Sexual Harassment: The Latest Grim Little Tale About Rochester's Police Accountability Board!
Since its creation as a result of a referendum vote in 2019, Rochester's Police Accountability Board has provided endless hours of mirth and disgust.
An expensive and mysterious nuisance, it has accomplished nothing since its inception except to spend millions of dollars and claim an authority over the police department that two court cases ruled they did NOT have.
Supposedly answerable to City Council, the PAB claims it is independent of that body and is answerable to no one.
And they have ignored demands for transparency, while they demand it of City Government and the police department.
The latest scandal revolves around the "integrity" of the PAB, with tales of dysfunctionality and sexual harassment to entertain the taxpayers stuck paying the PAB's bills and salaries.
Two founding members of the PAB, Dr. Celia McIntosh and Ida Perez who had an unquestioned history of integrity in Rochester's politics and neighborhood advocacy, resigned in March of this year, stating that there were serious problems in the organization and that they could not, in good faith, continue to associate themselves with it.
They would not go into further detail, which merely heightened the mystery as to what was going on there.
Then, last month, PAB's executive director, Conor Dwyer Reynolds, was placed on administrative leave, while an outside investigation took place.
Not much else was released at the time about his suspension, other than there were claims of harassment being bandied about, of inappropriate human resource and personnel decisions when hiring and disciplining staff and that the board of directors didn't want him acting as executive director during the investigation of these charges.
Yesterday, he blew the lid off of that.
On an online publishing platform named "Medium," he claimed that he was sexually harassed by the board's chairperson, Shani Wilson and, when he filed a complaint with the board about it, was suspended.
As executive director, Dwyer-Reynolds receives an annual salary of $72 grand. As chairperson, Wilson is an unpaid volunteer. For him to claim that she had so much power at the PAB seems a little strange.
But then, the whole PAB seems a little strange.
In his little puff-piece, Dwyer-Reynolds proceeded to "out" himself as bisexual; that Wilson called him a "unicorn;" that Wilson had begun her sexual harassment of him a year and a half ago when she visited him at his apartment; that she tried to get him drunk while he claims not to drink; that she asked him to sleep with her and that she got furious with him when he didn't and threatened retaliation.
Furthermore, Dwyer-Reynolds blamed her for all of the personnel problems within the PAB and that she had turned the board against him.
The link to his story is below:
He also claimed that because of her friendship with City Council members and her "popularity" with the Black community and its ministers that he was afraid to complain about her harassing him.
She was, he wrote, simply too powerful to be thwarted.
When he finally did, he was suspended, citing his "performance issues."
Was that a double entendre?
He also filed a complaint with the state Division of Human Rights.
That's his story, anyway.
Which Shani Wilson heartily denies.
In this day of sexual equality and freedom, it's not hard to imagine a powerful woman sexually harassing men that they see as attractive and subordinate.
One need only look at Catherine the Great at the numerous lovers she picked up, used, discarded and pensioned off when she tired of them.
It is not impossible that Dwyer-Reynolds was indeed sexually harassed by Wilson and, given the secrecy with which the PAB chooses to conduct itself, that it could have continued over a long period of time.
We all know of some men who suffer abuse at the hands of their spouses. Many are coming out now, too battered to care whether or not some people laugh at them, saying that they could not "handle" their wives.
And more men are joining the "Me, Too" trend regarding sexual harassment at the workplace.
Whether or not Conor Dwyer-Reynolds falls into that category has yet to be proven.
Had he been a more likable or sympathetic character, such claims might be better received.
But then, he is concerned about the $72 grand he has been getting annually for two years of doing nothing.
And maintaining his fleeting reputation as a big shot in the body politic of Rochester, where nobody ever heard of him before the creation of PAB.
Well, at least more people are expressing a greater interest in the PAB now.
That's entertainment!
******The photo of Conor Dwyer-Reynolds and Shani Wilson in happier days is from City Newspaper******
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