100 signatures reached
To: The Board of Trustees of the Village of Lakewood: Amy Odom, Brian Augustine, Doug Ulrich, Pam Eddy, Bryan Younge, Ryan Berman, and President Phil Stephan
Village of Lakewood: Support the Staff
The employees of the Village of Lakewood are valuable to the residents of our Village. Failure to protect them from harassment and poor management has become the legacy of our current Board of Trustees. In an effort to correct this, we are asking our board to do the following:
Immediately put CAO Jeannine Smith on Administrative Leave pending the outcome of an independent third party investigation of allegations of harassment and retaliation towards any current or recently resigned employees of the Village and dereliction of duty for failures to comply with the existing Village Code.
- Should the investigation prove these complaints are valid, Jeannine Smith will immediately resign effective the date of her administrative leave and repay the Village any pay she received during that period.
- Any board member named in a valid complaint during this investigation will also resign their position immediately
- Note: Independent third party does not include any one related, by family OR employment, to anyone sitting on the current board OR Officer of the Village of Lakewood. For example, no one from the law offices of Zukowski, Rogers, Flood, & McArdle would be considered independent.
Why is this important?
Recently, our Village has lost another valuable employee amidst allegations of harassment and retaliation within Village Hall. While the details have been shared with some board members, over the course of the last month and a half there has been no action by the board to improve the employee relations within our Village Hall.
At this point, we, the residents of the Village of Lakewood, believe all parties need a cooling off period and to have a fair and independent review of the facts of these complaints. We want action from the Board that says we value our staff, all of the staff, and I want transparency in the process so that we can all have trust that this is not opening the Village up to any legal action on behalf of the Village Employees.