A St. Cloud
St. Cloud councilman draws fire for goosing female staffer
councilman behaved inappropriately when he goosed a female staffer after a 2017 meeting, an independent review finds.
A St. Cloud council member behaved inappropriately when he patted a female staff member’s butt, an independent review found, prompting some residents to call for his resignation.
“We don’t need somebody in City Hall like him,” St. Cloud resident Jill Fangmann said of Councilman Chuck Cooper. “Council people shouldn’t be above from what would be normal in any other workplace.”
The turmoil began after a city employee said that, at the conclusion of a City Council meeting last year, Cooper had “hit her on the buttocks similar to a Coach hitting a player,” according to the investigation.
At that Jan. 17, 2017, meeting, Cooper, 69, was heard saying that he “goosed” the employee — or poked her between the buttocks — as his hand quickly sprung forward, according to the report, which was released April 4.
Cooper did not respond to a request for comment.
The employee, a 55-year-old woman who has known Cooper since she was a child, said she had felt uncomfortable with the incident and finds his hugs uncomfortable, but that she “did not wish to pursue a complaint against him,” the report said.
But the woman also said human resources director Harvey Bisson told her it would be “career suicide” to pursue a complaint against Cooper. The employee said she was offended by Bisson’s comments and complained to a superior, which spurred the investigation against Cooper. That has prompted the city to order a separate review of its procedures handling sexual harassment.
The investigation into Cooper’s actions was conducted by attorney Lindsay Oyewale, a partner at Orlando-based DSK Law. Oyewale concluded Cooper’s touching of an employee, even if it wasn’t meant to be sexual in nature, was “inappropriate.” But the city council said there was no legal action it could take against him.
The report stressed that the employee did not think the “al-
leged touching affected the terms and conditions of employment” and she understood the “alleged touching was in jest,” so the behavior was not “sufficiently severe and pervasive” to constitute sexual harassment.
During the public comment portion of an April 26 city council meeting, St. Cloud resident Teresa Kramer said she was also in disbelief about the findings against Cooper, which were first reported by the Osceola News-Gazette.
“It’s sexual harassment, this is power and control that’s being exercised against a female employee and it should not stand,” she said.
Cooper told Kramer she didn’t have the full story and was not “listening to the other side.”
St. Cloud Mayor Nathan Blackwell said during the meeting that the investigation had been handled legally.
“We’re not going to have a debate here, OK? You’ve made your statement, we understand that and we’ve responded appropriately,” he said.
But Bisson and the human resources department are now the subject of a review in their handling of the complaint.
Human resources “must do everything possible to prevent even the perception that they are trying to talk an employee out of filing a complaint,” St. Cloud City Manager William Sturgeon said in a letter to Bisson on April 16.
“It is my directive that all claims of harassment filed either verbally or in writing will be fully investigated by the Human Resources Department or their designee,” the letter read.
Bisson said he just wanted the woman to know he had previously pursued a complaint against a council member and it hadn’t ended well. He said he felt pushing her to make a complaint after she had already refused “would be viewed as inappropriately attempting to influence the employee to take actions they are not inclined to pursue.”
Krystal Diaz, a spokeswoman for St. Cloud, said Bisson has not been disciplined. She added that the city has drafted new procedures that are being reviewed by a third-party attorney, which will then be presented to the council for adoption.
The employee did not respond to a request for comment but said in a letter to Sturgeon on April 17 that “at the very least there should be some education on the way that Human Resources interacts with employees” who complain.
Kramer said the investigation didn’t go far enough.
“I’m disappointed that the city council seems like they’re turning backs on this,” she said. “If we let them stay and we don’t do anything … then we’re basically condoning this behavior.”