After Ideastream Public Media reported that two Cleveland City Council members discussed retaliation against a city vendor in a text message thread using private cell numbers, one of them, Councilmember Anthony Hairston, said in a committee meeting that members should not "air family business" in public.
"My mother and father tell me, 'Family business stay where? Where's it stay? It stay at home,'" Hairston, who represents Ward 10, said Monday to a group of council members during a committee meeting. "You don't go in the streets and air family business, right? You keep it at home."
Hairston kicked off an explosive text thread with council colleagues regarding Ward 1 Councilmember Joe Jones, who at the time was under investigation for inappropriate behavior. In his texts, Hairston said he would "never" give his support to Destination Cleveland, a tourism nonprofit that raised concerns about Jones' conduct with a contracted artist, sparking a third-party investigation into years of complaints.
Jones has since apologized for the behavior and agreed to undergo professionalism training.
In an interview with Ideastream, Hairston defended his comments, but said he was "upset" that the thread, which included at least some council members' personal numbers, was made public.
He pointed fingers at his colleague, Ward 12's Rebecca Maurer, who fired back at Hairston's messages in the thread and later in an interview with Ideastream.
Ideastream Public Media obtained the texts through a public records request.
"We also should be addressing when folks are having a conversation and stand up trying to talk to them and understand their position and have a dialogue as humans and people and not running to the public," Hairston said to other council members at Monday's meeting.
In his interview with Ideastream, Hairston implied he was "smoking people out" by "laying bait" with inflammatory comments.
At Monday's committee chairs meeting, he said the same.
"A lot of times people set bait for people, as well. People set traps," he said. "In this business, you got to know who you can talk to, who you can't talk to. ... One of the greatest ways to find out who, what, where, when is to set traps and set bait."
On Wednesday, Ideastream Public Media obtained new texts in the group thread which apparently continued Saturday.
"Just received a call from the media about the text discussion above...SMH," he wrote. "We made it almost a week - Lol! I figured it would've been sooner. Nonetheless, I pray everyone is enjoying this beautiful Saturday."
"S.O.B. (Stand On Business)," wrote back Richard Starr, the other member who appeared to support Hairston's initial retaliatory statement. "I just told the media that; I know a rat when I see one!"
No other member responded directly to those messages. Subsequent texts are about the city's structure of animal control and Monday meetings.
Public records laws exist to make sure the public can see how government business is conducted. Even if public officials have conversations about city business on private communications devices, those conversations are public records.
"It doesn't matter what number they're using or if they're using a personal number, it's the creation of a public record," said David Marburger, a Cleveland-based First Amendment attorney.
Ideastream Public Media requested other texts on that thread from the past two years that may include city business. That request has not yet been filled.
A council spokesperson said the use of private emails for city business was not allowed, but the use of private cell phones does not violate any council policy. Any city business conducted via private cell would be subject to public records law, she said.
Griffin said Monday that council would be hiring a consultant to look at policies to "deal with the culture of City Hall."
"Sometimes tempers flare, but it's important we hold ourselves to the highest professional standard," he told members of council. "I ask people to refrain from some of the... inflammatory comments towards each other."
In a statement released Monday, Griffin said all council members would undergo training on professional conduct and retaliation would not be tolerated.
Mayor Justin Bibb's office, which regularly works with Destination Cleveland to promote tourism, declined to comment, as did Destination Cleveland.
