Monday night, Cleveland City Council passed an emergency resolution "strongly [urging] the Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com to immediately stop littering public property with the ShopCLE weekly circular."
The resolution, sponsored by west side councilman Matt Zone and east side councilman Mike Polensek, requested that the circulars be delivered by mail, as is now the case in Newburgh Heights and Cleveland Heights. Residents in those communities raised such a stink about the shoddy "drive-by delivery" of ShopCLE that mail distribution was negotiated last week to avoid litigation.
In Cleveland, the resolution says, councilpeople received "numerous complaints" from constituents about the circular.
"This is now a weekly blight with these fliers blowing around the streets," resident Rick Nelson wrote the membership of the East Shore Park Club in November (copying councilman Polensek). "This winter, they will be mixed in the snow; jamming your snow blower and possibly damaging it. In spring there could be several of these at every address pasted to the ground in a soggy mess and leaving dead spots in your grass."
The resolution passed unanimously as an emergency measure during city council's final meeting of 2015.
The Clerk of Council was directed to transmit copies of the resolution to the PD depot manager Cathy McBride, who's in charge of ShopCLE distribution, and the PD's director of planning and project management, Chris Chimes.
Chimes has not yet responded to request for comment, but he told Scene last week that the PD took "very seriously" its responsibility to the community and "constantly" sought to improve the quality of its delivery.
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