Lawmakers question exec’s office over Drimer complaints

Committee seeks info about executive’s role in handling sexual harassment complaints against former Human Rights Commissioner

KINGSTON, N.Y. >> The Ulster County executive’s office urged county lawmakers to “clarify and strengthen” the county’s sexual harassment policy in light of criticisms the administration has endured over its handling of sexual harassment complaints lodged against former Human Rights Commissioner David Drimer.

During a meeting Thursday of the Legislature’s Laws and Rules Committee, Deputy County Executive Jamie Capuano urged legislators to revamp the policy to more clearly delineate how county officials should respond to sexual harassment complaints “so they know what they can and can’t do” to effectively and efficiently communicate to those lodging complaints.

She also recommended legislators consider specifically including board members in the sexual harassment policy and provide a mechanism by which those board members can be removed rather than depend on the appointing officer to take action.

However, Capuano was unable to provide much new insight into the administration’s handling of the complaints it received about Drimer because she was not on the executive’s staff in December 2022 when the administration first received complaints about Drimer’s behavior as executive director of the Jewish Federation of Ulster County. In response to numerous questions posed by Committee Chairman Jason Kovacs and other lawmakers, Capuano repeatedly said she didn’t know or couldn’t answer the queries because she didn’t work for the county when the complaint was lodged.

That fact seemed to irritate some committee members, including Kovacs, who called it “disturbing” that the administration sent Capuano to the meeting when he specifically asked the administration to send someone with full knowledge of the matter.

“In my letter to your office dated Feb. 1, I asked someone to

attend this meeting who had complete knowledge of this incident,” said Kovacs, R-town of Ulster.

Legislator Joseph Maloney, D-Saugerties, said he believed the decision to send Capuano was “by design” because the administration doesn’t want to admit it failed the alleged victim.

Understanding how the administration handled the matter is important, Maloney said, because the Human Rights Commission is charged with “protecting the rank-and-filed file from the most powerful.”

“We do have a problem, people weren’t protected and the most powerful people in the county didn’t protect them,” he said.

Legislators had hoped to get a better understanding of what steps the county took once it received the complaint against Drimer and why the administration didn’t investigate the allegations.

Administration officials have said the county lacked the authority to investigate because Drimer was not a county employee and had been appointed to the commission by former Minority Leader Ken Ronk, a fact Capuano reiterated during the meeting.

In early January, former Deputy County Executive Chris Kelly reached out to the whistleblower via telephone, but declined to discuss the matter in writing, stating in a Jan. 25 email that he needed to speak to the whistleblower so he could “do proper research.”

In May, Assistant Deputy County Executive Evan Menist sent an email to the whistleblower saying it had told the alleged victim to take her allegations to the state Division of Human Rights.

In August, the alleged victim and another woman filed a lawsuit against Drimer alleging he sexually harassed them. Days later, Drimer resigned from the Human Rights Commission.