CLEVELAND, Ohio — Mayor Justin Bibb walked into Cleveland City Council budget hearings Tuesday to face the music after Cleveland lost $3.3 million of a grant meant to clean lead from homes. Peppered with questions, Bibb answered “The buck stops with me.”
It was a different tune than the one his cabinet members sang just a week ago, when they blamed state rules for the program’s failure — rules, it turned out, that Cleveland had imposed on itself.
Those specific rules limited repairs to window and door replacements and capped spending at $15,000 per home. Homes often needed much more extensive work than City Hall allowed and didn’t fit the program…