Council President Blaine Griffin’s dais will be especially hot when Cleveland City Council returns from its summer schedule on Sept. 15.
The body is expected to vote on whether to censure Ward 1 Council Member Joe Jones after a string of complaints about his treatment of staff. One of those complaints, which came to light in August, was from a council employee who said in May that Jones had threatened to kill him. In an interview with the Outlaws Radio Show, Jones said his remark was meant as a joke and that he later apologized.
Jones is on the ballot in the Sept. 9 primary. Griffin has faced pressure to hold a censure vote before the election. An open letter from more than 120 people called on the council president to convene a special council meeting.
Council Member Rebecca Maurer referenced Jones in a fundraising email that criticized Griffin and his political action committee, the Council Leadership Fund. She is in a closely watched race against colleague Richard Starr, and Griffin has taken Starr’s side.
“The Old Boys’ Club is working hard to protect itself,” she wrote in the email to supporters. “And the recent reporting on Councilman Joe Jones shows us why that system has to change.”
In an interview with Signal Cleveland, Griffin called the email “ridiculous” and said Maurer was playing politics with the issue. He pointed to council’s hiring of a law firm to investigate the complaints about Jones.
“I’m the only damn person on council that actually leaned in and made sure that we held Councilman Jones accountable,” he said. “We didn’t do it recklessly. We did it with an outside third party expert.”
(Maurer said she had been trying to raise broader issues about council’s culture, citing council’s group text thread from early this year, in which she sparred with male council members who defended Jones. The texts, which were public records, later made the news.)
Special meeting on the council calendar, but not for a censure vote
Jones, who did not return a phone message seeking comment, has his supporters. He won the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party endorsement twice this month. Griffin has heard from pastors who “feel that this has been overkill and that this is an assassination of character of an African American male,” he said. The council president said he tried to dispel that idea.
Griffin attended a fundraiser for Jones in June but did not give the council member money there. (The leadership fund gave Jones $3,000 in December.) The June event was after the council president learned about the threat complaint, but before the law firm completed its review. Griffin said he was still awaiting the facts from the firm’s investigation at the time but wanted to maintain his connection with the Ward 1 community.
“It was more so to be in support of that community and those community leaders who at the time asked me to be over there for that event,” he said.
The latest wrinkle in the story came last week. Council scheduled a special virtual meeting to renew the downtown special improvement district. A Jones censure was not on the agenda.
Griffin said some council members wanted time to talk with leadership and council attorneys before making a decision on a censure.
The council president said he wants all 17 members to attend a censure vote.
“We need the council there,” he said, “and if we’re going to make this decision, we’re going to make it as a body.”