Over the decades, Cleveland City Council has reprimanded its members for impugning colleagues’ motives, disrupting meetings and “butting in” on another ward’s business.
Punishment has come in the form of suspension, censure — or at least the threat of it — and a message of displeasure aired in the press.
That history takes on new relevance as council is expected to vote on censuring Ward 1 Council Member Joe Jones. Earlier this year, a council employee complained to leadership that Jones had threatened to kill him, according to a letter released by City Council this month. It was the latest complaint about how Jones treated staff and others.
Jones has said the remark was a joke. In prior interviews with Signal Cleveland, he has cast the allegations as politically timed hits during a reelection campaign.
A review of historical Plain Dealer news clippings and a court ruling shows that council — and, in at least one case, a federal judge — have long debated how to punish officeholders who ultimately work for the voters. Here are some examples of council members who have faced and fought City Council’s reprimand.
1978: John Barnes avoids censure
It’s hard to think that anything crossed the line in Cleveland’s politically turbulent years of the 1970s. But Council Member John Barnes tempted the body’s wrath when he walked out of a meeting after chiding the mayor.
Barnes was upbraiding Mayor Ralph Perk for taking too long to hire a service director, the Plain Dealer reported at the time. The acting council president, James H. Bell, told him to stop when his four-minute time slot expired. Barnes tried to keep talking, called for more time and then made his exit.
Council President George Forbes had temporarily turned the reins of the meeting over to Bell, saying that he was tired. Afterward, he named a five-person committee to weigh how to discipline the council member.
Censure and losing a committee chairmanship were on the table. Barnes headed off a possible censure vote when he apologized the following week.
“In the course of the debate on [the] council floor, tempers flare and you may offend your colleagues,” Barnes said. “If I did offend any member of council last week, I apologize.”
1976: Council suspends Gary Kucinich and Lonnie Burten
In December 1976, Council Members Gary Kucinich and Lonnie Burten both received suspensions after questioning their colleagues’ ethics. Kucinich is the brother of Dennis Kucinich, who at the time was serving as clerk of the Cleveland Municipal Court.
The punishments ultimately didn’t stick. A court overturned Kucinich’s suspension, and Burten received back pay for lost wages.
Burten criticized colleagues during a committee meeting for not doing enough to oppose new and transferred liquor licenses. He said state officials had told him that liquor license opposition was insincere and that “money is passed under the table,” the Plain Dealer reported.
Majority Leader Gerald McFaul tried to quiet him. Burten replied, “Kiss my…” without delivering the punch line. An uproar followed from other council members.
They voted that night to suspend Burten for a week. The suspension cost him $240 in wages, the equivalent of $1,332 today. Almost a year later, council voted unanimously to restore Burten’s pay.
A week after Burten’s suspension, Gary Kucinich was temporarily bounced from council after running afoul of Forbes during a debate over tax abatement legislation.
Kucinich asked the city’s law director whether it was appropriate to consider the measure after the Greater Cleveland Growth Association had offered to pay for Christmas parties for children in council members’ wards. The growth association — now known as the Greater Cleveland Partnership — supported the tax abatement bill.
“Are you inferring that I was bribed?” Forbes asked Kucinich, according to a later court decision.
“Mr. Chairman, I’m not making any charges of payoff,” Kucinich replied.
The two argued back and forth. A council member proposed suspending Kucinich for impugning Forbes’ motives. More than a dozen council members joined the debate. Council eventually voted 26 to 4 to suspend Kucinich for two weeks.
The Brothers Kucinich challenged the suspension in federal court. U.S. District Judge John M. Manos, recently appointed by President Gerald Ford, ruled in their favor.
“Neither the average citizen of Cleveland, nor a councilman in Council chambers, can be punished for criticizing or impugning the motives of Cleveland politicians,” Manos wrote. “In our system of government only the electorate in Gary Kucinich’s ward are permitted to judge him and punish him for his expression of ideas and opinions.”
1974: Paul Haggard draws police and censure for gun control protest
Council Member Paul Haggard, a Republican, crossed Forbes when he tried to introduce gun control legislation at a council meeting.
