Davenport civil rights official claims harassment, toxic relationship with city staff

Jul. 15—Festering tensions among the Davenport Civil Rights Commission, its director and city staff have reached a new level of dysfunction.

Davenport Civil Right Commission members met this week, in part, to discuss claims by Davenport Civil Rights Director Latrice Lacey of ongoing harassment and bullying by city staff and the commission's own chairwoman.

It's the latest in a years-long string of controversies that have swirled around a body that has been besieged by conflict, hostility and bad publicity.

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"This has been an ongoing story of tension" that has "festered long enough and been toxic to the relationship between the commission and the city and the director and the city staff far too long," said Commissioner Henry Karp, rabbi emeritus at Davenport'sTemple Emanuel. "These things need to be resolved and healed."

The seven-member commission, which evaluates complaints of civil rights violations in Iowa's third-largest city, was thrown into turmoil beginning in late 2018. Three former commissioners refused to step down after their terms expired in November and were not re-appointed by former Davenport Mayor Frank Klipsch. Klipsch later appointed and the city council approved three replacements.

Afterward, four commissioners were kicked off the panel by Klipsch in April of 2019 for allowing the three former members whose terms had expired to participate in commission business and refusing to accept their replacements. One of those four, Nicole Bribriesco-Ledger, sued the city and Klipsch over her removal, which the Iowa Supreme Court earlier this year upheld.

The conflict between the city and commission, which is also responsible for overseeing the employment of the city's civil rights director, ground commission work to a halt and led to free-for-all shouting matches.

Members of the commission at the time questioned the advice they were receiving from Lacey, suggesting Lacey was purposefully misleading commissioners and accusing her of procedural delays in resolving the ongoing dispute. Lacey called the comments "slander."

Now, she is accusing the commission's new chairwoman, Ruby Batimana, appointed by Klipsch, of "being openly hostile to me and ignoring me."

Batimana denies the accusations, and contends Lacey has been equally hostile and non-responsive to her.

"I'm not trying to bully or discriminate against anyone, but I guess bullying and discrimination depends on the perception of the person," Batimana said, accusing Lacey of being antagonistic. "That's why sometimes I'd rather not say anything, because I'm afraid I'll get something negative back."

Lacey, too, has accused city legal staff of a pattern of harassment. City staff in emails contend, like Batimana, that Lacey and her staff have been confrontational and uncooperative.

Things have devolved to the point where commissioners have created two separate working groups — one to work with Lacey and Batimana to resolve their differences and the other to improve the soured relationship between the commission and city administration. As to the former, commissioners have proposed bringing in an outside panel of mediators to resolve the issues between Lacey and Batimana.

"It's kind of like marriage counseling to help them resolve their differences," Karp said. "You have two well-intentioned people who are having communications issues, but that's my personal opinion."

While relations have improved, "certainly, there's a long way to go for us to be an effective commission," Batimana said. "I can't pinpoint what's going to make us successful, but we are not where we want to be right now. We're not running smoothly."

New claims of harassment

The latest dust up with city staff centers around a formal complaint filed by Assistant City Attorney Mallory Hoyt with the Iowa Public Information Board over a request for records from the Davenport Civil Rights Commission.

According to emails Hoyt sent to the commission, a city of Davenport communications staff member tried to attend a May 20 commission meeting conducted via Zoom, but was never let into the virtual meeting from the "waiting room." The city staff member asked the commission for a link to a video recording of the meeting, a list of attendees noting the times they joined and left the meeting, and a copy of administrative rules discussed.

After a week of no response, Hoyt filed a formal open records request with the commission. Hoyt also sent a copy of her request in a letter to each Civil Rights Commission member.

"In the future, we would prefer to simply receive a link in response to a request rather than requiring us to file an Open Records request through the city's website," Hoyt wrote. "This is the third time this has happened in less than a year."

Lacey responded to Hoyt's request on June 1 in a six-page letter with 86 pages of attachments claiming Hoyt's request for records constituted "a continuation of unprofessional behavior, harassment and retaliation in violation of the law."

"As the Commission's counsel, I am well aware of the law regarding public records," Lacey wrote. "The discussion involved a draft document that is not a public record. Please refrain from giving legal advice to the Commission, they are not your clients. You have continuously attempted to insert yourself into the affairs of the Commission, despite being repeatedly asked not to do so. I see this as a continuation of a pattern of harassment and it needs to stop."

Hoyt, who did not return a message seeking comment, sent Lacey and the Civil Right Commission an email on June 3 stating she considered Lacey's email a formal denial of her records request.

The next day, she filed a complaint with the Iowa Public Information Board requesting it review and determine the legality of Lacey's and the commission's actions in the "hope this body can require compliance with our request and order remedial training to the Director and the Commission" of Iowa's open meetings and open records laws.

"We regret having to involve IPIB, but we have been otherwise unable to gain compliance," Hoyt wrote, adding Lacey's response to the records request alleging harassment contains "mischaracterizations."

Lacey and the commission have asked the state board to dismiss the complaint for lack of standing.

"(Hoyt) received no indication that there would not be a response to her open records request, nor that the response would be incomplete," Lacey wrote, noting the commission had until June 10 to respond to the request. "The submission of this complaint was premature, frivolous and without merit as it does not constitute a valid claim.'

Lacey and the commission argue the inability of a city staff member to attend the virtual meeting "constitutes an isolated and harmless error" and that "there was no intent or effect of secreting the meeting from the public, as members of the public were in attendance and allowed to participate."

'Not a healthy working relationship'

"This is not a healthy working relationship that's going on here, and we need to make it healthy," said Karp, the civil rights commissioner. "We need to go beyond these ill feelings on both sides and heal these wounds and work more cooperatively and effectively together. What's gone on in the past, let go and move on forward, and build for the future — on both sides."

Asked whether he feel's Lacey's claims of harassment by city staff are valid, Karp responded: "Our director feels harassed, and what they say is perception is reality."

Davenport City Administrator Corri Spiegel did not return a message seeking comment.

Davenport Mayor Mike Matson said he was not aware of "any harassment by anyone, and I am certainly happy to talk to anyone about anything," noting commissioners "know how to get a hold of me."

Lacey was sentenced in early 2020 to a one-year suspended sentence with probation on a conviction of harassment, a serious misdemeanor — which she has appealed. She still faces a retrial on three counts of domestic abuse assault, all misdemeanors. The charges stem from an alleged domestic assault in Davenport where she is accused of assaulting a man with a sledgehammer in late April of 2018.

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