CLEVELAND, OH – When Sandra Morgan delivered her oath of office to East Cleveland Clerk of Council Mansell Baker on or around March 3, 2025, he had no legal authority to accept it. Baker should have advised famed inventor Garret Morgan’s granddaughter her oath’s language did not meet the mandatory requirements of Section 705.28 for the content of an oath of office for an officer of a “municipal corporation.”
“Oath of office. Every officer of a municipal corporation and every employee holding a position upon an annual salary, before entering upon the duties of his office, shall take and subscribe to an oath or affirmation, which shall be filed and kept in the office of the clerk of the municipal corporation, that he will: (A) Support the constitution of the United States and of this state, and the charter and ordinances of the municipal corporation; (B) Not be influenced by any consideration except that of merit and fitness in the appointment or discharge of employees; (C) Not make or authorize the expenditure of public money otherwise than for adequate consideration and efficient service to the municipal corporation; (D) Faithfully, in all other respects, discharge the duties of his position or office.”
What Cuyahoga County Probate Court Judge Anthony Russo did when he appointed Morgan was administer her an oath of office to discharge the duties of a “county” official and not a “municipal mayor” of a home rule city. The language of the judge’s oath was not an “oath” for a person entering the office of a municipal mayor that complied with Section 705.28 of the Ohio Revised Code.
Russo’s oath of office is a document of his own creation as a judge that defies the instructions lawmakers. A municipal mayor has no authority or duty to enforce “the laws of County of Cuyahoga.”
I, SANDRA MORGAN, do solemnly swear or affirm that: 1) I will support, uphold, and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Ohio, the Laws of County of Cuyahoga, Ohio and the people of the City of East Cleveland, Ohio, and;
2) I will faithfully, honestly, diligently, and impartially perform and discharge all of the powers and duties incumbent upon me as the Mayor for the City of East Cleveland, Ohio for such term as I am appointed to the best of my ability and understanding. So help me God.
As referenced above, Russo appointed Morgan to enforce Cuyahoga county’s charter and state laws found in Title 3 of the Ohio Revised Code. She should have been appointed to discharge the law enforcement duties of a municipal mayor to enforce East Cleveland’s charter, ordinances and Title 7 of the Ohio Revised Code.
An officer or employee of East Cleveland who is appointed to a public office cannot enter the office and discharge its duties until after the oath of the office they seek to enter is lawfully administered. That language is clearly mandated in Section 705.28 of the Ohio Revised Code as well as Article 5, Section 7 of the Constitution of Ohio.
“Every person chosen or appointed to any office under this State, before entering upon the discharge of its duties, shall take an oath or affirmation, to support the Constitution of the United States, and of this State, and also an oath of office.”
Morgan was appointed to the office of mayor by Russo on February 28, 2025, but her oath of office was dated March 3, 2025. Baker didn’t share Morgan’s oath of office violation with the council and now works for the interim mayor as an executive assistant who holds himself out as chief of staff. As the city’s former Clerk of Council, I know East Cleveland’s officials don’t invest in training for its officers and employees to learn, master and obey the city’s charter and ordinances and applicable Ohio general laws.
Baker, as the certifier of municipal acts pursuant to Section 731.47 of the Ohio Revised Code, should have also shared his oath communication with Morgan to the public during the “receipt of communications” portion of council’s agenda at its next regular meeting. Doing so would have lessened the drama around Mayor Lateek R. Shabazz’s challenge to Morgan as a usurper to his office on June 2, 2025.
As a judicially appointed “interim mayor,” Morgan had 10 days from February 28, 2025, or March 8, 2025, to lawfully enter the office of a suspended mayor with an oath of office that complied with Section 705.28 of the Ohio Revised Code. She did not and so she’s never met the lawful requirements to enter the office she’s been accused of usurping by Shabazz. Every act she committed, every document she signed, every employee she hired, every paycheck she received was ultra vires or beyond her powers as a mayoral office usurper.
Pursuant to Section 731.49 of the Ohio Revised Code, there’s nothing Russo can do to prevent council’s enforcement of the, “Failure to give oath or take bond” state law. The general assembly gave “legislative authorities” the power to declare vacant the office a person who doesn’t take and file the appropriate oath of office within 10 days.