During the argument, Haggard came close to being led out of the chamber by a police officer. Council considered suspending him but later voted for censure instead.
Although Forbes supported gun control, he didn’t believe it was the right time to bring up the issue. Perk, then the mayor, had recently vetoed a gun bill. Haggard’s measure would have required handgun registration and banned cheap guns known as “Saturday night specials.”
Forbes said Haggard was out of order, but Haggard continued to press for his gun control bill as the clerk tried to read legislation into the record. The council president told a police officer to boot Haggard from the meeting, but another council member intervened. Later in the meeting, Haggard apologized.
A council committee recommended suspending Haggard for a week, but council members couldn’t agree.
Mary Rose Oakar argued for suspension, saying “the integrity of the chair must be maintained,” the Plain Dealer reported. Dennis Kucinich said Haggard “had the courage and vigor to pursue what he believes in.” And Charles V. Carr said, “I believe in forgiveness.”
Mercy won the day. A week after the disruption, council voted to censure Haggard rather than suspend or fine him.
1955: Kermit Neely butts in
If there’s one thing that doesn’t garner council’s mercy, it’s meddling in another member’s ward.
Kermit Neely — whom the Plain Dealer described as “a Republican first-termer with a penchant for getting into controversies” — could be a thorn in Mayor Anthony Celebrezze’s side. But it was his conflict with a fellow council member that earned him a rebuke from council’s Democrats.
Neely spoke at a meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals to oppose the conversion of a two-family house into a four-family one. In the process, he committed a Cleveland City Council faux pas. The house was not in Neely’s ward, but in a neighboring one.
Council Member Margaret McCaffery represented that neighboring ward.
“As he opposed the conversion, I have no argument with what he said,” she said, according to the Plain Dealer. “But I seriously question the propriety of his attempting to speak for my ward.”
Council Democrats voted to ask the Republican minority leader to remind Neely about council etiquette. “‘Censure’ Neely for ‘Butting In,'” ran the Plan Dealer headline.
Neely said the issue was petty.
“The Democrats can do whatever they like,” he said. “When I ran for office, I said I’d represent not only my ward but the city as a whole. Slum conditions don’t stop at ward borders.”
1874: Charles Higgins won’t vote
A century before George Forbes ruled the City Council roost, Charles Higgins earned council’s displeasure. The Plain Dealer described Higgins as a “genial companion” who was “not an orator” but “an enthusiastic politician.”
Even he reportedly had some less-than-genial moments, although the particulars are fuzzy. Council members censured Higgins in 1874 for refusing to vote after council declined to excuse him, the Plain Dealer reported.
Higgins “made two rather vehement speeches in his own defense, substantially defying the council to compel him to do anything against his judgment or inclination,” the paper wrote.
After the censure vote was declared, the paper continued, Higgins “was overheard to remark that he wished it had been expulsion.”
Updated: Weekly chatter found an additional censure saga to share.
A 19th century City Council sewer fight
Back in 1860, Council Member Jared H. Clark moved to censure his colleague C.L. Russell, according to a report from the time in the Plain Dealer.
You might say it was gutter politics: Their fight was about the city’s sewers. Drainage was a big deal at the time. The Ohio House had just passed legislation to build out a sewer system in Cleveland.
Clark wanted to censure Russell for ignoring his committee duties. Russell said he was unhappy that he’d been passed over for the chairmanship of the sewer committee.
Then he accused Clark of feeding off public resources by giving himself a paid role as a sewer superintendent. (Clark said that, as superintendent, he was saving taxpayers money on the sewer project.)
Clark said he was tired of the “disgraceful personal allusions,” as the newspaper report put it. The paper continued, “He knew that Mr. Russell was sent to Columbus to attend to the sewerage business, his expenses being paid, and he knew too, that when he went, he had other business to attend to.”
“That’s false, and he lies when he says so,” Russell retorted.
You had to be there.
A motion to censure Russell was set aside, and it’s unclear if it came back up.
Whatever the outcome of the fight, it didn’t seem to hurt Russell’s ability to nab top spots of municipal honor. The following year, he served on a special committee welcoming President-elect Abraham Lincoln to Cleveland.
