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EEOC affirms racial concerns

The commission finds that racial harassment exists in a Safety Harbor city department and urges a settlement.

By EILEEN SCHULTE
Published June 27, 2006

SAFETY HARBOR - First, there were the racial epithets and monkey noises.

Then, someone put a stuffed toy monkey next to a truck.

Black employees complained, and the whole department was sent to diversity training.

And even then, two black employees say, a white colleague continued to drive around and make monkey sounds at them.

All of this adds up to racial harassment in the Public Works Department at the city of Safety Harbor, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Now, the EEOC has asked two black employees, Willie Brooks and Geno Baker, and the city to try to settle their differences. If they can't, the commission will tell the workers their options exist to pursue the matter in court.

The EEOC sent the city notice of its findings on April 7.

"I'm very disappointed in the findings of the investigation," City Manager Wayne Logan said. "We did the right things. The sequence of events in Willie's complaint don't match the facts in this case."

The EEOC case comes at a difficult time for Safety Harbor, a town with a population of 17,800, an old-fashioned Main Street and an unspoiled view of Old Tampa Bay. Just 4.1 percent of the town is African-American, and black employees make up a third of the Public Works Department's 56 employees.

City employees recently took the first steps to be represented by a union, and Logan agreed to resign after commissioners found out about the union organizing.

In the EEOC case, the two sides differ on details, but agree on certain points.

Tensions in the Public Works Department began to mount with some employees using racial epithets and making monkey sounds, according to the law firm of Allen, Norton and Blue, which was hired to defend the city.

The city contends Logan held a meeting to head off problems before the toy monkey made an appearance. "I have no tolerance for race problems," he said. "I address it immediately."

Around March 2004, Brooks said in a statement to the EEOC, he and other black co-workers complained to Logan that Mica Huffman, a white sanitation supervisor, had seen white sanitation driver Gil Gilpin "riding around in the city truck with a monkey in it and making monkey noises directed at myself and other black employees."

Huffman and Gilpin did not return calls for comment.

Later Logan sent the entire department to diversity training, Brooks said, which at least one employee took as an insult.

Despite that, Brooks contended, Gilpin didn't stop.

At one point, the city says, officials ordered that the monkey be thrown in the trash.

"We try to react as best we can," Public Works director Kurt Peters said. "First and foremost we want people to treat each other with respect and dignity."

The city has said that an African-American temporary laborer from an employment agency retrieved it from the trash and put the monkey in the truck. When an official heard it was back, he told supervisors to call workers on the radio and tell them to get rid of it. The city said the temporary worker took the toy home with him.

Brooks and Baker filed complaints with the EEOC in December 2004. Brooks declined Monday to comment on the case. Baker could not be reached for comment.

The allegations troubled one city commissioners.

"What black workers in our Public Works Department have had to put up with is appalling," City Commissioner Kathleen Earle said.

--Times researchers Caryn Baird and Angie Drobnic Holan contributed to this report. Eileen Schulte can be reached at (727) 445-4153 or schulte@sptimes.com.

[Last modified June 27, 2006, 05:49:57]