CLEVELAND — The distrust between the Cleveland City Council and the Bibb administration boiled over publicly on Tuesday as both sides engaged in a war of words — and threats of legal action — over a council employee accessing public records.

Cleveland Council President Blaine A. Griffin sent a letter to his colleagues on city council Tuesday morning laying out his concerns that Mayor Justin Bibb's administration has issued an ultimatum regarding Steve Rys, an employee who serves as special assistant to council: fire him, or the mayor's office will "go public" with allegations that Rys downloaded "confidential" files from the city's public records request database and from GovQA.

"They also threatened to explore prosecuting (the employee) in Federal Court, even though they admitted such a

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