Firing of emergency director urged twice, filing in suit reveals

An amended complaint in a sexual-harassment lawsuit against Faulkner County and three of its top officials says publicly for the first time that not one but two investigations recommended that the county’s Office of Emergency Management director be fired.

The complaint says the second investigation, by former Prosecuting Attorney Cody Hiland, also found that Shelia Bellott had retaliated against employees who complained about her conduct. Hiland is now the U.S. attorney in Little Rock.

Faulkner County’s county judge, Jim Baker, the only official who has the authority to fire Bellott, neither fired nor suspended her. Instead, he allowed her to work from home for a while and later assigned her to work temporarily from the county’s former courthouse, a few miles from Emergency Management offices in Conway.

The findings and recommendation of Hiland’s civil investigation had never before been disclosed publicly. The Quorum Court had appointed Hiland to act as a special county attorney in the matter.

In a nonbinding opinion in September 2017, Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge affirmed Hiland’s deciFAYETTEVILLE

sion not to release his findings under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act. The reason, she said, was that the employee had not been suspended or terminated.

David Hogue, the county attorney, had said previously that he had earlier investigated the allegations against Bellott and recommended her dismissal.

The Quorum Court cannot fire Bellott but can pull funding for her position if it chooses.

The amended complaint, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Little Rock, followed U.S. District Judge James M. Moody Jr.’s decision to allow one of the lawsuit’s two plaintiffs, Mary Johnson, to withdraw.

Plaintiff attorney Thomas Mickel said Tuesday that Johnson had talked with her family and “felt like it wasn’t in her best interests to continue in the lawsuit. … She’s not the primary player anyway” but is a witness.

Johnson and the remaining plaintiff, Julie Woodward, sued the county and Bellott in October 2017, alleging harassment

by Bellott. Other defendants include Baker and Faulkner County Administrator Tom Anderson in their official capacities.

Hogue confirmed Tuesday that all four of the Emergency Management employees who originally filed complaints against Bellott with the county have now resigned from that office since the allegations became public.

The most recent resignation was by Eric Duvall.

“He just couldn’t stand to work with Shelia anymore … as a result of all the stuff you’re aware of,” Hogue said.

The three others resigned earlier. Duvall and another former employee, Tyler Lachowsky, did not join the lawsuit.

Lachowsky defeated incumbent Daniel Thessing in the Republican primary in May in a Quorum Court race. Lachowsky is unopposed in November’s general election.

Complaints filed with the county last year accused Bellott of various infractions, including harassment, recurring tardiness, absenteeism and falsifying time cards. The complaints and the lawsuit have indicated that the employees were upset that Bellott

reportedly talked about her sex life in sometimes graphic terms during work.

According to the amended lawsuit filed this week, Hiland, whom it did not identify by name, found that Bellott’s conduct relating to unwanted sexual comments violated the county’s personnel manual. Hiland also found that Bellott had acted “punitively toward all the OEM employees, including [Woodward], by requiring them to fill out forms that the County itself discouraged,” the updated complaint adds.

“In spite of the advice of two competent and qualified attorneys to terminate defendant Bellott, Defendant Baker has decided to take no further action” other than moving Bellott’s workplace and for a time forbidding her from talking by telephone with all but one of the four former employees, the amended lawsuit adds.

“The arrangement did not relieve the hostile work environment,” the lawsuit says.

The county will likely respond to the amended complaint filed with the court.

A trial date has been tentatively set for the week of Nov. 26.