<!--Mark Scheer--><table width="234" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" background="http://static.cnhi.zope.net/flashpromo/niagaragazette/images/byline_234x60.jpg" height="60"><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="3" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By Mark Scheer</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></font><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="mailto:mark.scheer@niagara-gazette.com">mark.scheer@niagara-gazette.com</a></font></div></td></tr></table>
There was a time when Bill Bradberry spent hours on the job inside City Hall fielding discrimination complaints from aggrieved employees.
Those days were back in the 1970s, when Bradberry, who later served as the city’s first African-American city administrator under former Mayor Vince Anello, held the post of equal employment opportunity coordinator in Niagara Falls.
Bradberry eventually moved on.
Over the years, the position itself fell victim to changing priorities and budget cuts.
This year, under a mandate from the state attorney general’s office, it is poised for a comeback.
This is one instance where Bradberry is pleased to see history repeating itself in city government.
“It affects everybody,” said Bradberry, current chairman of the city’s Human Rights Commission and head of the Falls branch of the NAACP. “We should never assume that discrimination occurs only between people of color.”
The road to reform
Complaints from residents and municipal employees about a pattern of discrimination, harassment and retaliation within city government prompted the attorney general’s office to conduct a review of the city’s employment policies. The investigation led to the conclusion that the city lacked sufficient policies to ensure that employment decisions are made fairly and that discrimination complaints are addressed appropriately. As such, the attorney general’s office determined the city’s practices were “inadequate to ensure a workplace free from discrimination, harassment and retaliation” as required under New York’s human rights law.
In November, Mayor Paul Dyster and representatives from the attorney general’s Civil Rights Bureau signed an Assurance of Discontinuance, a legal agreement that outlines a series of duties the city must perform in the coming months.
City officials have for years debated the need for an equal employment opportunity compliance officer inside City Hall. The debate officially ended with the signing of the agreement, which lists the creation of an EEO compliance officer post as one of the city’s main priorities moving forward.
Bradberry believes restoring the position is long overdue.
“This is just a matter of making sure that we do whatever any good society of people would do to keep a good, strong, highly diversified, inclusive hiring and contracting procedure in place,” Bradberry said.
A work in progress
Dyster said this week the administration has identified a preferred candidate for the EEO position, which will pay $50,000, plus benefits. He would not release the identity of the individual at this time, noting that under the city’s agreement with the state, the candidate’s qualifications must be reviewed by the attorney general’s office before the person can be hired. Dyster said the review is under way and he is expecting to receive a response from the attorney general’s office soon.
“We’re still in that process,” Dyster said.
The city also is planning to hire a deputy for the new compliance officer. Dyster said the position will pay around $40,000, plus benefits and the individual who is chosen for the job will be selected following a search involving the new compliance officer.
Dyster said the administration welcomes the opportunity to fill both jobs and believes strengthening the city’s response to discrimination and harassment issues is not only the right thing to do but could go a long way to avoiding future situations like the one involving six African-American department of public works employees who settled their lawsuit with the city last year.
“It just makes it much more transparent every time a decision is made by the city to promote someone, hire someone or discipline someone,” Dyster said.
Establishing an independent oversight office makes sense to Bradberry as well. His experience tells him to approach the move with guarded enthusiasm. He said the effectiveness of the new compliance effort will depend on a number of factors that have yet to be determined, including the size of the office’s budget and the buy-in from staff.
“I’m hopeful, of course, that it will work,” Bradberry said. “I’m anxious to get it going. You have to have the commitment that comes from the top and that commitment has to be reflected in management and on down through the rank-and-file employees.”
Dyster said his administration is committed to providing the new office with the resources it needs to do an effective job. On Monday, city lawmakers will be asked to approve the spending of $1,935 to replace carpeting in Room 16 at City Hall, where the new EEOC staff is to be located. Dyster said the administration and the council already were in the process of addressing the need for an EEOC position when the AG’s office came calling because they recognized much more work needs to be done by the city on the civil rights front.
“We want to be in the vanguard of trying to resolve these types of issues,” Dyster said. “Everybody in the city has an interest in making certain that our city government is free from discrimination. It’s not the rights of any one group that are being protected here. It’s the rights that all of us should enjoy.”
Contact reporter Mark Scheer at 282-2311, ext. 2250
