Reports: Former Troy official embroiled in harassment scandal
TROY, N.Y. » A controversial former Troy official is embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal in the new city where he worked until abruptly resigning last year, according to media reports.
Bill Dunne said in his letter of resignation from his position as revitalization manager in Reno, Nevada, that he quit because he had “done everything I was hired to do,” according to an story that appeared late last year in the Reno Gazette Journal.
The newspaper also reported, however, that Dunne became embroiled in a sexual harassment probe into his former boss in Reno, city manager Andrew Clinger.
Dunne is a former Troy City Council member and planning and community development commissioner.
According to a story published
Feb. 1 by the Reno Gazette Journal, a former, unidentified city of Reno worker is alleging the city ended her employment last year when she complained a coworker had been sexually harassing her, including locking her in his car and exposing himself to her after she had spurned his advances.
The unidentified woman said the city then let her alleged attacker resign without facing discipline.
The woman, who worked as a contract employee for the city, accused former Reno revitalization manager Dunne, who was not her direct supervisor, of pursuing her sex- ually during her employment. The paper reports that, although she repeatedly turned him down, he continued to make lewd comments and touch her inappropriately, including grabbing her breasts, the woman said in court documents.
“I was unsure how to respond to Mr. Dunne’s unwanted advances,” the paper reported she said in her declaration. “I asked him to stop and tried other mea- sures. I was scared to report Mr. Dunne’s conduct because I was a contract employee and did not want to jeopardize my chances of obtaining better employment with the city or continuing on in either of the positions I held during that time.
“Prior to the time I was assaulted in Mr. Dunne’s car, I was afraid I would lose my job and my reputation would suffer if I were
to report him,” she wrote.
In a written statement to the Reno Gazette Journal, Dunne denied the allegations.
Clinger hired Dunne in 2016 after Dunne left his job with the city of Troy under increasing political pressure. After serving as a city councilman from 2004-11, until being forced out of office by term limits, Dunne was appointed as planning and community development commissioner by Mayor Lou Rosamilia in 2012. He left that post at the end of February 2016 for the Reno job.
Dunne frequently clashed with Troy officials — even Rosamilia — during his tenure as planning and community development commissioner and was suspended for a week without pay in 2013 over a sidewalk project in Lansingburgh that was not
completed. In that case, Dunne brought in a contractor to replace a sidewalk around Freedom Park along 101st Street without informing other city officials, only for that contractor, J.R. Casale, to abandon the project after ripping up the old sidewalk and then discovering the church bordering the park, AME Zion Missing Link Church, was not a Catholic church. Dunne admitted he should have informed Troy officials of the project from the start and accepted the punishment.
Former Reno employees Deanna Gescheider and Maureen McKissick both resigned from the city in late 2016 and filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the city in August, claiming the working environment remained hostile even after Clinger’s firing in September 2016.
In the federal lawsuit, which remains pending, Gescheider claimed Clinger rubbed her thigh during a work meeting and sent
her sexually explicit messages using a phone app that destroyed the communication after it was sent. Meanwhile, McKissick said Clinger favored a younger female employee by reassigning her work to McKissick, leading to hostility between her and the other employee.
Reno’s former human resources director, Kelly
Leerman, told the Gazette Journal last year that she investigated Gescheider’s complaint against Dunne and that while Dunne admitted to having a conversation with Gescheider about her allegations against Clinger, he said he didn’t threaten her or want anyone to retaliate against her, instead saying he offered her “collegial advice.”