Rule 41 for Thee, Not for Me: Lorain City Council’s Accountability Problem
By Aaron Knapp – Lorain City Politics Unplugged
Aug 13, 2025
he Court of Claims, a Phone, and a Pattern of Non-Responses
This all started when I made what should have been a straightforward public records request — asking for emails and text messages sent during a Lorain City Council meeting. Under Ohio’s Sunshine Laws, this kind of request is routine and explicitly protected under ORC §149.43 and §121.22. Instead of a prompt and proper response, I found myself filing a complaint with the Ohio Court of Claims just to get what I had a legal right to see. This wasn’t an isolated delay or an innocent oversight — it was part of a larger pattern of slow-walking, dismissiveness, and outright non-responses from certain members of council, including Councilman Angel Arroyo Jr.
The spark for this request came after Arroyo was observed repeatedly using his phone during a public meeting. The video didn’t just show him glancing at it occasionally — it captured swiping, scrolling, and what looked like active typing. When I questioned this behavior, his written response was simple: “I use my phone for reading the agenda.” That explanation falls apart under basic scrutiny. The sheer amount of interaction with the device far exceeded what would be necessary to reference an agenda document.
And if he was indeed reading the agenda, it raises a different problem — why is the city issuing paper agendas to the public while allowing council members to use potentially unmonitored devices that could also be used for private conversations during official proceedings?
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Arroyo’s emails to me were dismissive, offering no effort to meet the requirements of the law. Had he taken the Sunshine Law training required under Rule 41, he would have known exactly how to respond — promptly, with specificity, and citing the legal authority for any denial. Instead, I got vague brush-offs and, in the end, months of unnecessary delay. This kind of neglect doesn’t just waste time — it costs the city money.
They had two lawyers, Councilman Tony Dimacchia, and the Clerk sit in a hearing for nearly two hours, all so they could ultimately send me exactly what I asked for in the first place: an email stating Arroyo had not attended in person and that no one on council had completed BRIT/PERC. The city could have sent that in five minutes, for free. Instead, they dragged it out, hoping I would go away, then caved at the last possible moment — as they have done every single time I’ve pressed them in court.
The Legal Standard They Ignore
Ohio’s Public Records Act is crystal clear. ORC §149.43(B)(1) states:
“Upon request… all public records responsive to the request shall be promptly prepared and made available… If any part of the record is exempt… the public office shall provide the requester with an explanation, including legal authority.”
“Promptly” means without unnecessary delay, and “including legal authority” means you must cite the specific law justifying any withholding. None of this is optional. You can’t just say “I’ll get back to you” and disappear. You can’t vaguely say “I use my phone for the agenda” when asked for records. And you certainly can’t simply ignore the request entirely.
If you truly believe you can’t produce a record, the law requires you to say why — with a legal citation — so that decision can be reviewed. The whole point of this requirement is transparency. Without it, any public official could hide whatever they wanted. But in Lorain, that’s exactly what’s happening — officials are skipping this basic step, and in doing so, they are eroding public trust.
Why Rule 41 Exists — And What It Says in Black and White
Rule 41 isn’t a vague suggestion buried in council paperwork — it’s a formal requirement, passed unanimously on January 2, 2024, by the sitting council, with every current member voting in favor, and signed into law by the Mayor that same day. Clerk Breanna Dull attested to its passage in the official record.
It spells out, in unmistakable language, that every council member must personally attend the following before the end of their term:
- Ohio Attorney General Sunshine Law Training
- Two BRIT/PERC “Sensitivity Basics” sessions
- One diversity training session
And there’s more. Rule 41 states:
“Members of Council shall… submit the certificate of completion to the Clerk for retention purposes.”
That’s not a suggestion. It’s not “sign-in sheets are fine” or “send it when you get around to it.” It’s personal attendance and a certificate, period. No proxies. No substitutes. No excuses.
