Among

the allegations are charges that Bryant frequently

invited Anderson and Jones to go out socially after work

hours and, in Anderson's case, retaliated when she

refused his advances by humiliating her and attempting to

get her to resign.

City

officials released copies of the letters to local

newspapers Friday afternoon in response to open records

requests by The Citizen and the Atlanta

Journal-Constitution.

City

attorney David Winkle said Friday that Anderson has made

monetary claims against the city and Parks has informed

him that those claims will continue, though Bryant has

resigned.

City

Council suspended Bryant with pay Jan. 12 in a public

vote following a closed meeting to discuss the charges

against him with attorney Winkle.

Winkle

retained a Henry County lawyer to investigate the matter,

and depositions in his investigation were scheduled for

Feb. 14. But the depositions were halted because Bryant

and the city worked out a separation agreement over the

previous weekend. City Council approved the agreement

Feb. 16 and Bryant signed it the next day. As part of the

pact, the city agreed to halt its investigation.

State

law holds that records involved in an ongoing

investigation can be withheld until ten days after the

investigation is concluded. City officials called

reporters to City Hall at 5 p.m. Friday to release the

two letters from Jones and Parks, the severance agreement

with Bryant, and Bryant's personnel file.

The

Citizen has filed suit claiming that parts of the Jan. 12

closed meeting at which council discussed Bryant's

suspension were in violation of the Georgia Open Meetings

Act, and seeking all documents and information involved

in the investigation that ensued. The Atlanta

Journal-Constitution has filed an open records request

for documents involved in the investigation as well.

Asked

advice concerning the open meetings law during the

executive session, city attorney Winkle replied,

"I'm not going to answer that." Asked why, he

said, "Because this gentleman has sued me,"

referring to a Citizen reporter. "I'm not giving an

interview... that's all I'm going to say," he added.

The

letters from Parks and Jones, in that order, follow:

Jan.

10, 2000

Dear Mr. Bryant:

Our

law firm has been retained to represent Sherri Anderson.

Based upon the information I have been provided, it

appears that the work environment in the office that is

supervised and managed by you has become one that falls

beneath the minimum standards required under federal law.

Ms. Anderson reports that, upon her return from vacation,

she was called by one of her subordinates and advised

that you had directed her to show up for work in jeans so

that she could clean up the basement while the

subordinate would escort a special guest on a tour of the

Main Street district. This type of demeaning directive

would obviously have no rational relationship to the job

description of Main Street director. It was an obvious

attempt to humiliate and retaliate against Ms. Anderson

in an effort to get her to resign her position. Ms.

Anderson will not resign her position and intends to take

action against you and, if need be, the city of

Fayetteville in order to protect her right to a

harassment free work environment.

Ms.

Anderson has documented the repeated invitations made by

you to join you at dinners, movies and other purely

social activities outside the office. The fact that she

has refused all of your invitations to date has led to

flagrant retaliation such as reprimands, denial of pay

and other efforts to denigrate and otherwise limit her

ability to perform her job. While you may attempt to deny

that you have made advances toward Ms. Anderson, there

are a number of other city employees who have come to Ms.

Anderson and expressed sympathy and understanding

regarding her situation. Moreover, your penchant for

making sexual advances to attractive female employees of

the city of Fayetteville has been documented by several

third parties, including Mandy Jones and Anne Kirschner.

We

believe that, should we be put to the task of actually

assembling this quantum of evidence, it will reflect a

clear pattern of sexual harassment and other sexually

offensive conduct by you during your tenure with the

city. This includes an incident of sexual harassment by

you to a Main Street merchant. We also have documentation

that you made the statement at a department head meeting

less than a year ago that you were looking for a new

personnel director that was blonde, five feet seven

inches tall, slim good looking and when she stood against

the wall, her nose shouldn't touch before her body did.

Ibelieve

that a face to face meeting attended by you and

appropriate members of City Council to hear Ms.

Anderson's grievances is in order. We need to determine

whether or not there is a way to resolve these issues

before we move into the judicial arena and it becomes

public knowledge due to the inevitable media coverage

that will ensue. I look forward to hearing from you or

your counsel at the earliest possible opportunity. It is

not Ms. Anderson's desire to harm the Main Street

program; however, she has reached the point where she

feels compelled to fight back against the treatment she

has suffered under your direction.

Very

Truly Yours,

A.

