County Council hires investigators to evaluate new claims of inner-office harassment and bullying

For at least the third time in a year, New Castle County Council will pay an outside investigator to evaluate claims of workplace harassment in the council offices. 

The new allegations have been made against Councilman George Smiley by Council President Karen Hartley-Nagle, whose aide settled claims she was harassed by the council president last year in a saga that cost taxpayers some $170,000. 

This time, it is Hartley-Nagle claiming Smiley has engaged in a "pattern of abuse and harassment." In an interview, she declined to describe specific instances because of the pending investigation. 

"Mr. Smiley's harassment, menacing and bullying behavior is unacceptable," Hartley-Nagle said. "This is a serious problem that is long overdue to be addressed." 

Smiley, who once told Hartley-Nagle during a council meeting that she had "zero credibility," said the claims are bogus.

"The problem is she has no idea what harassment is," Smiley said. 

During a meeting of the council's Personnel Subcommittee last week, Councilwoman Janet Kilpatrick, who chairs the committee, said Hartley-Nagle had reported that she "does not want to be followed, bullied, intimidated or harassed by Councilman Smiley" and "she is afraid of him and that he is mentally unstable." 

Kilpatrick added Hartley-Nagle had communicated that a recent incident brought "his harassment to a new level. That interaction sparked the effort to hire an outside attorney, Kilpatrick said. 

Precisely what happened is unclear. Hartley-Nagle declined to go into detail. Smiley gave his side but did not elaborate on the precise allegation against him.

He said he was sitting in his office when he learned that Hartley-Nagle was alone with Council Clerk Nellie Hill inside Hill's office. Last year, council mandated no employee meet alone with Hartley-Nagle as part of the fallout from her aide's harassment complaint. 

Smiley said he walked near the office and stood outside. When another person entered, the voices escalated enough to "give me concern," he said.

So he leaned in the doorway of the office, setting Hartley-Nagle off, he said. 

She asked what he was doing, he told her he was "concerned for the welfare of staff" and she threatened a harassment complaint, Smiley said. He said that he backed out of the doorway to allow her to exit. 

"There was no contact, no argument, there was no verbal exchange of excited utterances or anything else," Smiley said. 

Council briefly discussed the issue during the Personnel Subcommittee meeting last week and Councilman John Cartier moved to hire an outside investigator to evaluate Hartley-Nagle's claims. Council members Kilpatrick, Timothy Sheldon, David Tackett, John Cartier, Lisa Diller, Bill Powers and Hartley-Nagle voted in favor of the motion.

Smiley did not vote and the rest of council voted against it. 

At the meeting, Hartley-Nagle said she's just looking for a guarantee Smiley will leave her alone when they are outside public meetings. 

"We don't need to spend money on a complaint," Hartley-Nagle said. "We can solve this really quickly."

Kilpatrick said once a complaint is verbalized to her or council officials, they must take some action. Hartley-Nagle then accused council officials of ignoring previous issues she has raised, a claim Counsel to Council Mike Migliore disputed. 

Smiley suggested a wager of sorts.

He said if the claims are found to be unfounded, they should come from Hartley-Nagle's council account, which is taxpayer money used for office supplies and community grants. If they are judged to have merit, he said the cost should come from his kitty.

Council did not take action on his suggestion. 

"Do not let concern for my reputation prompt you to spend taxpayer money on unfounded allegations," Smiley said. "You want to do it because you find merit in the allegation. Don't be using me to spend the money." 

Some council members said hiring an outside investigator would be pointless because they believe anti-harassment provisions within council rules do not cover conduct between elected officials. 

"Here is the harsh reality: I've seen council members nose to nose and toes to toes talking about fighting," Councilman Jea Street said. "Nobody invoked the rules, regulations and policies that were clearly written for staff." 

Migliore, the council's lawyer, called the council member conflict "uncharted territory" and suggested the safest route would be to hire outside attorneys. 

The process is not new. Council has paid out at least $170,000 on the investigation and settlement of inner-office tension since 2017. 

The bulk of that was spent on harassment claims made by Kate Maxwell, Hartley-Nagle's former aide and daughter of former County Chief Administrative Officer and lobbyist Bob Maxwell. She was put on paid leave in May 2017 while her claims were evaluated. 

Maxwell got $20,000 in pay while on leave for five months, and another $48,000 in the final settlement to drop her claim and waive any further liability.

County Council paid Middletown human resources expert, Patricia M. Clendening, about $11,000 to investigate the claims. Council has also received bills from Wilmington law firm Potter, Anderson & Carroon totaling $76,000 for investigative legal services through February.

Updated figures were not immediately available. Kilpatrick said she believes those accounts are now closed.  

Another $2,137 was paid to Coaching Partners, Inc. of Media, Pennsylvania — billed at an hourly rate of $475 for 4.75 hours of work — for workplace behavior training. Council unsuccessfully tried to mandate Hartley-Nagle participate in that training following the Maxwell investigation. 

That investigation found that there was "enough evidence to support that the council environment in which Kate was exposed included harassment, insulting and demeaning treatment," Kilpatrick said in December.

But precisely what Maxwell claimed, the accompanying evidence, what rules were broken and what legal liability the county may have had continues to be hidden by council officials citing personnel restrictions.

Hartley-Nagle called the investigation and settlement a "political witch hunt" and council voted to ask her to resign. 

"This is one more thing to publicly harass me as well as trying to interfere with me to doing my job," Hartley-Nagle said reflecting on the investigation. 

Council's Personnel Subcommittee has met multiple times in closed executive sessions in recent months to discuss "confidential personnel matters" that likely go beyond the Maxwell issue. 

At one committee meeting, they entered and exited non-public, executive session before voting on what was described only as "employer recommendations" without explaining the thrust or any potential cost of the vote publicly. 

In January, the committee went into and exited closed, executive session before voting to allocate $15,000 to hire an HR specialist "to investigate the number four allegation."

Council officials have declined to go on the record regarding what that entails. 

No specific dollar allocation was made for the new investigation into Hartley-Nagle's claims. Smiley asked council not to enter executive session to discuss the complaint against him. 

"Part of the problem, as I see it, is too much of this gets settled in private and you are under suspicion for the rest of your life," Smiley said.

Hartley-Nagle said Smiley's openness about the situation is a tactic to unsettle her. 

"It is not surprising that Mr. Smiley is retaliating by choosing a public mode of attack," Hartley-Nagle said. 

Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or xwilson@delawareonline.com. Follow @Ber_Xerxes on Twitter.