This isn’t Jeri Pryor’s first rodeo.
Pryor is the Delray Beach city employee who sought whistleblower protection after claiming that she was threatened with the loss of her job by City Commissioner Rob Long.
On April 28, Pryor filed a written complaint with City Attorney Lynn Gelin that Long interceded on behalf of businessman Rodney Mayo, whose Subculture coffee shop has repeatedly been a city target for possible code violations.
Mike Stocker/Sun Sentinel
Steve Bousquet is a Sun Sentinel columnist.
By law, Pryor has the right to have her case investigated fully and fairly. But in a possible attempt to discredit Pryor, her name and some details of her confidential complaint, available only to the mayor, commissioners and senior city employees, have been circulated publicly.
The Sun Sentinel has independently confirmed Pryor as the complainant and is identifying her because another newspaper, The Coastal Star, did previously.
Oddly, Long’s name was blacked out of that leaked partial copy of the complaint, but Pryor’s was not. That raises obvious questions about the leaker’s motives.
Delray Beach hired Brooke Ehrlich, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer and an employment law specialist, to investigate Pryor’s allegations and report back to the city.
Ehrlich last year wrote a report that cleared City Manager Terrence Moore of allegations that he harassed and retaliated against a former city fire chief.
Besides Long, the two other major figures in this investigation are Moore and the assistant city manager, Jeff Oris. Both were on a Feb. 20 conference call when, Pryor claims, Long pressured her to go easy on Mayo if she wanted to keep her job.
“You haven’t been here very long,” Pryor’s handwritten notes of that meeting quoted Long. “If you want to stay and continue, you need to focus on smaller code violations.”
Long has declined to comment. He recused himself and left the hearing room during an April 29 commission discussion of the whistleblower complaint, citing a possible conflict of interest.
Pryor has a lot of local government experience. Before joining Delray Beach in January, she had spent 26 years in various posts in Fort Lauderdale — where she once refused to accept verbal abuse from a commissioner that she found “violent, hostile and aggressive.”
Last year, Pryor’s then-boss, Commissioner Warren Sturman, refused to grant a 3% pay raise for then-City Manager Greg Chavarria, who had strong support from other commissioners.
In a break during a meeting, according to witnesses, Commissioner Steve Glassman faced Pryor and said: “F—!”, adding, “Your boss!”
Another commissioner saw Pryor crying backstage. Angry public denunciations of Glassman soon followed. Then came an investigation, which ended with a finding that Glassman did not bully Pryor and did not violate the city’s workplace bullying policy.
After Sturman lost a bid for re-election last November, Pryor found a position as director of Delray Beach’s Neighborhood and Community Services Division.
“We are here to serve the public,” Pryor said on a recent city podcast. “The only way to do that is to engage the community.”
Her tasks include enforcing city ordinances that keep the city clean and safe. She had been on the job for one month — inexperienced and eager to make a positive impression — when the call took place.
Obviously, it’s possible that Long, Moore and Oris will circle the wagons and refute Pryor’s version of events, turning this into a he-said/she-said situation.
But why would Pryor, weeks into a new job, put herself in this position if it isn’t true? The upcoming investigation in Delray Beach should tell the public conclusively whether Long violated Delray’s code of conduct for elected officials.
The code says: “I shall demonstrate dignity, respect and courtesy toward those with whom I am in contact in my capacity as a member of the City Commission and will refrain from intimidation and ridicule of fellow City Commissioners, the City Manager, City Attorney, staff and residents of the City.”
The key word is “intimidation.” Delray Beach adopted its code of conduct last summer, and it’s based on a similar code in, believe it or not, Fort Lauderdale.
Long isn’t the only one here who should be having sleepless nights. So should Moore, whose job is to protect the city workforce from political interference by forcefully telling city officials to get off employees’ backs and let them do their jobs.
From the limited details we have, Moore didn’t do that — and he should have.
Steve Bousquet is Opinion Editor of the Sun Sentinel and a columnist. Contact him at sbousquet@sunsentinel.com or (850) 567-2240 and follow him on X @stevebousquet.