Ward 7’s Jones pulls petitions for mayor giving voters a chance to replace the worst councilman to ever steal the job

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CLEVELAND, OH – Two months after he finally relocated from South Euclid and Cleveland Heights to Cleveland, where he’s been serving illegally on city council, Basheer Jones finally moved into Ward 7 two months before he pulled petitions to seek the job of mayor.  Come November 2021, Jones will become one of the “forgotten” in the graveyard of poorly-performing elected officials.

Jones has zero chance of winning for mayor as he appears to know a return to council is an uphill battle after concerned residents decided to launch three recalls against him his first year in office.  It’s time for Ward 7 residents to say “Next.”

Jones won only by 13 votes in a smear-driven campaign against attorney and former Councilman T.J. Dow in 2017.  Instead of making friends to build a bigger base of political support for the future, the elected office stealing suburbanite added more enemies as he launched a terrorist-minded, cleansing campaign thinking he could “purge” Americans he perceived to be “enemies” out of the ward and the Hough Multipurpose Center.

Jones had cameras removed from the building after EJBNEWS busted his azz for allowing after-hours parties at the facility like it was his personal banquet hall.  A source close to the facility shared with me that he was also motivated to do so after two young women got into a fight over him in the public building.  Citizens learned the cameras were gone when a car was stolen from the lot and the owner needed video of the parking lot.

Ward 7 voters who supported former Councilman TJ Dow have had many “I told you so” moments over the past three years they’ve been represented by a suburbanite East Cleveland police arrested for mishandling a semi-automatic weapon. Dow had the money to turn the facility behind him into a community center with computers.  Sellout Jones wasted and stole as much as he could get his hands on.

Jones has no support on city council and not enough in the ward whose politics he just gave away his influence over when he pulled petitions to campaign for mayor.  Even if this political loud mouth changes his mind and decides to seek a re-election council, the resident who’s going to replace him on Cleveland’s legislative body is already gaining campaign steam.

He recently took a nasty shot at former Cleveland Mayor Michael White who brought him both credibility and money in his campaign against Dow in 2017.  Knowing White as a former special assistant he won’t take the criticism lightly.  Albert Ratner’s money and that of his AIPAC friends can’t help Jones overcome the scorn Ward 7 voters who supported him have for the way his lies and lack of performance humiliated them.

I’m hearing rumblings from residents who want to know “who’s next?” I have my ideas.  Jones’ is now in the “lame duck” status as a Cleveland councilman who has absolutely nothing to sell; and no power in the ward

A lamb in wolf’s clothing is still a lamb.  Jones has lost all respect.

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Eric Jonathan Brewer

Cleveland's most influential journalist and East Cleveland's most successful mayor is an East Saint Louis, Illinois native whose father led the city's petition drive in 1969 to elect the first black mayor in 1971. Eric is an old-school investigative reporter whose 40-year body of editorial work has been demonstrably effective. No local journalist is feared or respected more.

Trained in newspaper publishing by the legendary Call & Post Publisher William Otis Walker in 1978 when it was the nation's 5th largest Black-owned publication, Eric has published and edited 13 local, regional and statewide publications across Ohio. Adding to his publishing and reporting resume is Eric's career in government. Eric served as the city's highest paid part-time Special Assistant to ex-Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White. He served as Chief of Staff to ex-East Cleveland Mayor Emmanuel Onunwor; and Chief of Communications to the late George James in his capacity as the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority's first Black executive director. Eric was appointed to serve as a member of the state's Financial Planning & Supervision Commission to guide the East Cleveland school district out of fiscal emergency and $20 million deficit. Former U.S. HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson told Eric in his D.C. office he was the only mayor in the nation simultaneously-managing a municipal block grant program. Eric wrote the city's $2.2 million Neighborhood Stabilization Program grant application. A HUD Inspector General audit of his management of the block grant program resulted in "zero" audit findings.

As a newspaper publisher, Eric has used his insider's detailed knowledge of government and his publications to lead the FBI and state prosecutors to investigations that resulted in criminal prosecutions of well-known elected officials in Ohio; and have helped realign Cleveland's political landscape with the defeat of candidates and issues he's exposed. Eric's stories led to the indictments of the late Governor George Voinovich's brother, Paul Voinovich of the V Group, and four associates. He asked the FBI to investigate the mayor he'd served as chief of staff for public corruption; and testified in three federal trials for the prosecution. He forced former Cuyahoga County Coroner Dr. Elizabeth Balraj to admit her investigations of police killings were fraudulent; and to issue notices to local police that her investigators would control police killing investigations. Eric's current work has resulted in Cuyahoga County Judge John Russo accepting the criminal complaint he guided an activist to file against 24 civil rights-violating police officers in the city he once led for operating without valid peace officer credentials. USA Today reporters picked up on Eric's police credentials reporting from his social media page and made it national.

Eric is the author of of his first book, "Fight Police License Plate Spying," which examines the FBI and local police misuse of the National Crime Information Center criminal records history database. An accomplished trumpet player and singer whose friendship with Duke Fakir of the Four Tops resulted in his singing the show's closing song, "Can't Help Myself": Curtis Sliwa of New York's Guardian Angels counts Eric among his founding chapter leaders from the early 1980's role as an Ohio organizer of over 300 volunteer crime fighters in Cleveland, Columbus and Youngstown, Ohio. For his work as a young man Eric was recognized by Cleveland's Urban League as it's 1983 Young Man of the Year.

Known in Cleveland for his encyclopedic knowledge of government and history, and intimately-connected with the region's players, every local major media outlet in Cleveland has picked up on one of Eric's stories since 1979. There is no mainstream newspaper, television or radio outlet in Cleveland that does not include an interview with Eric Jonathan Brewer in its archives over the past 40 years.

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