By DAVE HAMRICK
dhamrick@thecitizennews.com

Some of the 17 Fayetteville City Hall workers interviewed in an investigation of former city manager Mike Bryant accused him of sexual harassment and failure to follow city policy in dealing with discipline problems.

Others said they had no knowledge of anything of the sort.

Bryant signed a termination agreement with the city Feb. 17 following a month-long investigation into sexual harassment and hostile work place charges against him brought by Main Street director Sherri Anderson and accounting clerk Amanda Jones.

The city agreed to end its investigation and Bryant resigned, receiving 14 weeks pay and other considerations.

In a March 1 letter, Anderson's attorney, Lee Parks, offered to settle Anderson's ongoing complaint against the city for $125,000.

In response to an open records request from The Citizen, the city has released 92 pages of testimony and other documents gathered by investigating attorney Greg Futch following allegations by Anderson and Jones.

Futch listed 34 city employees, former employees and local residents as “witnesses to informally interview,” singling out 13 witnesses for formal depositions.

Of the 34, check marks appeared by 17 names, seeming to indicate they had been interviewed.

Anderson and Jones had alleged that Bryant made numerous sexually suggestive remarks to them and repeatedly asked them to join him for after-hours social activities, and Anderson accused him of retaliating when she refused his advances by humiliating her and withholding her pay. Witnesses also said Bryant touched Jones in ways some of them considered inappropriate, including “patting on leg, playing with hair, rubbing shoulders, hugging her close.”

Bryant said casual jokes around the office were taken out of context in the women's complaints. In his interview with Futch, Bryant also suggested that Anderson's charges were motivated by revenge after he disciplined her for failing to show up for work. One city hall worker, finance director Lynn Raven, said Bryant had “run-ins” with Anderson over Anderson's “failure to follow policy and procedures about reimbursements or use of vendors, etc.,” according to the investigator's notes.

In the interviews with Futch, city employees also accused Bryant of showing favoritism to attractive female employees and, in one case, directing that a worker be fired in order to make room for a more attractive one.

City water and sewer director Rick Eastin said Bryant “wanted things done outside of city policy,” Futch's notes relate. “Termination of employee without valid reason” was given as an explanation of why Eastin's relationship with Bryant was “bad to terrible,” according to the attorney.

According to Futch, Eastin related that Bryant last July told Eastin to fire a worker and then move another into her position. “Didn't like her appearance,” Futch's notes say.

Eastin also told Futch that on one occasion, Bryant told a female employee to turn toward the wall and said, “Look, she's going to hit the wall before her nose.”

In an interview with city clerk Judy Stephens, Futch notes that Stephens told him Bryant “didn't follow the policies and procedures on hiring.” In the case of the alleged shuffling of employees to bring on a new, attractive one, Stephens said that Bryant and finance director Lynn Raven “had a business dinner with [the attractive worker] and they hired her.”

He later moved the attractive worker to a front office position because “she was more attractive to look at,” according to notes on Futch's meeting with Stephens.

In Futch's interview with finance director Raven, his notes indicate that auditors complained about Anderson's lack of record-keeping, and Bryant set up meetings with Anderson and the auditors to deal with the problem. “this was an ongoing problem with her,” Raven is quoted by Futch.

Raven said “she hasn't heard Bryant ask [Anderson] to do anything demeaning,” the notes say. Anderson had accused Bryant of having her clean out a storage room while a subordinate ushered a dignitary around town, but Bryant has said the “dignitary” was a visitor from a small south Georgia town who wanted information about the Main Street program, and the cleanup work was not meant to be demeaning.

Raven backed him up. “The cleaning out of the cages is done by other departments also. Lynn and Judy and others have always had to do the annual destroying of old records, etc.,” Futch's notes say.

City personnel director Brenda Hall called the allegations from both Anderson and Jones “surprising,” according to Futch's notes.

In her interview with Futch, Hall blames problems between Anderson and Bryant on “communication,” and says Anderson didn't follow proper procedures. She says Jones' age may have been a factor in her charges. “Others would laugh off his jokes,” the notes relate.

In his own interview with Futch, Bryant said Anderson had disturbing confrontations with her assistants, made decisions such as changing the time of a parade without informing key people who would be affected by the decisions, failed to document invoices or properly handle payroll, and failed to show up for work on one occasion.

But Bryant said he never inappropriately asked Anderson or Jones out, his jokes with sexual overtones were no different from those told commonly around the work place, and never touched employees inappropriately.