Allegations of sexual advances toward female employees of the city of Fayetteville resulted in city manager Michael Bryant's suspension and subsequent resignation.

The charges were submitted to Bryant in writing by a lawyer for Main Street director Sherri Anderson and backed up in a letter by accounting clerk Amanda Jones. Lawyer A. Lee Park's request for a face to face meeting to discuss Anderson's allegations was copied to the mayor and City Council.

Among the allegations are charges that Bryant frequently invited Anderson and Jones to go out socially after work hours and, in Anderson's case, retaliated when she refused his advances by humiliating her and attempting to get her to resign.

City officials released copies of the letters to local newspapers Friday afternoon in response to open records requests by The Citizen and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

City attorney David Winkle said Friday that Anderson has made monetary claims against the city and Parks has informed him that those claims will continue, though Bryant has resigned.

City Council suspended Bryant with pay Jan. 12 in a public vote following a closed meeting to discuss the charges against him with attorney Winkle.

Winkle retained a Henry County lawyer to investigate the matter, and depositions in his investigation were scheduled for Feb. 14. But the depositions were halted because Bryant and the city worked out a separation agreement over the previous weekend. City Council approved the agreement Feb. 16 and Bryant signed it the next day. As part of the pact, the city agreed to halt its investigation.

State law holds that records involved in an ongoing investigation can be withheld until ten days after the investigation is concluded. City officials called reporters to City Hall at 5 p.m. Friday to release the two letters from Jones and Parks, the severance agreement with Bryant, and Bryant's personnel file.

The Citizen has filed suit claiming that parts of the Jan. 12 closed meeting at which council discussed Bryant's suspension were in violation of the Georgia Open Meetings Act, and seeking all documents and information involved in the investigation that ensued. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has filed an open records request for documents involved in the investigation as well.

Asked by an AJC reporter whether he had given the council advice concerning the open meetings law during the executive session, city attorney Winkle replied, "I'm not going to answer that." Asked why, he said, "Because this gentleman has sued me," referring to a Citizen reporter. "I'm not giving an interview... that's all I'm going to say," he added.

The letters from Parks and Jones, in that order, follow:

Jan. 10, 2000
Dear Mr. Bryant:

Our law firm has been retained to represent Sherri Anderson. Based upon the information I have been provided, it appears that the work environment in the office that is supervised and managed by you has become one that falls beneath the minimum standards required under federal law. Ms. Anderson reports that, upon her return from vacation, she was called by one of her subordinates and advised that you had directed her to show up for work in jeans so that she could clean up the basement while the subordinate would escort a special guest on a tour of the Main Street district. This type of demeaning directive would obviously have no rational relationship to the job description of Main Street director. It was an obvious attempt to humiliate and retaliate against Ms. Anderson in an effort to get her to resign her position. Ms. Anderson will not resign her position and intends to take action against you and, if need be, the city of Fayetteville in order to protect her right to a harassment free work environment.

Ms. Anderson has documented the repeated invitations made by you to join you at dinners, movies and other purely social activities outside the office. The fact that she has refused all of your invitations to date has led to flagrant retaliation such as reprimands, denial of pay and other efforts to denigrate and otherwise limit her ability to perform her job. While you may attempt to deny that you have made advances toward Ms. Anderson, there are a number of other city employees who have come to Ms. Anderson and expressed sympathy and understanding regarding her situation. Moreover, your penchant for making sexual advances to attractive female employees of the city of Fayetteville has been documented by several third parties, including Mandy Jones and Anne Kirschner.

We believe that, should we be put to the task of actually assembling this quantum of evidence, it will reflect a clear pattern of sexual harassment and other sexually offensive conduct by you during your tenure with the city. This includes an incident of sexual harassment by you to a Main Street merchant. We also have documentation that you made the statement at a department head meeting less than a year ago that you were looking for a new personnel director that was blonde, five feet seven inches tall, slim good looking and when she stood against the wall, her nose shouldn't touch before her body did.

Ibelieve that a face to face meeting attended by you and appropriate members of City Council to hear Ms. Anderson's grievances is in order. We need to determine whether or not there is a way to resolve these issues before we move into the judicial arena and it becomes public knowledge due to the inevitable media coverage that will ensue. I look forward to hearing from you or your counsel at the earliest possible opportunity. It is not Ms. Anderson's desire to harm the Main Street program; however, she has reached the point where she feels compelled to fight back against the treatment she has suffered under your direction.

