This article is Part Two of this series. Click here for Part One.

On August 16, 2023, Elyria’s Chronicle-Telegram published the article, Elyria Wastewater Department employee accused of harassing mayor, children at city walking tour. Carl Spanos, City of Elyria employee for 18 years, was named in the front page story.

The article cited a letter to Spanos ordering him to appear at a disciplinary hearing to respond to allegations that he harassed and intimidated Mayor Frank Whitfield and his children at an August 8th City tour event at Black River Landing. The letter was written by Safety Service Director Matt Lundy.

The letter states that Spanos took photos of a City vehicle, Whitfield, and Whitfield’s children despite the mayor’s objections. “The actions described above evidence harassing and intimidating conduct towards the Mayor and his children,” Lundy wrote.

Since August I have published four articles on the altercation, including new allegations that the Whitfield Administration repeatedly requested police involvement despite being told Spanos’ behavior was not a criminal matter (See my August 25 report and Part One of this story). None of these articles included Spanos’ version of events as he was not willing to be interviewed.

Until now.

“I didn’t harass anyone. Not the mayor. Certainly not any kids. No one. I took photos and he (Whitfield) got mad. Next thing I know they tell me the police are looking at me and my name is on the front page of the paper,” Spanos tells me.

I sat down with Spanos for an interview last week. He has a direct, matter-of-fact way of speaking that some have described as abrasive. I asked him why he finally contacted me. “I’m here to tell you what really happened. What else?”

On August 8, 2023, Spanos left work, returned home to change out of his uniform and pick up his bicycle, and drove to the Burr Oak picnic area at Black River Reservation. “I went there to ride the trails out towards Lorain and back. Same as any other day,” he says.

After a roughly 90-minute ride he returned to the parking lot to mount his bicycle to his vehicle and head home. Spanos says, “That’s when I saw this van, a white City van. It pulled in and parked right in front of my car. Kind of in the middle of the lot, not in a parking space.”

Spanos says he saw a White male, approximately six feet tall, exit the driver’s side of the van. He was wearing a white polo with City insignia. The man caught Spanos’ eye because, he says, non-union employees are not supposed to be driving these City vehicles. “I was curious what was going on here. The guy walked away. I walked up to take a photo of the van to show to my union guy. I thought maybe the union was getting stiffed,” Spanos tells me.

As Spanos was taking a photo of the driver’s side City emblem, a Black male exited the passenger side, walked around the van, and started talking to Spanos. “So this other guy comes up to me and says something like, ‘Do you like my new van?’ I put my hand up and said ‘I’m just curious.’ I kind of side-stepped him, walked around him to get a picture of the passenger side, too,” Spanos says.

I asked Spanos why he didn’t talk with the man. “Why would I? I’m taking a photo, I don’t need to talk to some guy getting out of the passenger side of that van,” he says. “I just wanted to get my photo.”

Spanos claims he didn’t recognize either of the men. As he walked back to his own vehicle, Spanos noticed the second man, now with two small children, walking across the parking lot to a black pickup truck. “Obviously that’s when I realized it was the mayor,” Spanos says.

Whitfield’s personal vehicle is a black pickup truck which is currently wrapped in campaign messaging for his 2023 re-election bid. Spanos tells me it was at this time he wondered if the mayor was using the City van for some sort of campaign purpose.

“So that’s when I walked over there. I stepped in front of the truck and took a photo of it. The mayor goes, ‘Hey don’t take photos of my kids, man.’ When I said I wasn’t he asked what I was doing. I told him, ‘I think you were using that van for personal political reasons’,” Spanos tells me.

Spanos says there was no further interaction between him and Whitfield. He walked back to his car and began driving across the parking lot. He saw a small yard sign towards the exit. Assuming it was a sign related to a Whitfield campaign event, he stopped his vehicle and took another photo. He also took a photo of the large Black River Reservation sign at the entrance to the park as he drove out.

Spanos says he then sent the photos to his union president, Matt Beal, asking if Beal could look into what Spanos just witnessed. Beal confirmed he received that message.

At the time of the interaction several of the City tour attendees were walking through the parking lot towards their vehicles, with a few others sitting in a nearby pavilion. I was unable to find anyone who noticed anything out of the ordinary. The Elyria Police Department was not contacted at the time.

In the disciplinary letter published in the Chronicle Lundry wrote, “When the mayor engaged you (Spanos) in conversation regarding the vehicle, you continued to take photos and made a statement that you believed the mayor had been engaging in the use of government resources (the vehicle) for improper political purposes. When the mayor offered to explain to you what was going on, you declined to engage in conversation with him.” I read this portion of the letter to Spanos and asked him to comment.

“Well yea, that’s pretty much it,” he says.” That’s what happened. He asked me what I was doing and I told him. After that I didn’t want to talk with him anymore. The whole thing was probably 45 seconds. I got my photos and left.”

I obtained the photos through a public records request and published them in my August 25 report. You can view that post here.

The following morning, Spanos was ordered to report to City Hall for a workplace concern. There, he found himself in the mayor’s conference room where Whitfield administration officials informed him and his union representatives that the Elyria Police Department was looking into his behavior at the park the previous evening. According to Spanos, Lundy stated, “What you did was illegal.”

At the time of that meeting, Spanos and his union representatives were unaware that Police Chief Bill Pelko had just met with the administration and told them the matter was not a criminal one.

I asked Spanos why he thinks he was accused of harassing and intimidating the mayor and his children. “You tell me,” he says. “Look, I think he didn’t like me taking pictures of those vehicles. I think when I side-stepped him at the van, when I let him know I didn’t want to talk, I think that pissed him off. Like, he decided I disrespected him or something.”

I pressed Spanos on whether he may have raised his voice, stepped towards the mayor in an aggressive manner, or acted in a way the mayor could have perceived to be threatening. “No. I don’t know what else to say. If I was harassing and intimidating him or his kids he would have called the cops, and anyone else there would have done the same,” he says.

With the two men not recognizing each other it remains unclear how and when Spanos was identified following the incident, and what triggered the internal investigation in City Hall. Administration officials have declined to comment.

Lundy, together with Human Resources Director Jean Yousefi, led the weeks-long investigation into the incident. Spanos received a three-day suspension for dishonesty, which he is now fighting. The suspension made no mention of harassment or intimidation.

“They stopped saying I was harassing and intimidating at some point, but then they accused me of being dishonest. They said I was lying that I didn’t recognize the mayor. I really didn’t at first. When he came up to me at the van he was just some guy. But anyway, what does it matter? I didn’t do anything wrong here.” Spanos says.

Spanos has since filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging unfair treatment, harassment, and intimidation throughought the Whitfield administration’s investigation into him.

I will have more on this in future posts as the story develops.

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