Dover councilman censured for questioning employee about her duties

Dover Council has voted in favor of the city ethics commission’s resolution to censure Councilman William Hare for allegedly questioning a city employee about her duties and going to her home.

In a 5-2 decision, council members Tricia Arndt, Brian Lewis, Julia Pillsbury, Gerald Rocha and Roy Sudler Jr. voted yes at the June 10 council meeting. Council members David Anderson and Fred Neil voted no. Hare abstained. Councilman Andre Boogerty was absent.

The ethics commission voted unanimously that Hare “made contact with a city employee regarding her duties and functions, which should not have been made so that his conduct was in violation of the ethical standards” in city code.

There was no punishment with the censure. It’s a formal statement of disapproval of his conduct.

The ethical violations were alleged by the husband of city code enforcement officer Lauren Eisenbraun in October.

Hare lives near the Eisenbrauns.

The ethics commission held a closed hearing with testimony from both sides and unanimously decided that a censure of Hare’s conduct should be reported to City Council.

Hare responded, “If my stopping at an employee/neighbor’s house to advise an issue had been resolved and I violated any city code, I apologize to the family and if censure is felt appropriate, I understand and will accept. There was no attempt to intimidate the gentleman and if apologizing too many times is wrong, I apologize again.”

“There might have been some discrepancies or differences in the ethics hearing and articles,” Hare said, but he accepts the commission’s ruling.

Arndt said she “regretfully” voted in favor of the resolution.

“I’m sure Mr. Hare’s intentions were good but the role of council is clear,” Arndt said. “We direct the city manager, not the staff. So therefore contact was inappropriate under standards of ethical conduct.”

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Neil voted against the censure and asked for his statement to be read into the record.

In his statement, he said, “…City Council has the power to make a judgement on the correctness of the decision of the ethics commission,” and “…the employee did not make the complaint; the husband did.”

Neil’s decision to vote against the censure resolution was based on two factors. The first is “the evidence I have seen on a cell phone video.... Councilman Hare was neither combative or confrontational. Quite to the contrary.”

The second is “what I learned about Bill Hare since I served with him since I was elected in 2015. Even though our votes have not always matched, he never put his self-interests in front of what he considered his duty to citizens of Dover,” Neil said.

Questions about the procedure in ethics complaints

Before the vote, council members debated how to proceed with the ethics commission’s resolution.

First, council president Anderson turned over the gavel to Rocha to act as president during the discussion of the resolution because Anderson had given a public statement several weeks ago about the ethics commission’s decision.

In that statement, Anderson said, “Bill Hare is indeed guilty — of being too enthusiastic to serve his constituents."

“He made a mistake not keeping work contact at City Hall following the normal procedure when he had just received important information,” Anderson said. “In my opinion, the actions do not rise to the level of censure as presented."

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Sudler suggested Anderson should recuse himself from voting to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Anderson said he planned to vote but he thought it would be more fair for a council member who hadn’t made a public statement about the ethics commission’s ruling to conduct the discussion on this issue.

“There is no conflict of interest nor were there any violations of any rules,” Anderson said about his statement.

Some council members asked if testimony would be allowed about the case, but City Attorney Nicholas Rodriguez advised that council should only vote on the ethics commission’s censure resolution.

Anderson requested for council to be able to see the cellphone video that was shown to the ethics commission, but the request was denied based on what the city attorney had said.

Another request was to allow code enforcement officer Eisenbraun to speak, but that wasn’t allowed either.

Sudler asked why the council has to vote on the resolution since the censure has already been decided by the ethics commission.

“I’m not comfortable undermining the ethics commission,” he said.

Without council holding a hearing with the information that was presented to the ethics commission, “how can we realistically make a judgment on this?” Sudler said. “I think that going down this road could lead to further legal ramifications or discrepancies.”

Sudler said he doesn’t believe council should censure a council member. That’s the job of the ethics commission, he said.

Pillsbury said clarification is needed on what happens after the ethics commission has reached a decision. She said “as I understand it,” the person who filed the complaint wasn’t notified of the ethics commission’s ruling.

As far as talking about an alleged ethics violation at a council meeting, “I can see privacy issues with us publicly discussing things,” Pillsbury said.

However, she was also concerned about voting on an issue without any evidence.

“We weren’t there [at the ethics commission hearing] so we didn’t hear the whole process,” Pillsbury said.

Acting council president Rocha said the council is only supposed to vote on the resolution, to adopt the ethics commission’s resolution into the record or not, as the city attorney said.

Reach reporter Ben Mace at rmace@gannett.com.