Very Truly Yours,

A. Lee Parks

To: Whom it May Concern
From: Mrs. Amanda Jones
Re: Mike Bryant
Date: Jan. 9, 2000

The following statement is submitted to account for behavior I have experienced from Mr. Mike Bryant, Fayetteville city manager. I submit this letter as evidence of proof regarding allegations of illegal behavior by Mr. Bryant in the protected environment of the work place. My goal in this statement is to ensure that the full disclosure of truth is made and that disclosure will assist the appropriate authorities in taking action to correct and ensure the protections afforded employees to a harassment-free work environment. While I am personally saddened by the events leading to this situation, I cannot ignore my duty to stand to protect the rights of all employees against an individual who has abused his authority while demonstrating a contempt for policy, procedure, employee rights and the law which he himself is charged to uphold and enforce.

Iwas 20 years of age and engaged to be married to Mr. Alan Jones, the recently appointed fire chief, when Mr. Bryant was hired in June of 1998. As an accounting clerk, Mr. Bryant had no direct involvement with me as a function of his job, nor did I have any direct involvement with Mr. Bryant as a function of my job, other than taking checks to his office for his signature. However, Mr. Bryant immediately became very friendly with me, initiating conversations with me in his office or coming down to my office and initiating conversations which had nothing to do with the business of the city. With this kind of treatment to me, I felt that Mr. Bryant was a nice person and did consider him my friend. I had no reason to believe that he was not equally friendly to all city employees at this time.

Occasionally, Mr. Bryant would ask me to go to lunch with him when Mr. Jones (Alan) was not at work. Both Alan and I thought no harm with the requests and I agreed to go to lunch with him a few times early in his employment with the city. While Mr. Bryant did not take any inappropriate actions with me at these lunches, he never would let me pay for my meal, telling me that I should never tolerate a man making me pay for my own meal. He would often ask me about my relationship with Alan and would talk in generalities about his marriage.

It did not take long to learn that Mr. Bryant did not treat all city employees as he treated me. Although I was not privy to all the circumstances surrounding some of his actions, enough was discussed throughout the office that I was glad that Mr. Bryant did not seem to like me. However, I did begin to be concerned about Alan. As Mr. Bryant learned more and more about our relationship, he began to tell me that I deserved more than what I was getting, that I could get whoever I wanted, and I shouldn't settle less (sic) than what his (Mr. Bryant's) expectations were for me. On one occasion, Mr. Bryant related to me the treatment he gives his wife. He told of how he would take her to nice restaurants, plays or shopping sprees, and at the end of the night that he would receive his "reward."

Mr. Bryant began to make other comments which I felt were inappropriate, mostly regarding my physical appearance. I often would ignore his comments or act naive, as if I did not "get it," hoping that perhaps my failure to acknowledge his remarks would discourage him. He often would approach me in my cubicle, touching my back or rubbing my shoulders and he greeted me.

Other employees, including Ms. Grace Scarbrough, Ms. Betty Pass, Ms. Donna Philips, Ms. Judy Stephens, were concerned about what they had observed with Mr. Bryant's obvious affection toward me and warned me that his actions were not appropriate and that I should be careful.

I continued to ignore and rationalize the behavior as just "friendliness" until one day in his office where a comment greatly bothered me. I was leaving his office after having Mr. Bryant sign some checks, when he made a comment about my physical appearance in the presence of Mr. Rick Eastin and Ms. Donna Philips of the Police Department.

After Mr. Bryant made the comment, Ms. Philips stated that I was "just a baby," to which Mr. Bryant replied, "She's not built like a baby. Babies aren't built like that." Ms. Philips just looked at me in disbelief, and I just stood there, totally embarrassed by the comment. I just walked out, not knowing what to say.

Mr. Bryant also began to make statements about he and I going off to do things outside of work. He would talk about taking me to Lenox Square, shopping and then to eat at a nice restaurant where he would "wine and dine" me that way he said I deserved to be treated. On several occasions, he asked me if I would like to go with him to eat or see a movie in the evenings. On one occasion, when his wife was on an extended trip out of town, Mr. Bryant told me how lonely he was, how he just wanted a buddy to spend some time with, and asked me to come over to his house to watch a movie and eat popcorn. I did not tell my fiance, Mr. Jones, about any of these invitations initially because I did not want him to take any action which might jeopardize his career. I thought that as long as Mr. Bryant liked me that I could tolerate the inappropriate behavior, rationalizing it the best I could, and hoping that my consistent excuses for not accepting these later invitations would cause him to give up.

