Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration has abandoned its probe into a City Council staffer who it said downloaded around 2,000 files from the city’s public records system. 

The administration made hay last year about Steven Rys, a special assistant to Blaine Griffin who it said roamed widely across the online records portal accessing files that other people had requested. Griffin forcefully defended his employee and decried Bibb staffers he called the “message boys.”

The episode marked a low point in the relationship between council and Team Bibb. City Hall tapped the law firm Littler Mendelson at $520 an hour to investigate whether Rys’ actions were improper. 

Now the mayor’s office is trying to leave the conflict behind. The investigation is dead, Law Director Mark Griffin told the council president during budget hearings Wednesday.

“We want to have a collaborative relationship going forward,” the law director said. “We’ve taken some steps to make sure that what happened before doesn’t happen again. But we just want to move on and we want to work with you.”

It was an olive branch from one Griffin to another. Blaine Griffin offered a few last words in Rys’ favor. 

“There was an employee on our side that actually had some rough days behind that,” the council president said. “And I know that people might have whatever opinions they have of him, but I think it was not fair for him to be posterized like he was.”  

C-O-U-N-C-I-L

For the last few years, Cleveland Documenters and Signal Cleveland have tried to inject some levity into City Council’s annual budgetary drudgery with a friendly game of bingo. 

The bingo squares list favorite council catchphrases (“The proof is in the pudding”) and common situations (The administration promises to get back to council on a question it couldn’t answer). 

Council members are getting in on the joke. Ward 5’s Richard Starr was spotted at the committee table with a printout of this year’s bingo card. He read off a couple of squares during the hearings.

Kevin Conwell’s notable musical talents landed him a spot on the card — “Kevin Conwell plays drums on the committee table.” The percussionist and namesake of Kevin Conwell & the Footprints, the Glenville council member knows how to keep the beat.  

But he wanted Signal Cleveland to know that he’s more than just a drummer. In 2024, Conwell won a public leadership in the arts award from the National League of Cities and Americans for the Arts. The award recognized his support for the arts in Cleveland, including his sponsorship of legislation to create the city’s $3 million transformative arts fund. 

During a lull in the hearings on Thursday, a council member did tap out a rhythm on the committee table — Ward 4’s Kris Harsh. Conwell pointed to what must have been Starr’s bingo card. 

“It’s not me, man,” Conwell said. “It’s Kris Harsh. Put it down.”