ASHTABULA – Ashtabula City Council member RoLesia Holman heard a mixture of support, objections and questions about her proposed Thriving Communities Commission during an Aug. 17th council work session.
Holman, who has been chairing council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Racism as a Public Health Crisis, said the new Commission for Thriving Communities would be a permanent group focused on making sure every neighborhood and every Ward in the city has a voice. If an ordinance is approved to establish the commission, the ad hoc committee would transition into the commission.
“The commission would look at things like city services, infrastructure, public safety, economic opportunity, and ways we can make Ashtabula more competitive for state and federal grant funding,” Holman, the Ward 3 councilor, stated in a Facebook post prior to the work session.
According to a copy of the draft ordinance, the Ashtabula City Commission for Thriving Communities would be established as a standing advisory body of the council consisting of nine members.
Holman opened up the work session by providing some background about the ad hoc committee, which she said “did quite a bit of research,” shared its findings, and made “quite a few recommendations.”
“It’s been a bit disappointing that, I think, one, maybe two of the recommendations have been followed through with, but we believe that all of them are important to be considered,” she said. “After we did quite a bit of work, and in addition to doing the Racial Wealth Gap Simulation, the committee felt it necessary that we establish something more.”
She said they put together the proposed Thriving Communities Commission legislation, which was brought previously to council for consideration and to get feedback from those who understand the connection between Social Determinants of Health, city services and the quality of life for the city’s residents.
Holman said she took into consideration those who had constructive feedback. The feedback was incorporated into the latest iteration of the legislation, she said.
“One question came back again, asking for the relationship between Social Determinants of Health and our city services,” she said. “So, we’re here to focus some time and attention on that as well as take any other questions that councilors may have around this piece of legislation.”
Ward 5 Councilor Jane DiGiacomo was in favor of the proposed commission.
“I just want to say that I very much support this because I’ve had conversations with RoLesia, and there is no doubt in my mind that this will benefit people living in Ward 5,” she said.
DiGiacomo told Holman she appreciated the work she has done. She said Holman was very thoughtful in having the proposed Thriving Communities Commission legislation put together.
Council President John Roskovics said that the draft ordinance presented “several really, in my opinion, serious concerns.”
He elaborated on those concerns.
“We have the information on life spans, income levels, we have all that information and we went through that, and that was good information to have,” Roskovics said. “Now, I’m reading that you’re saying that there’s a link between that and the way the city delivers its services, and I have a real concern with that.”
The draft ordinance reads, “The Ad Hoc Committee on Racism as a Public Health Crisis has identified that deep links exist between public health and service delivery—specifically regarding racial wealth gaps, employment equity, and environmental conditions—and has determined that a ward focused impact review is a vital tool for ensuring that all parts of the City have the resources necessary to thrive.”
Roskovics said he sent Holman an email asking if she had any data from the police, fire, health department, city courts or planning commission indicating that there is a discrepancy in the delivery of city services.
“You use the word ‘discrepancy.’ I would prefer to use ‘correlation,’” Holman told him.
“Well, I use the word ‘discrepancy’ because that’s the implication I’m seeing in here,” Roskovics responded. “Are you saying that the police respond in a slower fashion to some areas of the city than they do others? The fire department ignores some? The health department doesn’t address issues? Is that what this is saying?”
“Do you see that said in it?” Holman asked him.
“I’m asking,” Roskovics said.
“Do you see it?” Holman said.
The exchange went on for a few moments. Then, Roskovics told Holman that she used the words “service delivery” in the draft ordinance, and asked for elaboration.
Holman responded by saying, “So, it’s been so unfortunate that some of the perspectives since this work has started perceive this as something negative or a ‘gotcha’ for the city.”
She said that has never been the position of the ad hoc committee.
She said the ad hoc committee looks at the data, “and the data tells us something.”
“And then we ask the question, ‘What is the data telling us?” she said. She encouraged an exploration of what the data is saying so that assumptions are not made. “We’re saying, ‘This is the data,’” she said. “Let’s explore it and see what it says.”
“And I guess that is what I’m asking for,” Roskovics said. “What is the data? What data do you have that says the city is not delivering services equally to all areas?”
“Again, you are putting language there,” Holman responded. “The committee has never said that the city is not.”
“Ms. Holman, the exact words are right here,” Roskovics said.
Citing the draft ordinance, he paraphrased, “There is a deep link that exists between the health and service delivery.”
He asked Holman what it meant.
“That means that there are tools that are present that we should look at, what the data is telling us so that we’re not making assumptions, that we’re not just simply sharing our opinions, but we’re actually looking at data that will tell the story,” Holman said. “And we ask the question, ‘What’s the data telling them?’ But in the absence of any data, we have nothing really concrete to go on. And so the question is in relationship with two of our established institutions in the city, Kent State University, who has a host of resources and tools that will help us capture the data, and the ARMC. We have relationships ready to be formalized with both Kent State University and ARMC to look at how we can have thriving communities across all of our Wards.”
She asked how the city knows what residents’ experiences are if it’s not asking.