“The legislative authority of a municipal corporation may declare vacant the office of any person elected or appointed to such office who, within ten days after he has been notified of his appointment or election, or obligation to give a new or additional bond, fails to take the required official oath or to give any bond required of him.”
If the city was represented by an oath sworn attorney instead of usurping payroll thief in the law department named Heather McCollough, the director of law would have provided the city its protection against Russo’s unlawful oath and Morgan’s unlawful presence in the mayor’s office.
Morgan’s being poorly advised by people who’ve placed their own interests above the city and hers in the mayor’s official capacity. She’s the only “official” in Cleveland who values McCollough. The Democratic Party’s organizational leadership sees her as a joke. Prosecutors see McCollough as one of the “bad apples” Morgan should have removed, along with acting chief of police Kenneth Lundy, when she terminated attorney Willa Mae Hemmons.
It’s what Morgan and the county officials around her do not know about municipal laws that’s caused all of East Cleveland’s current political drama about who has a right to the mayor’s office. It was unwise for Morgan to take municipal legal advice from an attorney as legally ignorant as McCollough. The birds of a feather she’s flocking with are the city hall leftovers from the Brandon King organized crime family.
It’s not just her oath of office that disqualified Morgan from entering and continuing in the office of mayor. Russo’s order in the image above spells out that Morgan had to obey Section 3.16(E)(5) of the Ohio Revised Code when the office of mayor King was holding became vacant.
King’s conviction removed him from office and both Morgan and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley wrote and shared correspondence that confirms it. Russo’s order cited the same Section 3.16(E)(5) section of the Ohio Revised Code that Shabazz attorney Kenneth Myers cited to support his quo warranto against Shabazz’s demand that she be removed from office.
“If the office of the suspended public official becomes vacant during the period of suspension, a public official shall be appointed or elected to fill such vacancy as provided by law. If a regular election is to occur during the period of suspension, a public official shall be elected as provided by law.”
Ohio’s constitutional requirement to take an oath of office before entering an office has been in effect since September 1, 1851. My family was living in the United States of America back then. So was Morgan’s.
Of all the “citizens” who should respect a constitution, the descendants of enslaved, emancipated and freed reclassified Negroes should be its most ardent adherents. The 13th, 14th and 15th constitutional amendments enshrined our citizenship and rights. An American Negro mayor who disregards the constitutional and home rule sovereignty of an 85 percent American Negro populated city, allowing others to disrespect their citizens’ rights to self-governance, should be viewed as an abomination.
I was trained in newspaper publishing and journalism by Morgan’s grandfather’s business partner, Call & Post Editor & Publisher William O. Walker. She doesn’t like me referencing her grandfather’s name in my coverage of her mishaps in office, but I am the only American Negro journalist carrying on the hard news reporting legacy Mr. Morgan’s partner embedded in Cleveland.
Mr. Walker didn’t tolerate the type of behavior Morgan is exhibiting from his other partner Edward Murrell’s daughter, Judge Jean Murrell Capers. Mr. Walker called her out, loudly, for a political act of betrayal so despicable to him that he didn’t let her near an elected office with an endorsement from his newspaper between 1957 and 1977.
Capers could not have received an appointment to the Cleveland Municipal Court from Governor James Rhodes in 1977 without Mr. Walker’s blessings. I joined the newspaper in 1978 and am the last journalist to interview Mr. Walker before his death. The same with legendary Cleveland Mayor Carl B. Stokes. I’m not disparaging Mr. Morgan’s legacy. His granddaughter’s damaging the family brand with her lawlessness.
There are many laws Morgan has been introduced and should have read in her dispute with Shabazz over who is the rightful mayor, that she now should know her presence in the mayor’s office is unlawful. She should accept that even her oath of office fails to meet statutory requirements instead of ignoring the evidence and laws before her and leave. The use of the word “shall” in a law should mean something to a law enforcing mayor.
Regardless of her personal desire to use the mayor’s office and city employees to win a general election in November, Morgan’s disrespect for East Cleveland’s charter won’t change with an election.
East Cleveland residents would be foolish to put themselves through another four years of law breaking from an interim mayor no one elected. A mayor who starts wrong ends wrong and everything that glitters ain’t gold. Princess Morgan’s true self-entitled colors are showing.
Russo’s interim mayoral appointee entered the mayor’s office all wrong.
