The Quiet Work of Telling the Truth

Why naming who did what—and when—is accountability, not a campaign.

There’s a moment almost every week when someone scolds our Cleveland Heights information channels for sounding “partisan.” It usually follows an issue of City News full of numbers, dates, and proper nouns—a road resurfaced and paid for, a grant awarded, a contract executed. The verdict arrives: de-politicize your newsletter, as if facts printed on City letterhead are campaign slogans in disguise. Talking plainly about city work isn’t politics; it’s accountability. I know that in a season charged by a mayoral recall effort, facts can feel inconvenient to those invested in a different narrative. But the remedy for tension isn’t silence—it’s specificity, documentation, and an open file cabinet. Facts don’t campaign; they timestamp.

Years of inconsistent messaging and crisis-only updates trained residents to expect silence—until something explodes. Step into that vacuum, and even flipping the lights back on looks like a stunt. Start speaking in complete sentences—citing sources, naming departments and partners—and visibility reads as hubris, while attribution appears as partisanship.

But a city can’t be governed by rumor and vibes. My job is to produce receipts for the public. That means telling you exactly what we did, when we did it, what it cost, who did the work, and how you can check the record yourself. If that reads as political, then the definition of “political” cannibalized the definition of “public.”

Transparency isn’t cheerleading. It’s the ordinary dignity of being specific in public. It’s also the discipline of giving credit, citing sources, and treating facts like public goods—shared resources maintained for everyone’s benefit. There’s a second accusation that trails the first: that giving credit—to a department, a vendor, a grantor, a partner, or yes, an elected official—betrays bias. I reject that. Governments aren’t faceless machines; they are made of people whose names appear on contracts and authorizations because the law requires a signature and a steward. Attribution is not flattery; it’s a chain of custody. It tells residents who is accountable for success, delays, or mistakes. It tells future staff where to look when history repeats itself, as it always does.

I won’t pretend we aren’t paying the price for the old posture. Vacuums—born of under-resourcing, risk aversion, and crisis-only updates—primed people to read anything new as performative. In a young, strong-mayor system, if we don’t explain the why and how, today’s what sounds like a victory lap over yesterday’s quiet. The fix isn’t silence; it’s context: the problem we solved, the tradeoffs we weighed, what remains unfinished, and where to read the documents.

That’s why I talk so much about public records as service, not spectacle. I want the request pipeline to be visible, not theatrical; the release cadence to be predictable, not strategic; the redactions to be rooted in privacy and statute, not convenience. When we publish, we pair records with the scaffolding they deserve—ordinances, contracts, budget lines, meeting minutes—because documents without context are Rorschach tests. Anyone can project meaning onto a PDF. It’s our responsibility to offer the frame residents need to make sense of it.

The shift from spectacle or silence to routine transparency requires a cultural reset inside City Hall. Speaking clearly in public feels risky when you’re used to being punished for nuance. Staff need permission to say, out loud, “we missed our date; here’s why and here’s the new one,” and to do it without drama. Rolling releases should be a promise, not a dodge; owning a bottleneck builds trust; publishing backlog metrics is maintenance, not self-harm. That’s not politics. That’s the daily craft of public work.

And yes, I will defend this administration’s achievements as facts, not opinions. There is a difference between campaigning and governing. Campaigning is about persuasion. Governing is about delivery—and documentation. Our channels are for the latter. We don’t endorse candidates. We don’t run slogans. We publish timelines, scopes, funding sources, change orders, and contact information. If we use Mayor Kahlil Seren’s name, it’s because a mayor signs specific instruments and shepherds certain policies; if we name a Council action, it’s because legislation authorizes dollars and direction; if we shout out a division, it’s because crews poured concrete at 6 a.m. in the rain. Those names live on the record whether or not we type them.

If it’s bragging to say we paved the road, then the invoice brags. The bid package brags. The before-and-after photo brags. Facts don’t vote. They stand there.

National politics can be loud, cynical, and performative. City work is different. It’s delivery with documentation—plows in winter, permits processed, roads resurfaced, budgets balanced, contracts overseen—and the receipts that prove it.

The silence of the previous era taught bad habits. This era’s specificity will teach better ones. We’re going to keep turning public records back into public service, keep speaking in complete sentences, and keep trusting that residents can tell the difference between a press release and a campaign speech. The work is public. The record is public. The credit is public. That isn’t hubris. That’s the job.