At an October 2023 Cleveland Heights City Council meeting, Mayor Kahlil Seren shared some good news. He’d just been notified that the city had won a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to fund a partnership with Cleveland Peacemakers Inc., a nonprofit that engages with young people to prevent violence.

“[P]olicing alone isn’t sufficient to create the safe, nonviolent community that we want,” Seren said. “And so we need to supplement robust policing with violence interruption, with mental healthcare, with ensuring that people are taught nonviolent dispute-resolution skills. And this is a step in the right direction.”

A few weeks later, the city announced another award, this one for $175,000, from a different DOJ program, also to fund work involving Cleveland Peacemakers Alliance.

More than a year and a half later, the work has not begun and the city is not answering questions.

In January, Cleveland Heights Police Chief Chris Britton, who was named in the grant applications, filed a progress report with DOJ stating that the project “never started due to stakeholders not completing documentation” and that he was “awaiting further guidance from Mayor and Finance Director.”

Neither Britton nor Seren responded to interview requests. Seren also did not respond to emailed questions.

Internal emails obtained through public records requests show that city officials struggled to navigate the DOJ’s online systems for grant management and that no one seemed to be in charge of the project. Planning ground to a halt within a few months of Seren’s announcements, long before the reports of city hall turmoil that led to a recall campaign. 

The $175,000 grant has expired, but the $300,000 is still available, according to the DOJ. 

‘A great opportunity’

In June 2022, then-President Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Headlines at the time highlighted the portions of the law focused on access to guns — expanded background checks, red-flag laws and new penalties for gun trafficking. But the law also provided $1.4 billion in funding for violence-prevention and intervention programs.

“We both agreed, the mayor and I, that [the DOJ grants] were a great opportunity,” said Myesha Watkins, who was executive director of Cleveland Peacekeepers Inc. at the time. “So we were both really excited.”

The Cleveland Peacemakers team works to keep acts of violence from leading to retaliation. Its outreach workers — some of whom have lived experience with violence and the criminal justice system — visit victims in hospitals, accompany them to court hearings, mediate between gangs and help young people find jobs and the services that they and their families need. It’s best known for its work in Cleveland, but its outreach is not limited to any one city. 

What Cleveland Heights pitched

In its grant applications, Cleveland Heights described a partnership between the Peacemakers, local police and the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District “aimed at disrupting the cycle of violence among those age 15-25, through service delivery in three core areas: targeted outreach, hospital-based intervention, and court-involved services.”

The CHUH school district was eager to participate, according to a spokesperson.

“Shortly after the grant award announcement, we began drafting plans for this programming in partnership with the Cleveland Peacemakers Alliance and city leaders,” the district’s spokesperson told Signal Cleveland. She did not respond to follow-up questions about when meetings occurred and which city officials participated.

The city’s application for the $300,000 grant, which is for three years, included a timeline. In the first quarter of 2024, the city said it would “build a working group team.” In the second quarter, it would “conduct a needs assessment” and “develop [a] violence reduction strategic plan.” The goal for the third quarter was to “begin implementation” of the plan.

Signal Cleveland could find no evidence that any of that happened or that any of the grant money has been accessed. 

‘Not sure where to go from here’

In late 2023 and into 2024, the DOJ outlined in emails what it expected city officials to do next. The requirements were considerable. Both awards came with almost 20 pages of instructions. The “DOJ Grants Financial Guide,” which explains the reporting requirements for grants, is 146 pages.

Another email said that the city would need to identify an “Authorized Representative,” an “Entity Administrator,” a “Financial Manager,” a “Grant Award Administrator” and an “Alternate Grant Award Administrator.” Each had different responsibilities. And these people would need to create accounts on the online portals that the DOJ uses for grant management and for accessing funds.

This remained a challenge for more than a year.

In February 2024, the city’s then-acting director of finance started sending emails to others, including the mayor, relaying what she was learning about the process from DOJ and who needed to do what.

Access to one online portal was impeded, at least in part, because the designated “Entity Administrator” for the city’s account was the previous finance director, who had retired. The acting finance director requested a change. And until that was sorted, the city was blocked from a separate portal, the one for accessing the funds.

“That is why the account is flagged,” the acting finance director wrote in March 2024. “I am not sure where to go from here.”

Then in May, the account was suspended for failure to file quarterly financial and progress reports. The acting financial director asked for a phone meeting “to see what the City has to do to make these Grants compliant.”

No emails the city provided explain what happened next.

Cleveland Heights staff turnover contributed to the problem

In January 2025, another person from DOJ contacted the city about the $300,000 grant. By this time the city’s acting finance director had left, and the DOJ representative contacted the planning director after other unsuccessful attempts to find the appropriate contact.

“Apologies for a cold email,” she wrote, “but this award started in Oct. 2023 and I am hoping you can help me figure out who I need to speak with please.”

This set off a new round of emails from DOJ and among city officials, trying to sort out next steps. Chief Britton stated that a police lieutenant “has been providing the required reports to [DOJ] to keep us minimally compliant with the grants awarded to the City of Cleveland Heights.”

By March, the DOJ rep was emailing the mayor directly, as well as the planning director. She provided detailed instructions for accessing the online portals, and the planning director seemed to be making some progress on that front.

The planning director wrote to Seren: “I have set you up in the roles that she suggested. I think you probably have to respond to any emails you get from DOJ. Also see that she wanted to set up a meeting with you to discuss.”

On May 30, Signal Cleveland requested more recent emails related to the grant but has not yet received them. 

‘All hope is not lost’

Watkins, the former Cleveland Peacemakers Inc. leader, is familiar with the heavy responsibility of a federal grant. She oversaw a $2 million grant, awarded under a different section of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, until the Trump administration cut it in April. 

Managing federal grants “takes a lot of intentionality and a lot of back-end support,” said Watkins. “And if you don’t have that support, it can really slow down the movement of a great idea.”

Watkins was speaking generally — no one in Cleveland Heights government told her that grant management was a problem. In fact she’s heard nothing since a meeting in February 2024. But she remains grateful to Seren for backing the idea and hopeful that whatever grant money remains available can still be put to good use.

“All hope is not lost, and I hope that we can just pick up where we left off,” Watkins said in an interview before the announcement that she will be the new Violence Prevention Administrator at Cuyahoga County’s Department of Public Safety and Justice Services.

If the project can be salvaged, it will also be with a new mayor. Seren failed to make the ballot for re-election. The five people who will compete to replace him are scheduled to participate in a candidates’ forum hosted by the League of Women Voters on Aug. 7.