“I’m sure that all of us have said things that are inappropriate or just dumb things,” said vice-chair of the Ulster County Human Rights Commission (HRC) JoAnn Myers. “We should be able to learn from our mistakes.”
Choosing the wrong words or expressing the wrong sentiments can cost you your job, your reputation, and possibly your career. Just ask Tyrone Wilson, former director of the HRC.
An anonymous someone sent the county government evidence of separate instances of racist and sexist leanings on the part of Wilson from a variety of sources. Then a newspaper reporter contacted by the accuser reached out to the county, and Wilson was let go the following day.
“Wilson’s insensitive comments,” explained county executive Jen Metzger, “about Asians, Jews, LGBTQIA+ people, single mothers, and other groups are a matter of public record and clearly disqualified him from serving as human-rights commissioner.”
In interviews with others, Wilson is often described as a human being passionate about fighting discrimination and working to rectify wrongs wherever they lurk. The cognitive dissonance of his impolitic words placed alongside his actions is substantial.
When three HRC commissioners, Martin Dunkley, Carl Brown and Bruce Ginsberg, resigned in July, their resignation letter of termed Wilson’s firing “a political assassination.”
Objecting to Wilson’s termination, former HRC commissioner Alice Cook said: “I didn’t like the way it went down. If they didn’t like the things he was doing and saying, someone should have pulled him aside and said, Listen, if you don’t cut it out, this is what’s going to happen. Tyrone has a good heart. He works and works for the underclass, underprivileged, the poor. He would run after people to help them. I’m not joking.”
Sensitivity training was not a feature at the commission during Wilson’s tenure. Nor was it offered to him as an alternative to his termination.
“I think that sensitivity training is really important,” said Myers. “It might not always work for all people. But I also understand that he [Wilson] was the face of human rights. And that’s why Jen felt that she needed to take that action.”
As director of the commission, Wilson was paid $77,386 a year
Reshuffling
According to Carl Brown, previously the chair of HRC, Wilson’s termination wasn’t the main reason for the trio’s resignation, though it played a part. Consolidation of control of the commission by the county executive was the primary culprit, Brown alleged.
After Wilson’s termination, Metzger installed the chief diversity officer for Ulster County, Esi Lewis, to oversee the commission. Lewis earned no extra pay for the added workload.
Lewis canceled the commission’s next meeting in May.
At the June meeting, a terrible misunderstanding played out. While heading into executive session, Esi Lewis informed Alice Cook that she was no longer on the commission.
“When it came time to go into executive session, there was a discussion between Metzger and Esi. And it came out that I was no longer on the commission so I couldn’t be in the executive session meeting! And my retort was, I didn’t know anything about that. When did this happen?” said Cook. “And it was very embarrassing because it was in an open meeting. There was a back-and-forth with Esi because she said she told me [previously during a phone call] and I’m saying, I don’t recall you saying to me, your time is up and you’re being replaced! I think I would have remembered that. I wouldn’t have shown up to the meeting in June if I had been told.”
She chuckled.
“And no, I don’t have dementia. If I did, I think I would remember,” she said.
Cook disputed the idea that she suffers from cognitive decline, and explained that heart trouble had caused her to spend January to March at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Tyrone Wilson said he put her on medical leave.
According to vice-chair Myers, other members of the commission whose terms had expired received notification and thank-you letters.
“She should have been notified,” agreed Brown, Her departure should have been handled in a professional manner, he said. “Maybe had some cake and stuff like that before she left the commission.”
Metzger said she didn’t remove Alice Cook. She said that Cook’s term had expired last year. She said former county executive Pat Ryan had appointed reverend Gary Fuller as her replacement. Fuller said he was never made aware he was appointed to replace Cook.
Carl Brown was removed from his position as chair of the board by the county executive at the next meeting. And this stung Brown.
“The first chair, Dave Clegg [now district attorney], was elected by the vote of the commission,” said Brown, who was appointed to it in 2013. “And when Dave Clegg came off of the commission, and now Pat Ryan was county executive, I was voted chair of the commission by commission members. The county executive shouldn’t be appointing the chair.”
Choosing the chairperson
The county executive does have the prerogative to choose who serves as chair. It is explicitly enshrined in the county charter that the county executive may do so.
“We said, Oh, they got this wrong. So we put it right [into our bylaws],” said Brown. “The person who updated the bylaws was Dr. Joanne Myers. She then sent it to the lawyers at the county. Later, when we wanted to retrieve our bylaws, the lawyers at the county sent them back to us. So the county has had the updated bylaws for at least three years.
Receiving the bylaws was not the same as accepting them, as Brown must have suspected, because he intended to go a step further and revise the discrepancy which had been in the charter since the beginning — and that required the intervention of the Charter Revision Commission (CRC).
“They only convene every ten years,” noted Brown.
Brown appeared before the CRC, submitting the change for the commission’s consideration.
