In the wake of a ruling made by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, EEOC, that officials in the city’s public works department discriminated against a black former employee, Department of Public Works Commissioner Thomas McTygue says there will be an investigation into who in City Hall leaked details of the ruling to media.
This is confidential information, and to leak it to the press is a criminal act, said McTygue in a Tuesday, Oct. 23, interview. He noted that the ruling was handed down more than a month ago, but media reports had not occurred until this past week. `Why make charges two weeks before a general election? There was only one department that had any knowledge of this investigation and that was the mayor’s office.`
EEOC literature states that if a discrimination lawsuit is filed, `both the Charging Party and the Respondent will have access to the investigative file.` It also states the lawsuit becomes a part of the public record, but EEOC officials were unable to return calls for clarification.
Mayor Valerie Keehn said her office did not speak to media about the case. City Attorney Michael Englert refused to comment on any aspect of the EEOC ruling, resulting conciliatory proceedings or an investigation into the leak.
The ruling on the EEOC case involving former part-time laborer, Henry L. Smith Jr., also states the DPW released confidential information about him in retaliation for filing a complaint.
Smith alleged that department officials violated his civil rights by repeatedly passing him over for promotion to full-time laborer from part-time because of his race. The suit also alleged the department had not promoted a black employee to full-time in five years.
The decision, issued by Elizabeth Cadle, director of the EEOC’s Buffalo office, leaves the city open to settlement costs in the year-old case.
John Aspland Jr., an attorney for the DPW argued that Smith was not promoted due to performance issues. He argued that Smith failed to work the hours required of part-time workers, and said Public Works had in fact promoted an African-American to full-time status since 2002.
But a subsequent EEOC investigation revealed that a white employee had worked fewer hours than Smith was promoted in 2005. The full-time black employee that was promoted was done so after Smith’s discrimination charges were filed.
`I have determined that the evidence obtained during the investigation establishes violations of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as follows: Respondent failed to promote charging party to a full-time position because of his race,` Cadle wrote on Sept. 21.
Cadle also ruled that department officials leaked `personal and confidential information` about Smith to the media `in retaliation` for Smith filing the discrimination charge.
`While respondent denied being the source of the information, the nature of the documents released, as well as statements made to a newspaper reporter by one of respondent’s officials, indicate that respondent was the source of the information,` Cadle stated.
Smith, 30, refused comment about his case when reached by phone, as did his attorney W. Bradley Krause.
McTygue claims this is mudslinging by his political enemies. He said that in the past few days, his campaign signs in various parts of the city have been torn down and that someone vandalized the lawn of his daughter, Lisa.
`This year has been the worst I’ve seen it,` said the 32-year veteran of city politics.
`I had nothing to do with any of this information that came out regarding my opponent,` Skip Scirocco, McTygue’s Republican opponent in the Nov. 6 election, said in a written statement. `I am not concerned with his past; I am simply looking to the future of Saratoga Springs. It is not my fault that my opponent’s past is coming back to haunt him and he has so many skeletons in his closet. That is his issue, not mine.“