Cincinnati And 'Gang Of 5' Appealing Order To Turnover All Texts And Emails

Five Cincinnati Council members and the city are appealing a Hamilton County Judge's order to turn over all text messages and emails that the members sent this year.

The appeal is part of a lawsuit alleging P.G. Sittenfeld, Chris Seelbach, Greg Landsman, Tamaya Dennard and Wendell Young violated the state's open meeting law with a group text this spring when Major John Cranley was trying to fire now former City Manager Harry Black.

Mark Miller and his attorney, Brian Shrive, filed the case shortly after the text messages were revealed.

The five council members have released the texts shared among the larger group. But Judge Robert Ruehlman ordered all emails and texts they sent be turned over for discovery by Nov. 2, even messages between individual council members in the group. Shrive has argued he needs to review those to determine if there were other violations of the open meeting law.

Read more: http://www.wvxu.org/post/city-and-gang-5-appealing-order-turnover-all-texts-and-emails#stream/0

The 'Gang of 5' are all Democratic members of the council.