The reason for this rule wasn’t theoretical. It was born out of real, documented decorum problems inside Lorain City Council — incidents that made headlines and eroded public trust. One flashpoint came when Councilman Joshua Thornsberry publicly referred to female colleagues as “bitches” and engaged in other verbal attacks on the council floor. This was not an isolated flare-up; it was part of a larger pattern of disrespect and disorder that played out in full public view.
Rule 41 was supposed to be the corrective — a way for council to say, “We’re holding ourselves to the same standards we demand from the public.” By requiring Sunshine Law training, BRIT/PERC sensitivity training, and diversity training, the idea was to model accountability, foster mutual respect, and demonstrate that elected officials could follow the rules they enforce.
But less than two years later, the very people who wrote it are shrugging it off. Not one current council member — except Victoria Kempton — has provided the Clerk with the required certificates.
Two members, Antonio Baez and his appointed successor Angel Arroyo Jr., never attended the trainings in person at all, instead sending proxies in direct violation of the rule’s text. And the City’s leadership, rather than enforce the rule, has tried to redefine “compliance” to mean “we have a sign-in sheet,” erasing the whole point of Rule 41.
Phones, Emails, and the Law They Should Already Know
Rule 45 and 46 go even further, setting strict rules for city-issued and personal devices, and prohibiting electronic transmission of meeting content.
Those rules directly undermine Councilman Angel Arroyo Jr.’s dismissive “I use my phone for the agenda” email to me when I asked about his device use during a meeting.
Had Arroyo completed the Sunshine Law training as Rule 41 requires — personally, not via proxy — he would know that ORC §149.43 demands a prompt, lawful explanation for any withheld record, and that Rule 45–46 already anticipate exactly these scenarios.
Instead, the City’s Assistant Law Director used the fact that I’m running against Arroyo as an argument for why I shouldn’t be getting timely public records from him — a breathtakingly irrelevant and unlawful position.
Compliance by Sign-In Sheet — and Why It Doesn’t Cut It
The City handed me a scrambled PDF of sign-in sheets — pages flipped upside down, dates cropped, and no consistent formatting — and claimed that was “proof” of compliance. This mess wasn’t just sloppy; it created real confusion. One entry for Angel Arroyo appeared to be from April 2024, when Clerk Maggie Partin signed in for him. Only later did I realize the City’s own omission of the year in that record was what made it look like 2024. In reality, it was April 2025 — months after Arroyo was appointed, but still attended by proxy, not in person.
The same proxy approach was used for Antonio Baez, Arroyo’s predecessor, whose attendance was marked through Deputy Clerk Breanna Dull. In both cases, the elected official never personally completed the training during their term, as Rule 41 requires.
Rule 41 is explicit: personal attendance and submission of a certificate of completion to the Clerk. A sign-in sheet — especially one with missing years — does not meet that standard. It leaves the door wide open for misinterpretation, record manipulation, and false claims of compliance. And while the City continues to treat these sign-in sheets as adequate “proof,” the fact is that not a single current council member has provided the required certificates — except Victoria Kempton, who turned in her Ohio Auditor’s Sunshine Law Certificate.
The Attorney General’s own website makes it crystal clear that certificates are issued for completed trainings.
That directly undercuts the City’s claim in mediation that “the AG no longer provides certificates.” If the City had the certificates, the confusion over dates — and the question of whether certain members ever attended in person — would be answered instantly.
The Reality: Proxies, Missing Certificates, and Excuses
The City’s compliance story falls apart fast. During mediation, they claimed the Attorney General “no longer provides training certificates” — a statement directly contradicted by the AG’s own website, which says certificates are issued upon completion. Instead of producing certificates, the City handed me a PDF of sign-in sheets, scrambled with upside-down pages and cropped dates.
That mess revealed the real story: Arroyo never attended in person as a council member. His only “attendance” was in April 2024, when Clerk Maggie Partin signed in for him — almost a year before he was even appointed. Antonio Baez, whom Arroyo replaced, used the same proxy approach, with Deputy Clerk Breanna Dull signing in for him. Rule 41 bans this outright, yet the City uses these proxy sign-ins as their supposed proof of compliance.
