CLEVELAND, OH – The growing suspicion that predominantly American Negro populated East Cleveland, Ohio is intentionally being destabilized for a takeover by ethnic cleansing minded Cuyahoga County players is becoming more confirmed with each fight Mayor Lateek Shabazz has to engage in to assume the mayor’s office. His latest obstacle is a quo warranto mayoral usurper Sandra Morgan appears to have retained the Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Commission’s (CCLRC) law firm to file on her behalf. Roetzel and Andress.
The CCLRC is a 30-acre slum property owner whose officials have engaged two East Cleveland’s mayors, convicted ex-mayor Brandon King and recalled ex-mayor Gary Norton, Jr., along with employees like Michael Smedley, and at least Councilman Timothy Austin in a property laundering operation. Roetzel and Andress offers land banking services and represented the CCLRC in State ex rel. Feltner v. Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. of Revision, 160 Ohio St.3d 359, 2020-Ohio-3080, 157 N.E.3d 685 (Ohio Sup. Ct. May 28, 2020).
The case involved a writ of prohibition action filed with the Ohio Supreme Court that challenged the constitutionality of Ohio Revised Code 323.65 through Ohio Revised Code 323.79, which provides for the administrative tax foreclosure proceedings to expedite the foreclosure of abandoned, tax delinquent land.
On June 17, 2025, two Roetzel and Andress law firm attorneys filed a “Reply in support of motion to dismiss of respondent Sandra Morgan or, in the alternative, supplemental briefing on the motion to dismiss.” Attorneys Diana Feitl and Matthew Vansuch appear to have been retained to clean up the faulty “motion to dismiss” attorney Heather McCollough filed instead of an “answer” to Shabazz’s June 2, 2025 quo warranto. Section 114 of “home rule” East Cleveland’s Charter makes Shabazz, in his former official capacity as president of council, the rightful occupier of the mayor’s office Morgan’s usurped since May 30, 2025.
McCollough’s procedurally wrong “motion to dismiss” converted to a Rule 56 motion for summary judgement that admitted all the facts and laws Shabazz cited were true. It was a legal mistake that came from McCollough’s poor habits as a “lifelong student.” She doesn’t know what she doesn’t know and won’t crack the right books to learn.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley stepped in to try and save Morgan from McCollough’s blunder, but both he and the Roetzel and Andress attorneys were stuck admitting that East Cleveland is a home rule city and Section 114 installed Shabazz in the mayor’s office after King’s May 29, 2025 conviction. They couldn’t now claim that Shabazz’s claims were false or legally unsupported after McCollough’s admission.
O’Malley, Regina Russo, Diana Feitl and Matthew Vansuch are stuck with Morgan and McCollough’s lie that King is still under suspension, so the mayor’s office is not vacant. McCollough added the job saving argument that she thought the usurper, Morgan, was doing a good job. McCollough’s “good job” endorsement of Morgan came after Shabazz issued a memorandum terminating her from the law department.
In addition to defending McCollough’s still under suspension argument, attorneys opposing Shabazz also have to argue to invalidate a portion of Cuyahoga County Probate Court Judge Anthony Russo’s February 28, 2025 order appointing Morgan as East Cleveland’s “interim” mayor. Russo was clear to sunset his order and Morgan’s “term” as interim mayor with a specific reference to Section 3.16(E)(5) of the Ohio Revised Code.
A full reading of the unsuspended state general law confirms that her appointment was for the “duration” of King’s “suspension.” McCollough and Morgan want the Eighth District Court of Appeals to act as if the following statutory instructions do not exist in both Section 3.16(E)(5) of the Ohio Revised Code and in Judge Russo’s order.
“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.”
King’s suspension ended with his May 29, 2025 conviction. Both O’Malley and Morgan acknowledged in separate communications that the conviction created a vacancy in the office of mayor they did not share with the Eighth District Court of Appeals. In a self-incriminating way, it’s understood why they didn’t.
O’Malley issued a May 29, 2025 news release stating that, “As a result of the conviction, Brandon King will not be reinstated as the mayor of East Cleveland and will be disqualified from public office for seven years from the date of conviction.” There was no ambiguity to his words. Cuyahoga County’s Prosecuting Attorney had declared King was not returning to East Cleveland city hall.
The next day Morgan issued the following email to King’s work from home fiscal officer, Latasha Williams, and the Clerk of Council, Stacey White.
“Dear Latasha: I hope you are well. As you know, former Mayor Brandon King was found guilty of 10 counts yesterday and is now awaiting sentencing. He is effectively no longer Mayor of East Cleveland, and as such, is no longer entitled to salary payments. Therefore, please end payment to Brandon King as of Thursday, May 29, 2025. He is officially separated from employment at the City of East Cleveland. Please copy Mansell, Heather, and me with final details of his payment for our records, along with any request for payment of sick time, etc. Thanks, Sandra”
Morgan’s words were as clear as O’Malley’s that King’s time as the city’s mayor was over. When it appears Morgan realized acknowledging the vacancy in the mayor’s office meant she had to leave, she and the ex-mayor’s scum bag legal counsel, McCollough, quickly changed their story between May 29, 2025 and June 1, 2025.
