters, host candidate forums, educate members on issues and legislation, encourage civic participation, and partner with nonpartisan voter registration organizations — all without touching their tax-exempt status. The only line is officially endorsing a specific candidate. Everything else is protected. It is your right. For the Black church — it is your legacy.

Don’t run from this moment. This is exactly the moment you were built for.

Now I need to speak directly to two groups.

First — everyone who feels like government hasn’t done anything for them and has decided to sit this one out.

I hear you. But hear me — they just sent 100 federal agents to intimidate people who were helping you register to vote. They didn’t do that in communities that don’t matter. They did it here because we are the target. Not bystanders. Not collateral damage. The target.

Your absence is not a protest. It is a gift to the people who showed up at those doors with badges.

Second — my independent voters.

I respect that position. But independence is not on the ballot this November. The only thing an independent achieves by not voting in this race is handing victory to whoever benefits most from Black voter suppression. They sent 100 federal agents to stop Black voter registration five months before this election. If your vote didn’t matter they wouldn’t be at those doors.

Not voting is not independence. In this moment — not voting is surrender.

That is what is on the ballot in November.

I want to take you somewhere deeper for a moment.

In the summer of 1964 hundreds of organizers flooded the Deep South to register voters who had been shut out of democracy. They were met with violence, intimidation, and arrests. But history was on their side.

He called it Good Trouble.

This is our Freedom Summer. Freedom Summer 2026. Ohio is our bridge.

The tactics changed. They’re not using fire hoses — they’re using subpoenas. They’re not blocking the courthouse door — they’re knocking on your door at home. But the intention is identical: make you feel like your participation comes at a cost too high to pay.

Our ancestors paid a higher one. We owe them Good Trouble.

Not just organizations. People. Individual people willing to do the work because they understand what’s at stake.

• Knock on a door and ask your neighbor if they’re registered

• Bring this conversation to your next family gathering

• Walk into your block club, your church, your NAACP meeting and put November on the agenda

• Share this post when it would be easier to scroll past it

• Show up to Freedom Summer 2026 when staying home feels more comfortable

None of that is illegal. All of it is powerful. Every single one of those acts is Good Trouble.

Connect with Freedom Summer 2026. Bring your organization. Bring your church. Bring your block. Bring your family. Come alone if you have to — we’ll build the rest together.

They came to Cleveland because Cleveland is organized. Let’s make sure they regret it.

Get in some Good Trouble.

[https://vfbfpac.nationbuilder.com/]

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“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too can become great that’s why it’s hard to be big when little gotcha.”

— Kenn Dowell | Strategic Moves Media Network | aStrategicMove.com