On Friday afternoon, County Executive Chris Ronayne gave his first State of the County address at Jacobs Pavilion after air quality concerns postponed the speech's scheduled date Wednesday.
Throughout his speech, he expressed gratitude towards students, workers and others making the Cuyahoga County community better.
Ronayne discussed future plans for the community and improvements that need to be made. One of the first plans he mentioned was to launch a request for proposal to create a Children's Campus.
"My team will soon launch an RFP to create a Children’s Campus to serve children in our community with unmet residential placement needs," he said after giving background about why.
Ronayne added that all options are on the table, including county-owned locations with external operators, suggesting a partnership. He also proposed external providers and locations, and a county-owned and operated facility.
Just last week, he introduced legislation in regard to land in Garfield Heights.
"Last week, I introduced a legislation to purchase land in Garfield Heights for a Cuyahoga County Central Services Campus. It's informed by a trip to Columbus I made with members of my Administration and County Council to visit the Franklin County Corrections facility."
Ronayne also mentioned housing plans that have seemingly begun.
"We are off and running with building the most diverse portfolio of housing in the county. We closed the gap on housing starts for the Hitchcock Center, which will provide housing assistance for moms experiencing addiction," he explained.
Ronayne said that being ready for industrial and commercial expansion is needed. He informed everyone that the county will support the effort to provide sites of scale for economic redevelopment.
Along the lines of development, Ronayne announced another launch.
"Working with community partners, Cuyahoga County will launch the Fresh Water Institute —the cornerstones of which will be education, advocacy, research and economic development," he explained. "It was one of my goals to bring government to the people, and we'll soon be announcing three pilot locations for County services in communities."
Cuyahoga Green Energy, a public energy utility, was introduced and announced as the county's own effort to "steward" this region as "one of the planet's most sustainable places in the future."
Ronayne talked about becoming a "more geographically informed government" and gave details on investments being made to create a better way of evaluating delinquent properties.
As a reward for his efforts, Ronayne announced that he would give Bob Madison —a decorated purple heart veteran and WWII Buffalo soldier — the first key to the county at the conclusion of the program.
"You've done more than earned it," said Ronayne.