They now claimed King was still under suspension as their justification for usurping an elected office and obstructing Shabazz from entering it. It was a lie that meant Morgan still had to pay King to make it look good.
Since she’s not delivering council a bi-weekly copy of the payroll, it’s unknown if even more theft is involved in Morgan and McCollough’s deception. At-large Councilman Twon Billings said Morgan had no approval from council to retain Roetzel and Andress. Without legislative approval she’s involving the law firm in a theft of public funds from a city in fiscal emergency.
The Roetzel and Andress appearance is curious since it’s represented the CCLRC. One of the firm’s partners and Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne worked for ex-Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell’s administration. Ronayne had recommended Morgan to Russo. Both he and O’Malley wanted her to stay for the remainder of King’s term.
Section 114 of East Cleveland’s charter, however, didn’t give either county official, including Judge Russo, a say in the filling of a vacancy that was addressed above by Section 3.16(E)(5) of the Ohio Revised Code.
On its face everything in the Roetzel and Andress filing helps Shabazz. Feitl and Vansuch cited home rule cases that affirm a charter’s authority over the filling of vacancies in elected and appointed public offices that conflict with state laws. They even cited State ex rel. Branch v. Pitts, 2018-Ohio-1184 (8th Dist.) that my friend, the late Mayor Darryl E. Pittman filed on behalf of council appointees Devin Branch and Kelvin Erby. The Eighth District Court of Appeals ruling was written by another friend, the late Judge Larry Jones.
There is nothing in State ex rel. Branch v. Pitts, 2018-Ohio-1184 (8th Dist.) that discredits Clerk of Council White’s certification of the mayor’s office vacancy after receiving notice from Morgan by email on May 30, 2025. Pittman was the perfect attorney, as the city’s first mayor and chief law enforcement officer, to file it. Judge Jones was my father’s Cleveland Ward 10 councilman and a former municipal court judge, so he understood the nuances of home rule cities.
It was Pittman in 1985 who co-authored the changes in East Cleveland’s charter to repeal the city manager plan of government found at Section 705.51 of the Ohio Revised Code to operate under the federal plan with a mayor and council found at Section 705.71 of the Ohio Revised Code. It was Pittman’s job to implement and enforce the new charter and ordinances that came with the new government voters selected after he was elected its first mayor since 1915.
Behind Pittman’s quo warranto for Branch and Erby were the facts that on December 6, 2016 Gary A. Norton, Jr. was recalled as mayor and President of Council Thomas Wheeler was recalled as Ward 3’s councilman. The idea that Wheeler served as council’s president from Ward 3 shreds the prosecutor’s claim that only an at-large member of council can serve as president.
Shabazz represented the same Ward 3 as Wheeler and Gladys Walcott did. Both had served as council’s president. Pittman knew Rule 23 of Council’s Rules of Order gave any member of council the authority to nominate themselves or any other member for president and vice president without second.
While Roetzel and Andress raised a “new” argument for Morgan that council never declared the mayor’s office vacant, Pittman’s pleading was about a council vacancy pursuant to Section 100 of the Charter and not a mayoral vacancy pursuant to Section 114 of the Charter. He described how King, who was vice president, assumed the authority of president of council and declared the mayor’s office vacancy to have been filled by him. The argument that the legislative authority was required to declare the mayor’s office vacant was a procedure Roetzel and Andress’ attorney concocted from her own mind and not from any law.
Pittman pleaded that King, as a mayor restricted by Section 113(A) of the charter, lacked the authority to fill any vacancy on council. The mayor does not supervise the affairs of the council.
For some odd reason the Roetzel and Andress filing offered the wrong idea that Shabazz needed to be reapproved as the president of council by council before he could enter the mayor’s office. There was something very “AI” in the verbiage of the Roetzel and Andress pleading that made no sense. It’s as if ChatGPT or some legal artificial intelligence app was asked to format the firm’s following response.
“Yet Shabazz has not put forward any evidence that the City Council of East Cleveland has taken any official action in response to King’s conviction. He has not done so because he cannot do so: the Council has not declared the office of mayor to be vacant as the result of a felony conviction by King, the Council has not declared that the then-President of City Council is the next in line to fill that office,4 the Council has not declared that Shabazz was the President of City Council, and the Council has not declared that Shabazz is the individual who is entitled to take the Oath of Office for Mayor. It is the City Council that exercises the power of local self-government to make such determinations, not the Clerk. E.g., State ex rel. Hover v. Wolven, 175 Ohio St. 114, 118 (1963) (recognizing that the local governmental body recognized a vacancy when one of its board members became ineligible to serve on the board, and therefore vacated his office, when the board member accepted membership on another board and the positions were incompatible).”
Morgan’s use of the CCLRC’s law firm of Roetzel and Andress confirms for Shabazz his suspicions that Ronayne, O’Malley and other county players are behind the scenes manipulating the city’s demise. Had Roetzel and Andress attorneys reviewed East Cleveland’s charter and ordinances before accepting a retainer from Morgan they’d have known she lacked the authority to engage them without council’s approval.
The fact they didn’t is evidence they have no fear of being held accountable from the prosecutor’s office. Just like Morgan as she commits some of the exact same criminal acts that led to King’s conviction.