Now retired, Dave Donaldson was chairperson of the legislature when the original charter was drafted and adopted. He sympathized with Brown’s position.
“In the past the commission itself chose its own chair, even though the law may have allowed the executive to do that,” said Donaldson. “I have an issue with that because these types of commissions and boards typically choose their own chair. The idea that the executive chooses the chair, picks five people for the commission and chooses who the director is with no input from anyone else …. It basically creates too much power in the executive’s hands, that commission should be [an] independent-style commission.”
Donaldson, now a member of the CRC, doesn’t see it as likely that Brown’s suggested revision will make it through that body. Many other changes to consider have come to the fore. This one could probably be successfully added to a regular legislative agenda, however, Donaldson speculated.
We just investigate
Brown was most of all opposed to the county executive’s edict restricting the kinds of investigations of discrimination or prejudice the commission could pursue.
“We were told that we can’t handle cases unless a complaint is filed,” explained Brown. “Restorative justice was born in 2015, and we didn’t have a case open for that. These kids would still be in the school-to-prison pipeline. Black kids being kicked out of school. We don’t need a case file! We just investigate.
“That’s my point. Nobody filed the case. We just went to work for the community. We saw a symptom that was happening. The key to this is control.”
The HRC had become accustomed to operating beyond what the charter provided. It developed a taste for seeking out injustice rather than restricting itself to filed complaints and open cases. It became proactive.
Whether such justice-seeking was beyond its purview is at the heart of the complaint of the resigned commissioners.
According to Brown, the number of cases the commission was not allowed to pursue was increasing. The inactivity on what he considered clear cases of discrimination that should be investigated galled him.
When he was removed from his role as HRC chair on July 7, the drift of the pressure to conform to the letter of the law as written rather than the spirit of pursuing injustice became clear. He decided to resign.
“That’s why they’re shutting me up and getting me out of that seat, because they don’t want me to go forward after the administration at the Marlborough High School for calling kids the N-word,” he charged. “And they definitely don’t want me to go forward looking into DSS [Department of Social Services] because you got issues at DSS. And they knew we were going there next.”
Scorched earth
Removing Tyrone Wilson in April, Metzger installed as his interim replacement Esi Lewis, who suspended a commission meeting in May.
Alice Cook was informed of her dismissal in June. Brown was replaced as chair of the board in July. These benchmarks communicate the narrative which played out in real time for the trio of resigning commissioners. By July the three conceived of Lewis as the cat’s paw for the purposeful hand of Metzger.
To inflict maximum damage to the county executive and to call into question the role of the interim director, the three commissioners resigned by holding a press conference on a Saturday, releasing an inflammatory letter long on attacks but low on specifics. They presented the case of Bethany Daley, a county health department worker for the county whom they alleged had been the victim of a years-long pattern of workplace discrimination, harassment and retaliation They alleged that her case was being mishandled by the county.
The scorched-earth resignation letter they released accused Metzger of stifling the commission’s work and installing puppets to control it. The missive also trashed the interim deputy, alleging she had “no qualifications or appetite for human-rights work,” and saying she had been chosen to fill a position “she is ill-equipped to hold.”
Whatever the members’ intentions, the letter came across as personal and grudge-motivated. They stepped onto the same land mines as Wilson had when they defended the objectionable words of the terminated commissioner as “trivial comments.”
As the executive noted in her rebuttal letter, the authors appeared more invested in “exacting retribution for former commissioner Wilson’s dismissal than faithfully fulfilling their duties as members of the Human Rights Commission.”
Shouted down
By the time they released a second letter moderating their first statements, numerous proxies had already begun castigating the words of the resigning commissioners and praising Esi Lewis’ record as an assistant DA in Kings County and a staff attorney at Legal Services of the Hudson Valley on behalf of domestic-violence survivors.
Another bomb was lobbed into the situation when current commissioner Katie Scott-Childress alleged in a letter that the outgoing commissioners regularly talked over women and trans people at commission meetings, cursing and shouting some members down. She all but called the members sexist and transphobic.
Reached out to for specifics, Scott-Childress has yet to respond.
Myers confirmed Scott Childress’ allegations, at least in part.
Were commission members being shouted down because they were women or because of transphobia on the part of other members?
“Unfortunately, it’s my experience in the world,” said Myers. “But I wouldn’t put that on all three of them. One of those members is more feminine than the other two.”
The present HRC chair agreed that those accusations had some basis.
“I think that people got shouted over in general,” offered chair Gary Fuller. “And, you know, the majority of the people on the board are women. So someone could easily mistakenly deduce that there was some ulterior motives with that, but I cannot speak to the frame of mind someone had when they were talking.”
The past as prologue
For now, in the aftermath of bruised egos, hurt feelings and frustrated passions, chair Fuller and vice-chair Myers are preaching the same song. They are eager to put HRC’s contentious chapter behind them and move forward, getting on with the business of human rights.