Lee Parks

To:

Whom it May Concern

From: Mrs. Amanda Jones

Re: Mike Bryant

Date: Jan. 9, 2000

The

following statement is submitted to account for behavior

I have experienced from Mr. Mike Bryant, Fayetteville

city manager. I submit this letter as evidence of proof

regarding allegations of illegal behavior by Mr. Bryant

in the protected environment of the work place. My goal

in this statement is to ensure that the full disclosure

of truth is made and that disclosure will assist the

appropriate authorities in taking action to correct and

ensure the protections afforded employees to a

harassment-free work environment. While I am personally

saddened by the events leading to this situation, I

cannot ignore my duty to stand to protect the rights of

all employees against an individual who has abused his

authority while demonstrating a contempt for policy,

procedure, employee rights and the law which he himself

is charged to uphold and enforce.

Iwas

20 years of age and engaged to be married to Mr. Alan

Jones, the recently appointed fire chief, when Mr. Bryant

was hired in June of 1998. As an accounting clerk, Mr.

Bryant had no direct involvement with me as a function of

his job, nor did I have any direct involvement with Mr.

Bryant as a function of my job, other than taking checks

to his office for his signature. However, Mr. Bryant

immediately became very friendly with me, initiating

conversations with me in his office or coming down to my

office and initiating conversations which had nothing to

do with the business of the city. With this kind of

treatment to me, I felt that Mr. Bryant was a nice person

and did consider him my friend. I had no reason to

believe that he was not equally friendly to all city

employees at this time.

Occasionally,

Mr. Bryant would ask me to go to lunch with him when Mr.

Jones (Alan) was not at work. Both Alan and I thought no

harm with the requests and I agreed to go to lunch with

him a few times early in his employment with the city.

While Mr. Bryant did not take any inappropriate actions

with me at these lunches, he never would let me pay for

my meal, telling me that I should never tolerate a man

making me pay for my own meal. He would often ask me

about my relationship with Alan and would talk in

generalities about his marriage.

It

did not take long to learn that Mr. Bryant did not treat

all city employees as he treated me. Although I was not

privy to all the circumstances surrounding some of his

actions, enough was discussed throughout the office that

I was glad that Mr. Bryant did not seem to like me.

However, I did begin to be concerned about Alan. As Mr.

Bryant learned more and more about our relationship, he

began to tell me that I deserved more than what I was

getting, that I could get whoever I wanted, and I

shouldn't settle less (sic) than what his (Mr. Bryant's)

expectations were for me. On one occasion, Mr. Bryant

related to me the treatment he gives his wife. He told of

how he would take her to nice restaurants, plays or

shopping sprees, and at the end of the night that he

would receive his "reward."

Mr.

Bryant began to make other comments which I felt were

inappropriate, mostly regarding my physical appearance. I

often would ignore his comments or act naive, as if I did

not "get it," hoping that perhaps my failure to

acknowledge his remarks would discourage him. He often

would approach me in my cubicle, touching my back or

rubbing my shoulders and he greeted me.

Other

employees, including Ms. Grace Scarbrough, Ms. Betty

Pass, Ms. Donna Philips, Ms. Judy Stephens, were

concerned about what they had observed with Mr. Bryant's

obvious affection toward me and warned me that his

actions were not appropriate and that I should be

careful.

continued to ignore and rationalize the behavior as just

"friendliness" until one day in his office

where a comment greatly bothered me. I was leaving his

office after having Mr. Bryant sign some checks, when he

made a comment about my physical appearance in the

presence of Mr. Rick Eastin and Ms. Donna Philips of the

Police Department.

After

Mr. Bryant made the comment, Ms. Philips stated that I

was "just a baby," to which Mr. Bryant replied,

"She's not built like a baby. Babies aren't built

like that." Ms. Philips just looked at me in

disbelief, and I just stood there, totally embarrassed by

the comment. I just walked out, not knowing what to say.

Mr.

Bryant also began to make statements about he and I going

off to do things outside of work. He would talk about

taking me to Lenox Square, shopping and then to eat at a

nice restaurant where he would "wine and dine"

me that way he said I deserved to be treated. On several

occasions, he asked me if I would like to go with him to

eat or see a movie in the evenings. On one occasion, when

his wife was on an extended trip out of town, Mr. Bryant

told me how lonely he was, how he just wanted a buddy to

spend some time with, and asked me to come over to his

house to watch a movie and eat popcorn. I did not tell my

fiance, Mr. Jones, about any of these invitations

initially because I did not want him to take any action

which might jeopardize his career. I thought that as long

as Mr. Bryant liked me that I could tolerate the

inappropriate behavior, rationalizing it the best I

could, and hoping that my consistent excuses for not

accepting these later invitations would cause him to give

up.