One day I was summoned to Mr. Bryant's office by my supervisor, Ms. Ellen Jones, and Ms. Lynn Raven, the finance director. Mr. Bryant told me that Mayor Wheat had approached him, stating that he had received some reports of his inappropriate behavior toward me. While he asked me if his behavior offended me, he was more inquisitive of who may have been the individual that went to Mayor Wheat with this allegation. I was extremely uncomfortable in this environment was afraid to let my true feeling about the situation be evident. It appeared that Mr. Bryant was more concerned and careful with what I said. I told him that I did not have any problems and called Mr. Jones as soon as I was able to get out of the office. Mr. Jones, concernedwith the uncomfortable position I had been placed in, called Mayor Wheat to discuss the policy of the city regarding the investigation of accusations of this type. Mr. Jones stated that his conversation with Mayor Wheat was positive and both agreed that care should be taken in handling situations of this type, and his concern was more as that of a department head than as my fiance, wanting to make sure that future situations may be dealt with a little differently. At this time, I had not told Alan of the full extent of Mr. Bryant1s behavior toward me, particularly some of his persistence in asking me to go with him to movies, dinner, and specifically, his house.

After this, I began to become more concerned with Mr. Bryant and his
behavior. I talked to my fiance about this behavior and my meeting regarding the report to Mayor Wheat. I confided with Alan about my concern with my employment, but more specifically his employment. Alan had previously told me that Mr. Bryant had taken very little time with him during his first year and that he thought that odd, considering he was a new department head over the second largest department in the city. Alan also became concerned because Mr. Bryant never invited "he and Mandy" to join him in any activities; the invitation was always made to me and never included Alan. Mr. Bryant did not approach me for a period of about two weeks after the meeting. After that, Mr. Bryant would approach me, only when no one else was around, just to "say hi."

Eventually, Mr. Bryant would again begin to touch my shoulders as he came up behind her (sic), rubbing them as he asked how I was doing. I realized then that I needed to tell Alan about the full extent of Mr. Bryant1s actions. Alan advised me that I should completely retreat from any interaction with Mr. Bryant beyond that which was required of my job. He instructed me to be polite and courteous to Mr. Bryant, giving him the respect due his position, but that I had no obligation to carry the relationship beyond that of carrying out the business of the city. Alan stated that hopefully this would remove me from the environment which had grown uncomfortable, but if not, we might be forced to explore other options.

Ihave employed this strategy for approximately seven months to the present. Mr. Bryant consistently approaches me, asking what is wrong, if I am mad at him for any reason, and why did not I come to talk to him anymore. I would tell him that nothing is wrong, that I just stay so busy, and since he got his signature machine, that I had not reason to come to his office. These answers did not satisfy Mr. Bryant, as he insisted that something was bothering me. Mr. Bryant would even ask me if I was unhappy being married to Alan and if that was the source of my withdrawal from him. He continues to question me, appearing frustrated that our relationship is that of only business now.

I felt that I was somewhat alone in Mr. Bryant1s pursuit of a "more than business" relationship until I was moved into a cubicle next to Ms. Sherri Anderson a few months ago. We have both discovered that we were not alone in our experiences. Since being moved to the cubicle next to hers a few months back, we have had similar experiences, as Ms. Anderson reports Mr. Bryant's invitations for social engagements, her rejection of such invitations, and the ensuing retaliation which has most recently be (sic) reported. The similarities in our experiences leads me to believe that my continued rejection of Mr. Bryant1s attempts to reestablish a personal relationship beyond that required by my job could likely bring retaliation against me or my husband.

The easiest course of action that I could take regarding this situation is to withdraw my testimony from this action. My husband and I are just starting our life together and it would seem that simply keeping quiet is the best way to ensure our security. Conversely, the hardest decision has been to expose these actions and rely on the system in place to correct this situation while protecting those victimized. I must stress that it is not neither my, not my husband1s intention to harm in any way the city of Fayetteville, through reputation or financial resources, but to participate in this action as our duty to protect the city of Fayetteville in reputation and financial resources. Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Sincerely,
Amanda M. Jones

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