Cleveland Heights residents have launched an effort to recall the mayor following accusations that he enabled a hostile work environment at City Hall.
A group of about a dozen Cleveland Heights residents worked to create the petition and started collecting signatures Tuesday, said Josie Moore, one of the residents collecting signatures.
The controversy surrounding Mayor Khalil Seren stems from allegations of antisemitism at City Hall by Seren’s wife Natalie McDaniel, who is not a city employee.
“The antisemitism is a non-starter. I think that once that came out, that was it. I mean that's absolutely unacceptable,” said Moore. “We have a lot of people with petition sheets, and they're all really fired up to make this happen.”
Seren has not yet responded to an Ideastream Public Media request for comment regarding the petition.
Earlier this month, Patrick Costigan, a former special assistant to Seren, filed complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, claiming that McDaniel, Seren's wife, used derogatory terms to refer to the city’s Planning Commission Chair, who is an Orthodox Jew.
Seren denied the accusation of antisemitism in a video on Facebook last Wednesday. In the video, Seren said that his administration received a threat from Costigan that he would sue unless they met their demands of $300,000 and a job reference.
Last Friday, Cleveland City Council held a special meeting where several councilmembers said they were disappointed that the mayor did not apologize for his or his wife’s actions.
“There was this golden opportunity to bring this community together and it didn’t happen. I’m heartbroken,” Council President Tony Cuda said after the council meeting on Friday. “This is such a forgiving, beautiful community. I think the mayor could change course and come back and say ‘I’m sorry’ and I think people would accept that.”
In addition to the complaints by Costigan, the petition lists other reasons for the recall effort, including high staff turnover and the submission of an incomplete 2025 budget, which the petition says lacked required information for city council to review.
“I just want our city to start healing and to start to put things back together,” Moore said. “It's a mess right now. We just want to recover from this.”