One

day I was summoned to Mr. Bryant's office by my

supervisor, Ms. Ellen Jones, and Ms. Lynn Raven, the

finance director. Mr. Bryant told me that Mayor Wheat had

approached him, stating that he had received some reports

of his inappropriate behavior toward me. While he asked

me if his behavior offended me, he was more inquisitive

of who may have been the individual that went to Mayor

Wheat with this allegation. I was extremely uncomfortable

in this environment was afraid to let my true feeling

about the situation be evident. It appeared that Mr.

Bryant was more concerned and careful with what I said. I

told him that I did not have any problems and called Mr.

Jones as soon as I was able to get out of the office. Mr.

Jones, concernedwith the uncomfortable position I had

been placed in, called Mayor Wheat to discuss the policy

of the city regarding the investigation of accusations of

this type. Mr. Jones stated that his conversation with

Mayor Wheat was positive and both agreed that care should

be taken in handling situations of this type, and his

concern was more as that of a department head than as my

fiance, wanting to make sure that future situations may

be dealt with a little differently. At this time, I had

not told Alan of the full extent of Mr. Bryant1s behavior

toward me, particularly some of his persistence in asking

me to go with him to movies, dinner, and specifically,

his house.

After

this, I began to become more concerned with Mr. Bryant

and his

behavior. I talked to my fiance about this behavior and

my meeting regarding the report to Mayor Wheat. I

confided with Alan about my concern with my employment,

but more specifically his employment. Alan had previously

told me that Mr. Bryant had taken very little time with

him during his first year and that he thought that odd,

considering he was a new department head over the second

largest department in the city. Alan also became

concerned because Mr. Bryant never invited "he and

Mandy" to join him in any activities; the invitation

was always made to me and never included Alan. Mr. Bryant

did not approach me for a period of about two weeks after

the meeting. After that, Mr. Bryant would approach me,

only when no one else was around, just to "say

hi."

Eventually,

Mr. Bryant would again begin to touch my shoulders as he

came up behind her (sic), rubbing them as he asked how I

was doing. I realized then that I needed to tell Alan

about the full extent of Mr. Bryant1s actions. Alan

advised me that I should completely retreat from any

interaction with Mr. Bryant beyond that which was

required of my job. He instructed me to be polite and

courteous to Mr. Bryant, giving him the respect due his

position, but that I had no obligation to carry the

relationship beyond that of carrying out the business of

the city. Alan stated that hopefully this would remove me

from the environment which had grown uncomfortable, but

if not, we might be forced to explore other options.

Ihave

employed this strategy for approximately seven months to

the present. Mr. Bryant consistently approaches me,

asking what is wrong, if I am mad at him for any reason,

and why did not I come to talk to him anymore. I would

tell him that nothing is wrong, that I just stay so busy,

and since he got his signature machine, that I had not

reason to come to his office. These answers did not

satisfy Mr. Bryant, as he insisted that something was

bothering me. Mr. Bryant would even ask me if I was

unhappy being married to Alan and if that was the source

of my withdrawal from him. He continues to question me,

appearing frustrated that our relationship is that of

only business now.

felt that I was somewhat alone in Mr. Bryant1s pursuit of

a "more than business" relationship until I was

moved into a cubicle next to Ms. Sherri Anderson a few

months ago. We have both discovered that we were not

alone in our experiences. Since being moved to the

cubicle next to hers a few months back, we have had

similar experiences, as Ms. Anderson reports Mr. Bryant's

invitations for social engagements, her rejection of such

invitations, and the ensuing retaliation which has most

recently be (sic) reported. The similarities in our

experiences leads me to believe that my continued

rejection of Mr. Bryant1s attempts to reestablish a

personal relationship beyond that required by my job

could likely bring retaliation against me or my husband.

The

easiest course of action that I could take regarding this

situation is to withdraw my testimony from this action.

My husband and I are just starting our life together and

it would seem that simply keeping quiet is the best way

to ensure our security. Conversely, the hardest decision

has been to expose these actions and rely on the system

in place to correct this situation while protecting those

victimized. I must stress that it is not neither my, not

my husband1s intention to harm in any way the city of

Fayetteville, through reputation or financial resources,

but to participate in this action as our duty to protect

the city of Fayetteville in reputation and financial

resources. Thank you for your consideration in this

matter.

Sincerely,

Amanda M. Jones