Report clears city official of racism, sexism accusations

Councilwoman calls investigation into her dispute with deputy city manager ‘flawed’

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An investigation into allegations of sexism and racism made by a member of the City Council against a high-ranking city official determined that there was no evidence to support the claims.

According to emails and a report obtained by the Herald on Tuesday, Bond Schoeneck & King, the Garden City-based law firm retained by the city to conduct an independent investigation, informed Deputy City Manager Michael Robinson that the inquiry determined that he did not engage in racist or sexist conduct toward City Councilwoman Anissa Moore in connection with the distribution of text messages and an alleged incident at City Hall on March 11.

“As far as I’m concerned, this was a 100 percent political attack on me, and it’s a new low for Long Beach,” Robinson said. “To be called a sexist and a racist in this community … and to have my family name tainted this way, I’m glad that the whole incident is over.”


But Moore said that the investigation was “flawed” and that her comments were never directed at Robinson.

“I was addressing the system,” she said. “I can’t change the fact that racism and sexism exist in that building.”

Moore — a professor at Nassau Community College and the first African-American elected to the council — had called for Robinson’s termination at a March 15 council meeting, where she implied that the incident was motivated by racism, sexism and nepotism.

In the report, she claimed that she and resident Ronnie Myles had overheard Robinson mocking her at City Hall on March 11, after a conversation she had had over lunch earlier that day, when Moore discussed with Robinson the circulation of her personal text messages without her knowledge, an incident that upset her.

Moore was elected last year amid a bitter divide between the Democratic Party, and is part of a recently formed group called the New Democrats of Long Beach.

Moore said that Robinson, a member of the old Democratic clubhouse, the Independent Democratic Club of Long Beach, circulated messages following a disagreement they had over the group's victory dinner and fundraiser in February. Moore claimed that she never gave permission to include her name on invitations to the event, and the incident caused “political pushback” from the New Democrats, according to the report.

Moore claimed that Robinson was undermining her role as an elected official and that his behavior was condoned.

“The deputy city manager was empowered to do so because of the present toxic environment,” Moore said at the March 15 meeting. “We need to understand that sexism is a system, it’s not a person. That racism is a system, it’s not a person. … This behavior is unacceptable. I call on the city manager to … act immediately. We need to terminate [Robinson’s] services immediately.”

In a subsequent letter to City Manager Jack Schnirman, however, Moore called only for Robinson to be reprimanded and for a six-month evaluation of his performance. She did not use the words “racist” or “sexist” in her letter. According to the report, Moore brought the matter up at the council meeting because, “she was also looking for recognition that what Mr. Robinson had done was inappropriate.”

“I am not in agreement with the decision, because the investigation is flawed. That’s not what I asked for,” Moore said on Tuesday. “That request [in the letter] was supposed to supersede all of the comments made … The whole point is, obviously, on the day of the council meeting, I wanted him to be terminated — but outside legal counsel advised to ask for progressive discipline. The city decided to frame it as a sexist and racist incident.”

She added, “They took the March 15 meeting to justify the investigation. I never asked for that. Nothing in my letter speaks to sexism or racism — I don’t walk around holding the race card.”

The investigation

The report was completed in July and involved interviews with Robinson and Moore, as well as several witnesses. Schnirman said that the process took about three months and cost nearly $9,000 in legal bills. He said that by law, the city was required to look into the allegations, whether they were made verbally or in writing, and hired the firm — which has served as outside legal counsel in the past — as an independent third party.

“In this situation, we followed the complaints that were made verbally and in writing, and they were thoroughly and professionally investigated,” Schnirman said.

Moore told the investigator, Jessica Moller, that she and Myles proceeded up the elevator to the fifth floor for a meeting they had scheduled with Schnirman, and overheard Robinson laughing and making fun of Moore and the earlier lunch meeting that, by all accounts, was positive.

Myles, who told Moller that he arrived separately, also stated that he had overheard Robinson make similar comments when Myles briefly stepped out of Schnirman’s office. Neither had informed Schnirman during their meeting about what they overheard. Both Myles and Moore acknowledged that they did not hear Robinson refer to her in a “racially or sexually derogatory manner.”

According to the report, Moore said that the “strongest factor” or reason that Robinson distributed her text messages and made fun of her was due to the fact that she was new to the council and not part of a “clique” that included the other council members. Moore also told Moller that she believed race played a factor because Robinson didn’t circulate other people’s text messages and because she is the first — and only — African American council member.

“I don’t remember her calling for the investigation,” Myles said of Moore. “When the lawyers were talking to me about it … I wouldn’t call [Robinson] racist or sexist. As far as employee misconduct, that’s a whole different thing — she was calling for him to be written up and reprimanded.”

Robinson, along with his co-workers, Thomas Larson and Sherri James, who is African American, denied accusations that Robinson was mocking Moore, and claimed in the report that the discussion they had at City Hall around the time the alleged comments were made was about getting together for drinks after work.

“This report came out in August,” Robinson said, “and yet her supporters have called for my resignation and asked if I had been demoted for something I didn’t even do. And Councilwoman Moore didn’t say anything about the investigation being over.”

Moore and Robinson received emails regarding the report’s conclusions in August, though Moore said that she did not receive the full report until Tuesday, when members of the City Council received it.

The investigation determined that Robinson — who earns more than $120,000 per year, according to See Through New York — did circulate Moore’s text messages.

Moller added that while there might have been “politically-based” miscommunication between Moore and Robinson that led to a perception by Moore of racist or sexist conduct by Robinson, there was no credible evidence to support those claims.

“I do not believe that Mr. Robinson said anything about Ms. Moore, or mocked her in any way, because of either her race or sex,” Moller wrote. “I do not believe that any disciplinary action against Mr. Robinson is warranted at this time. I do, however, believe that it would be prudent to caution Mr. Robinson against bringing his political views into the workplace.”

Moller also questioned the credibility of Moore’s and Myles’s account of what Robinson said at City Hall, saying that video surveillance showed that they arrived separately and did not support their allegations.

"At most, I believe that Mr. Robinson made a brief factual statement to Ms. James and Mr. Larson that he had lunch with Ms. Moore and Mr. Myles and that the lunch was fine," Moller wrote. "To the extent that either Ms. Moore and Mr. Myles heard Mr. Robinson laughing, I believe the laughter that they heard was likely related to Mr. Robinson joking with Mr. Larson and Ms. James about Ms. James needing to stop work and join them for happy hour."

Moore and Myles stood by their claims that they overheard Robinson make fun of her at City Hall, with Myles saying they entered the building within about five minutes of each other. Moore also questioned the timing of the report’s being leaked to a reporter, after the city denied the Herald’s Freedom of Information Law request on Nov. 9 — and on the same night she urged the council to resume its practice of rotating the council presidency.

“I find it very, very interesting that all of a sudden they want to run a story about this,” Moore said. “They don’t want me to become the council president — and it’s a strategy for them and they want to discredit me.”