Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration is accusing a Cleveland City Council staffer of misusing the city’s online public records system by downloading more than 2,000 files, some of which included information that was private or sensitive. 

Council President Blaine Griffin said the staffer, Steven Rys, did nothing wrong and rightfully had access to an online system in which news media, lawyers and residents can submit requests for city records. 

The council president and Bibb administration officials held dueling news conferences on Tuesday, exposing a growing mistrust between the two branches of city government. 

Griffin said he would not give in to what he called an “ultimatum” from the mayor’s office to fire the employee. The mayor’s office denied issuing an ultimatum. The city will hire a law firm to investigate the employee’s use of the public records system. 

Rys works as a special assistant to council and has access to the internal side of the city’s online public records portal. That access enabled him to see documents before city staff removed non-public information and cleared them for release to the general public, officials said. 

Over the last four years, Rys downloaded more than 2,200 files, according to a presentation that the city shared with reporters. The presentation does not say how many of the files contained sensitive data, such as social security numbers, crime victim information or material covered by attorney-client privilege. 

City Hall provided Signal Cleveland with a spreadsheet listing about 600 files that the city said Rys accessed this year. Included in the list were police reports, emails, contract bids, mayoral travel records and files related to City Council members and administrations officials. The document does not specify whether Rys accessed the files before or after they were approved for public release. 

Tyler Sinclair, a spokesperson for the mayor, told reporters that a law firm would examine whether Rys distributed information that shouldn’t have been released to the public. 

“It’s just unfortunate that we have someone here that took advantage of his authorization,” he said. 

In his own news conference, Griffin said Rys used the level of access that City Hall had granted him. He “figured out the system better than they did,” the council president said.

Griffin said Rys works as a policy analyst, helping council stay abreast of the administration’s legislative proposals. In a letter sent to council members Tuesday, Griffin wrote that Rys used his access to the public records system to research city operations and answer council’s questions. 

The council president said Rys did not violate city policies “from what we have looked at.” The city has used the records system, known as GovQA, since 2017.

“Why punish this gentleman when there has been no training, very loose oversight of this GovQA, and it is the Law Department and the administration’s failure to properly protect and manage GovQA?” Griffin said. 

Rys declined to comment through a council spokesperson. He began his council job in 2014 under then-Council President Kevin Kelley.

He has also played a role in some of Cleveland’s political fights. In 2020, when a group called Clevelanders First pushed to cut the size of City Council, Rys and Kelley struck back by forming a political action committee by the same name. 

In 2023, Dennis Kucinich named Rys in a defamation lawsuit over a website that criticized Kucinich in the 2021 mayoral race. Kucinich filed to dismiss the suit last year. 

A focus on Cleveland’s public records website

Reporters and members of the public request documents through the GovQA and staff upload files to the system for release.

In May 2024, staff in the law department first discovered that Rys had downloaded email files from the records system, according to the city’s presentation. The presentation described the emails as “confidential” but did not elaborate. In September of this year, public records staff found that Rys had downloaded other records with “unredacted confidential information,” prompting a wider audit of his use of the system, the presentation said.

Bibb administration officials presented their findings to Griffin and council staff last week. According to Griffin, the administration said Rys could be prosecuted federally and pressed for him to be fired. 

One of Griffin’s aides, Darryle Torbert, released his own written account of the meeting. Torbert wrote that administration officials said the issue would “go away” if a certain action was taken — which Torbert took to mean Rys’ firing. 

Administration officials denied making threats to have Rys fired, but acknowledged raising concerns about federal law. 

At his news conference, the council president repeatedly criticized aides to the mayor he called the “message boys.” Griffin said he had hoped to discuss the matter with Bibb himself at Monday’s City Council meeting, but the mayor was not there. Bibb is in New York City for a climate conference.

Griffin raised the possibility of holding up nonessential legislation — or as he put it, borrowing a phrase from colleague Michael Polensek, “legislative constipation.”