Even worse: not a single current council member — except Victoria Kempton — has submitted the required certificates. Kempton turned in her Ohio Auditor’s Sunshine Law Certificate, the recognized training for government-side compliance. The rest rely on those incomplete sign-in sheets, which don’t meet Rule 41’s requirement or the standard the City claims to uphold.
Rules for the Public, Loopholes for Themselves
In recent months, council has been ruthless in enforcing rules on the public. They shut down meetings when Jane Morales spoke — twice. They threatened Tia Hilton with arrest. They saw Garon Petty criminally charged. The message is clear: break our rules, and we will use the full weight of our authority against you.
But when it comes to their own rules? Silence. No one is removed for failing to complete mandatory trainings. No one is disciplined for using a proxy when the rule says personal attendance. No one is called out for failing to turn in a certificate. The same people who wield the rulebook against the public are perfectly comfortable ignoring it themselves.
This is the definition of hypocrisy. Rule 41 was supposed to model respect and restore trust. Instead, it’s become a prop — something to point to when convenient, and to ignore when it applies to themselves.
Final Thought: From Villain to Victim — and Back Again
Lorain’s political machine loves to paint me as the problem — the agitator, the troublemaker who “won’t let things go.” That’s their convenient cover story. The truth is far different: I’ve been wronged, deeply and publicly, to the point where I can no longer work. They’ve stripped away my livelihood and shredded my reputation, not with one bad decision, but through a sustained pattern of lies, obstruction, and selective enforcement of the very rules they use to threaten others.
And now, it feels like the whole cycle is starting again. The Hildreth documents — toxic, career-killing material — are finally offline. But for years, they remained up, passed around, and weaponized, while the City did nothing. No urgency to fix it. No accountability for the harm caused. Meanwhile, every lawful record request I file, every public comment I make, is treated like a vendetta instead of the exercise of my rights.
This isn’t new. I’ve been in mediation rooms with them — two lawyers, a councilman, and the Clerk — for nearly two hours, only for them to finally give me exactly what I was legally entitled to from the start. I’ve been to the Ohio Court of Claims twice now against this city, paying a $25 filing fee each time out of my Disabled Veteran’s pension, just to get records they could have emailed in five minutes.
They swore up and down that Chief McCann’s emails to my board didn’t exist. Months later, they handed them over, proving McCann lied and their “investigation” was a sham from the start. If the Mayor, Carrion, or anyone in leadership had done even the smallest real investigation instead of a staged one, they would have known the truth immediately. Now McCann is “retiring,” I have the proof in hand — and somehow, I’m still the bad guy.
Had Angel Arroyo taken the Sunshine Law training required under Rule 41, he would know how to properly respond to a public records request. Had the rest of Council completed their BRIT/PERC and diversity training, they might understand why leadership means modeling the rules you enforce — and why using their phones during public meetings, city-issued or not, is a slap in the face to taxpayers. That’s our time, not theirs.
This pattern — the denials, the delays, the gaslighting — isn’t about the law. It’s about power. They demand citizens obey immediately, under threat of removal, arrest, or public humiliation. But when those same rules apply to them, they dodge, excuse, or ignore them entirely.
I shouldn’t have to spend my pension and weeks of my life to force them to admit they haven’t done their required trainings. I shouldn’t have to fight for months for records they can produce instantly. But every time they tell me “no,” the law — and the truth — eventually says “yes.” The real question is: how much longer will Lorain tolerate leaders who believe the rules are for everyone but themselves?
Disclaimer:
This article reflects the opinions of the author, Aaron Knapp, based on public records, official documents obtained through lawful public records requests, and direct firsthand experiences. All statements of fact are supported by documentation where available. Any errors brought to the author’s attention will be reviewed and corrected if necessary. Nothing in this article constitutes legal advice.
Bottom line: Everything here is backed by records, receipts, and reality. If City Hall disagrees, they can produce the documentation — the same way the law requires them to when the public asks.
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