Former Cleveland City Council Member Basheer Jones left federal prison this spring, 11 months after he began serving a 28-month sentence for schemes to benefit from projects and nonprofit work in his ward.
Jones reported to the federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, on May 21, 2025, and was released April 15 this year, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He remains under government supervision on what is known as “community confinement.” Jones is scheduled to be released from BOP custody in August, a bureau spokesperson told Signal Cleveland in an email.
In general, incarcerated people can earn an earlier release date and other credits through good conduct and participation in programs meant to reduce recidivism, the spokesperson wrote.
Over the last year, Jones kept his supporters updated on his time at Lewisburg. His Instagram account, where he has 104,000 followers, posted updates from prison. Since his release, Jones has been posting from events in the Cleveland area.
A former mayoral candidate who served a term representing the Hough neighborhood on City Council, Jones pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in December 2024.
In addition to his incarceration, Jones must split nearly $144,000 in restitution between the nonprofits Cleveland Neighborhood Progress and the financially troubled Northeast Ohio Neighborhood Health Services.
Jones and his attorney did not return messages seeking comment. But on Instagram, the former council member has written that he wants to advocate for those behind bars.
“These past 4 years has been the toughest and best times of my life,” he wrote last week. “The introspection and clarity is unbelievable! Grateful to Allah! My mind and voice has been refined! The plan is clearer. Stay tuned!”
Four more years for David Brock?
David Brock wants another term leading the sprawling and at times fractious Cuyahoga County Democratic Party.
Brock scored an upset win against then-state Rep. Kent Smith to succeed U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown as party chair in 2022. Now he is asking the hundreds of people who serve as party central committee members to give him another four years on the job.
And it is a true job now. The role of chair was a volunteer gig until 2024, when Brock won the party’s support to draw an $80,000 annual salary.
Brock circulated a letter among central committee members touting Democrats’ gains the last four years. The party flipped two Republican seats on Cuyahoga County Council, expanded its hold on suburban councils and elected more Black judges, for instance.
He told Weekly Chatter he has been “trying to bring everyone on board and unite people behind these common goals and [against] our common enemy, quite frankly.”
The common enemy — no surprise — is the Republican Party in Columbus and Washington, D.C., he said.
The party has its hurdles, particularly in highly Democratic Cleveland. In the era of Donald Trump, Republicans have made gains in the city proper in presidential races while Democratic votes have declined. As of November 2024, voter registrations had slumped on the depopulating East Side.
The party vote will take place June 14 in Lakewood. It’s possible Brock may go unopposed. If any challengers are gearing up to take him on, they’ve so far kept quiet.
The City Hall coffee shop that could have been
Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration initially had grand ideas for renovating City Hall — including a sun-dappled “monumental” staircase and cafe with an archival museum.
Those ideas were sketched out in a September 2023 report that the city turned over to Signal Cleveland this week in response to a public records request.
As initially conceived back in 2023, a first-floor cafe would have given customers views of the grassy mall next door to City Hall.
“This thoughtful placement connects indoor and outdoor spaces, creating a serene environment for employees and visitors alike,” the report said. (City Hall typically isn’t your go-to stop for serenity.)
A new staircase termed a “monumental stair” would have linked City Hall’s basement and first floor in a “visually captivating manner,” with more natural light illuminating the dim building.
But like standard-issue drip coffee, the ideas have since been watered down.
The city isn’t pursuing plans for the staircase, according to notes later added to the report. The administration dropped the first-floor cafe idea in favor of one in a renovated basement alongside a new west entrance.
City Council put funding for the coffee shop and basement project on ice. At a late April committee meeting, Council President Blaine Griffin said his colleagues “did not have the appetite” for the cafe’s expense, given council’s other priorities.
For now, Bibb has opened 601 Coffee House, a more modest coffee spot near the checkout line for birth and death certificates.
Griffin can’t oppose this one. It is run by UnBAR Cafe, a business in his own Larchmere neighborhood.
