By Russ Tarby
Contributing Writer
At an unusually contentious meeting of the Liverpool Village Board of Trustees on April 4, as the board discussed the possibility of dissolving the Village Justice Court, Judge Anthony LaValle said the court was being targeted “in retaliation … for blowing in the mayor for harassment. My court was the whistle-blower.”
In a Sept. 25, 2015, letter of resignation, former Assistant Court Clerk Antoinette Spina charged that, while speaking to then-Court Clerk Kimberly Hall about her timecard, Mayor Gary White had referred to Spina as “your girl.”
In her resignation letter of Feb. 25, Kim Hall cited “continued hostility and harassment” she had endured while a village employee.
As deputy mayor, Trustee Nick Kochan hired a private investigator and oversaw the probe. The final report — not available to the public because it focuses on a personnel issue — was delivered to Mayor Gary White and Judge LaValle in the form of an intra-agency memorandum on April 6. At that time, the mayor was advised by legal counsel not to comment on the investigation.
Now White’s speaking out.
“The bottom line is that the investigation showed that Tony’s accusations were unfounded,” White said. The mayor said he approached Hall to clarify a timekeeping issue. “Our handbook is very clear about the timecard procedures, so I needed to talk with her about that. It was not even a disciplinary issue and the whole conversation, which lasted maybe 30 seconds to a minute, was very cordial.”
White said he casually inquired about Hall’s assistant, “and I did call her a girl, but that was because I’d forgotten her name. I didn’t know that she was there listening.”
No harassment found
For two months, the Star-Review requested copies of the investigative report and information about how much it cost taxpayers, but the village refused to release those facts and figures. Last week, the newspaper received a copy of the five-page report from Judge LaValle.
The investigation was conducted by AMRIC Associates, an East Syracuse agency which provides private investigative services to the legal, corporate and insurance communities throughout New York state and Central Florida.
The memorandum quotes a Nov. 2, 2015, letter from LaValle to the trustees reiterating Spina’s complaint and pointing out that, “Ms. Spina also reports of ‘an increasing amount of animosity being generated by the female staff of the village clerk’s office toward Ms. Hall.’”
The village clerk’s office is staffed by Clerk/Treasurer Mary Ellen Sims and Deputy Village Clerk Sandra Callahan.
The memorandum concludes that, based on a review of Spina’s letter and interviews conducted by AMRIC, “there does not appear to be an actionable claim that the mayor made ‘sexist and harassing statements’ to either Ann Spina or Kim Hall. There is no dispute that Mayor White used the word ‘girl’ in reference to Ann Spina but the use of that word is not sexist and does not constitute sexual harassment…. Based on extensive AMRIC interviews, Mayor White has no history of sexist of sexual harassment conduct at the workplace.”
A former deputy chief of police for the city of Syracuse, White has been in the public sector for more than four decades. “And I’ve never had a complaint made against me,” he said last week.
‘I don’t understand his motivation’
As to the relationship between the village clerk’s office and the court clerks, the memo points out that, “Both have an obligation to serve the public and perform their assigned work duties without allowing personal opinions and attitudes to come into play. It is apparent from the AMRIC interviews that there has been a deterioration of the relationship between court clerk and village clerk personnel. Perhaps once timekeeping issues are resolved, this relationship may improve.”
The memo’s final recommendation was that employee meetings “should be conducted to remind employees that their jobs are to serve the public and have cooperative working relationships with other village employees.” To that end, on March 31 a training session was conducted for village employees by HR One Consulting, an employee-management firm base in east Syracuse.
The Star-Review is still questioning how much the investigation and the training session cost village taxpayers. White estimated that the final cost to the village would be approximately $4,000.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” White said last week, “and Tony knew it was a bunch of crap. I don’t understand his motivation.”
Fitch not on memo
The April 6 memorandum was issued by Kochan and trustees Dennis Hebert and Jim Rosier. The name of Trustee Christina Fadden Fitch does not appear on the memo. Her fellow trustees had “wrongly excluded” her from the process, Fitch said, on the “false” premise that she had a conflict of interest.
Among its recommendations, the memo urges the judge more closely oversee his clerks’ “work hours, timekeeping, tardiness and overtime.”
“That report was a report for the village by the village,” LaValle said last week. “It was designed to make the mayor and the trustees look good while casting doubts about court operations.”
On April 14, the trustees voted 3-1 to abolish the judge’s position and dissolve the village court on July 4 in favor of consolidating with Salina Town Court. Fitch cast the sole dissenting vote.
At a special meeting convened on May 9, the trustees voted 3-1 to approve a mandatory referendum on the court issue to be placed before voters at the June 21 village election. Hebert cast the lone dissenting vote on that proposal.
