Cleveland City Council Member Joe Jones has stepped down as chair of the Mayor’s Appointments Committee, a council spokesperson said Friday. The resignation comes amid news that Jones was the focus of an investigation into allegations of inappropriate behavior.
Jones remains vice chair of council’s Safety Committee, the spokesperson said. Ward 13 Council Member Kris Harsh is the new chair of the appointments committee, which reviews nominees for boards and commissions.
The investigation, conducted by the law firm McDonald Hopkins, stemmed from complaints about Jones’ behavior by city employees and Destination Cleveland, the region’s tourism bureau, Signal Cleveland reported Thursday. On Friday, council provided Signal Cleveland with copies of complaints dating back to 2022 from employees who said Jones bullied and mistreated staff.
Council denied a public records request for the investigation’s written report, citing attorney-client privilege.
Jones has not responded to multiple requests for comment from Signal Cleveland over the last week.
Last summer, a Destination Cleveland executive told Council President Blaine Griffin in an email that Jones made unwanted comments to an artist about her physical appearance at a meeting about a local art project.
That complaint was one of a “series” of issues that prompted council to hire a law firm, Griffin said in an interview Thursday. The council president said he is planning changes to council policy to ensure a professional workplace. However, council did not have a substantive way to discipline an elected official, he said.
“That’s one of the reasons why we got an external person that could work with us on some of the workplace culture issues,” Griffin said, “because in the past when we tried to address them, the problem was that this was a duly elected official that we did not have any statutory ability to discipline or to deal with in any meaningful way.”
Cleveland’s charter does permit council to punish or expel a member for “disorderly conduct or violation of its rules.” Expulsions require a vote of two thirds of council, and the accused council member must be given an opportunity to defend himself.
Whether the complaints against Jones amount to a violation of the rules is another question. Council’s rules require members to “conduct themselves professionally and with civility.” Those rules don’t specify a punishment for unprofessionalism. The rules only list censure and expulsion as punishments for skipping votes without an excused absence.
The rules do give the council president the power to strip members from their committee assignments.
The other avenue for punishing a council member is political: a recall or a defeat at the ballot box. Asked whether he would support Jones’ reelection bid this year, Griffin said he was focused now on passing the city’s annual budget.
But after that, “you’ll probably hear no shortage of political opinions from me,” he said.
