CLEVELAND — News 5 Investigators found Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb has missed 27 out of 117 City Council meetings since taking office. After reviewing attendance records from The City Records Archive, our analysis found Bibb's attendance rate was 77% since he was elected four years ago.
The mayor's attendance rate is lower than his predecessor, Frank Jackson, who missed 17 out of 128 meetings during a similar time period.
"It is the like the community don't count," said Faouzi Baddour, a longtime Cleveland resident and member of the Coalition for a Better Cleveland.
Baddour attended a Sept. 22 council meeting in hopes of addressing the mayor. Instead, he found Bibb's seat empty.
'Source of frustration'
Our investigation began when News 5 obtained an email written by Ward 17 Councilman Charles Slife to his fellow council members.
Slife wrote that the mayor's "casual attendance" at council's Monday night meetings has been a "source of frustration for years."
"It has been frustrating to me, at times," Slife said during an on-camera interview. "Members of the administration and even maybe the mayor haven't been availing themselves of what I think is a great opportunity to engage with the people whom we serve."
Slife strongly supported adding 30 minutes of public comment to council meetings, which began in October 2021.
"It's an uncurated opportunity for the public to come and express their opinions, their frustrations, their congratulations, whatever it is," Slife said.
'Doesn't give a F'
Council President Blaine Griffin provided one possible explanation for Bibb's absences. In response to Slife's email about the mayor's attendance, Griffin wrote that one of Bibb's senior staff members told Griffin's aide, Darryle Torbert, "The Mayor doesn't give a F about Council."
When asked if the statement was true, Bibb's staffer, Deputy Chief of Staff & Chief of Government Affairs Ryan Puente, wrote the following in an email:
"I’ve known Darryle for over a decade and the statement was made in a private phone conversation in a moment of frustration. I take full responsibility for my words. They don’t reflect my respect for City Council. I value my relationships with City Council and remain committed to working collaboratively to move the city forward."
Too much travel?
Bibb's travel schedule may also affect his attendance rate.
In January, he was appointed president of the Democratic Mayors Association, which represents Democratic mayors across the U.S.
During his first year in office, the mayor took 14 out-of-state trips to places including New York City, Austin, Miami, Chicago, Washington D.C. and Reno, according to a News 5 Investigation. He was in New York again last month for Climate Week NYC, where he spoke at the 2025 Forbes Sustainability Leaders Summit.
RELATED: Records show taxpayers' tab for Cleveland City Hall travel nearly $70k last year
"We see him in front of the cameras. We see him going out of town to all these other climate things and whatever, but we don't see him in the neighborhood," said Terry McNeil, who founded Fix Our Streets 216 over his frustration with Cleveland's road conditions.
The mayor isn't required to attend council meetings, but McNeil said residents need to be able to talk with the mayor in person.
"He doesn't want to have dialogue. We need dialogue with the mayor. It's not a one-sided thing," McNeil said.
Over a month ago, News 5 requested information about all of Bibb's trips this year.
But the city has not provided us with any records.
Bibb did attend council meetings on October 6 and October 13.
But during public comment at the October 6 council meeting, one speaker called out the mayor for failing to pay attention.
"For someone who's an adult and the mayor of Cleveland, you maybe shouldn't be laughing when people speak — it's kinda rude," Juan Collado Diaz told the mayor.
Mayor Bibb's response
News 5 requested an on-camera interview with Mayor Bibb.
Bibb's chief communications officer, Sarah Johnson, declined our request and wrote the following to News 5 Investigator Sarah Buduson:
"We would like to focus on building a stronger, more trusted partnership with you before arranging another interview with the mayor.
"City Council is a critical partner in advancing the work of the Administration and serving Clevelanders. We remain united in our commitment to delivering meaningful results for residents."
'It's offensive'
News 5 asked Andrew Geronimo, director of Case Western Reserve University's First Amendment Clinic, about Johnson's statement.
"I think it's offensive to the idea of a fiercely independent press," Geronimo said.
"The idea that you would be a trusted partner — some would see that as increasingly authoritarian. There are trusted partners between government officials and media entities in other countries that lack the First Amendment, that we usually decry as authoritarian and to try and make you or other journalists sort of a propaganda arm of the government is problematic to me."
Geronimo said the U.S. Constitution designates journalists as government watchdogs, not propaganda machines.
"I don't see you as a partner at all," he said. "I see you — and I see journalism broadly — as providing a meaningful check."
"It's almost like a coequal — it's not a branch of government, but a coequal institution that is able to stand up for its own independence and has its own structural role to play in our government as we designed it. It's really the reason the founders put the press in the first amendment, in my view."
Geronimo said Bibb and other government officials aren't legally required to talk to every reporter. However, he said, "As a matter of good government and transparency that Mayor Bibb was talking about in a lot of the campaign speeches that I've heard from him, I think he and officials like him have an obligation to work with the press — even if they think that the press has somehow been unfair to them."
"I'm troubled by the idea that there would be some purity test of, 'Has your coverage been positive enough of the mayor?'" Geronimo added.