“Here’s what I want to say,“ explained Fuller. “I don’t want to live in the past, I want to live in the here and now. And I’d be more than happy to talk about moving forward and making sure that this commission can be the best that everyone has to offer … all of their expertise and compassion, so that we can serve the people of Ulster County in a proper and decent way.”
Though it seems unlikely now that the passionate commissioners who resigned from the HRC will be invited back, sensitivity training will now be mandatory for all commissioners going forward.
A good start might be to get Alice Cook a cake.
Human Rights Commission rights itself
“We are all seekers of justice. That’s why we’re on this commission.”
—Reverend Gary Fuller
Kingston native Joe McDonald has been nominated to serve as director of human rights in the County of Ulster. The candidate for the directorship most recently worked with the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, investigating complaints relating to child care and overseeing enforcement actions.
After the termination of the previous director in April and the noisy defection of three commissioners in July, it is hoped that the McDonald era will reorient the commission toward a steady and predictable performance of its charter.
In her July 28 announcement, county executive Jen Metzger said McDonald’s appointment would mark a turning point in county efforts to create a more inclusive and compassionate community.
Simultaneously with Metzger’s announcement, four vacancies within the eleven-member commission were also filled.
Metzger’s appointment of McDonald as human-rights commissioner is subject to confirmation by the county legislature, a vote expected to take place at the body’s August meeting.
Chairperson Tracey Bartels appointed Des Salomone, Esq. from the City of Kingston. Minority leader Ken Ronk appointed Candice Van Dyke from the Town of Ulster, Metzger appointed Nilsary Lewis-Rivera from Wawarsing and Sage Jobsis from Rosendale.
The commission’s mandate is to be representative of those it seeks to defend, Lewis-Rivera’s appointment marks the first bilingual member. Jobsis, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 13 years ago, will bring her personal experience to bear as someone who has transitioned from being fully able bodied to living with a disability.
Existing commission member reverend Gary Fuller was appointed by the executive to serve as chair of the commission in July.
Fuller was bemused by the recent attention given to the commission.
“I would wager that most people were not aware of the human rights commission up until the recent stories in the newspapers,” said Fuller. “Though we are volunteers, we are all professionals. And so I don’t want anyone to get the misconception that because we offered ourselves to answer the call of duty, that somehow that lessens our professionalism.”
The commission is intended to receive complaints from any persons in Ulster alleging human-rights violations and to investigate the claims to see whether there has been discrimination based on race, creed, gender, color, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, gender identity, criminal record, marital status, whistleblower status, or income source.
“When a complaint is filed,” explained Fuller with a touch of humor, “it goes to the office of the executive director of the Human Rights Commission. And then that, information gets discussed, reviewed, flipped over, turned around, and fried on both sides by the commission in executive session.”
If discrimination is found to have occurred, the county HRC will then attempt to address the issue through a process called conciliation or reconciliation, where the commission acts as mediator between accuser and accused.
“And then the charter indicates that if that can’t be accomplished,” said Fuller, “then the case gets kicked upstairs to the state human rights commission.”
By March 31 of each tear, the CHR submits a report to the county legislature summarizing the number, type and disposition of all complaints made over the course of the preceding year. To protect those involved, the report doesn’t include names or personal identifying information.
In its 2022 annual report, the commission recorded 27 claims, 23 of which were about housing and four of which claimed employment discrimination. Eighteen claims did not indicate discrimination under a protected class had occurred. The other nine were opened as cases under investigation. Of the closed cases, three case investigations found discrimination had occurred. As of January 1 2023, five of the 27 cases were closed and two are pending.
While Fuller doesn’t doubt the sincerity of passion of any of the members who have served, he acknowledges that transparency and sticking to preferred protocols has been a problem in the past. “But that’s not going to be the case going forward,” said Fuller. “We’re going to be focusing on process and education and training for the members and myself and the vice-chair of this body. JoAnne Myers will be working closely with the new executive director so that there’s no more disconnect — creating the transparency that’s needed to operate in an efficient manner. When there’s no transparency, people end up doing what they think is the right thing, but without process. That’s my assessment.”
Fuller was appointed to the commission in 2022 by county executive Pat Ryan.
Outreach is part of the plan to improve the commission’s visibility to the people in the county.
Geographical diversity is a consideration that has not escaped Fuller’s attention. Plans to improve the commission’s visibility to the people in the county. “One of the things that we’re absolutely looking forward to doing,” said Fuller, “is each member being able to hold his or her own town meeting in their own geographical area of this county.”
Fuller said he was looking forward to collaborating with executive director McDonald upon his confirmation.
“Together with new Human Rights Commission chair reverend Gary Fuller,” said Metzger, “we have a fantastic leadership team at the helm of the county’s human-rights work.”
The adopted 2023 adopted county budget lists operating expenses for the inclusiveness-driven HRC as $296,410.
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