“Once we ask, that will determine if we need to move forward in some way to make improvements so all of our residents have a higher quality of life, that they can thrive…,” she said.
Roskovics also asked about language in the draft ordinance concerning Ward Impact and Policy Review.
This section of the draft states the commission would “advise on the potential impacts of proposed policies or projects across the City’s wards to ensure equitable, inclusive representation from wards and balanced distribution of resources.”
Using a hypothetical example, he asked what would happen if the city was going to pave Lake Avenue next year, and all the paving funds were going to go to Lake Avenue.
“So, what’s going to happen there?” he asked. “The language there is written in such a fashion that this committee can come into this city and say, ‘You know, we don’t want you doing that because you’re using all the funds in one Ward, one area. We want a more equitable distribution.”
Roskovics stressed that no one is against an equitable distribution of resources.
“We do that in the city all the time,” he said. “That’s our goal. And that’s the way it has been since I’ve been here. If you go around, you’ll see roads in every neighborhood being paved.”
He said it was offensive to him to read in the newspaper that “the rich people in the Harbor got recycling cans before everybody else.” He said it wasn’t true.
Roskovics was referring to an article with Holman’s comments that appeared in the Gazette after the city voted to purchase recycling and rubbish containers to bring the curbside recycling program to the remainder of the city. The program only has been in place for Wards 1 and 2 and a part of Ward 3 in the city. The city has five Wards.
In the article, Holman said, “It is both a profound relief and a tremendous reward. For over four years, I have advocated for health and financial equity in our city services. Previously, this program operated as a pilot primarily benefiting Wards 1 and 2, leaving the rest of our city—including the vast majority of Ward 3—without equal access. The turning point came when community voices collaborated, utilizing platforms like social media to shine a light on this long-standing imbalance. When it became clear that a nine-year ‘pilot’ had evolved into an inequitable distribution of resources based on income levels, action was demanded. This is a hard-won victory for fairness, ensuring that basic city services are provided to all residents, not just a select few.”
Holman told Roskovics that council had 12 minutes left to talk in the work session about the proposed Thriving Communities Commission.
“Can we stay focused on that, please?” she asked.
But Roskovics said it was all tied together.
“When you make a statement (that) ‘the rich people in the Harbor are getting more than the other neighborhoods’…that’s what this is about,” he said. “This document is saying we are treating residents in a different part of the city differently, and that’s just not fair.”
Roskovics said it had been his motion to come up with the ad hoc committee, and he was on the committee until he left, for a variety of reasons.
He said the ad hoc committee brought about 15 recommendations. “And I will say I don’t think any of them were designed to improve the health of the residents,” he said. “I don’t see how those recommendations, getting more garbage cans, was designed to improve the health of certain citizens.”
“It is largely connected with Social Determinants of Health,” Holman said. “If we’re not removing debris and being purposeful about recycling and/or removing debris, that is an environmental issue that impacts the health of the residents. There are multiple connections, which means that’s the purpose of the committee, to help the council better understand how policies and legislation we’re making directly connects to the health of our community – physical health, emotional health, economic health.”
At the start of the work session, Holman was going to have a member of the ad hoc committee, Dr. Jessica A. Leveto, speak, but Roskovics didn’t allow it.
“Work sessions usually do not have citizens’ input, and I don’t believe that was requested when the work session was requested…,” he said. He said work sessions are usually for council to discuss the item on the agenda.
Ultimately, it was agreed to hold another work session at 5 p.m. Sept. 8 and allow guests. “The former ad hoc committee wants to come, and they as well as others will be able to speak,” Roskovics said, when asked for comment by the Gazette. “Hence an hour was scheduled. Last night (the Aug. 17th work session) was specifically called for council members to discuss this and there was never a request for community input.”
Holman said “refusing or not allowing the ad hoc committee members to speak seems like another tactic to stall the work that we’ve been doing.”
She said the committee was fortunate to have the expertise of people who have spent years and decades studying health. To not allow someone with a doctorate to speak is “simply another way of silencing the information that we need to be considering within the city,” she said.
Council member Jodi Mills noted that the whole premise of the ad hoc committee years ago was racism as a public health crisis.
“So, are we off of that, and we’re just looking at every single person?” she asked.
Holman said the ad hoc committee did start off with racism as a public health crisis in the wake of the death of George Floyd.
As reported by the Associated Press, Floyd was a Black man who was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes. At the time, Floyd was handcuffed and said he could not breathe. The AP reported that this sparked worldwide protest and a reexamination of racism and policing in the U.S.
Holman said, “In the work that we’re doing, we will continually look at race and every other identify marker that affects the health of individuals and groups. So, I am never, as a person of color, going to say that race does not matter. But I will say race and many other factors do matter. So, this is the work to look at lots of different factors – education, income, housing, all of the social determinants of health that was presented by Dr. Leveto previously to see where there are gaps and what might we need to address to be sure that all groups, all Wards, are thriving.”
Council Vice President Russell Simeone said, “I like information coming from all different areas.”
He wanted to make there would be safeguards in place on the commission to ensure that there would be enough people to look at things from all different perspectives before making recommendations.
