Thursday, October 28, 1999
Fairfield agrees to drop sexual harassment charge
BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
FAIRFIELD — In a legal settlement, Fairfield dropped a sexual harassment charge against a police lieutenant and replaced a one-day suspension with a written reprimand.
The settlement, signed last week by Judge Matthew Crehan of Butler County Common Pleas Court, specified that the reprimand against Lt. Ken Colburn is not for sexual harassment, but for writing non-business-related comments on the police department's bulletin board.
The city paid the $168 in a day's salary that it had withheld from him after the city civil service commission decided last year that he had violated the city's sexual harassment policy and sus pended him for one day.
The allegation stemmed from a sexually suggestive message that Lt. Colburn wrote on a Halloween party flier posted on the police department's bulletin board.
“They tried to make more out of it than it was,” he said Wednesday.“It was a joke.”
A female police officer, who is no longer with the police department, filed the complaint.
On Lt. Colburn's behalf, Tim Evans, attorney for the Fairfield Fraternal Order of Police, filed a lawsuit against the city after the one-day suspension was imposed.
Lt. Colburn, who was a sergeant at the time, said he felt he had no choice but to challenge the civil service commission ruling. “I've lived this boring Ward Cleaver life, and here I've lived as an accused sexual harasser for two years,” he said. “They put this label on me, and I had to fight it and clear my name and clear my record.”
He has worked for the Fairfield Police Department for 14 years and was promoted to lieutenant Sept. 14. The settlement says that before this incident, he had no disci plinary action on his record.
John Clemmons, Fairfield's law director, said the city wanted to settle the case out of court because so much time had elapsed.
“A settlement was in the best interests of everyone,” Mr. Clemmons said. “We didn't want to have to reconstruct the case and reopen hard feelings on everyone's part.”
The written reprimand won't be placed in Lt. Colburn's personnel file because those reprimands are removed from personnel files after two years. Two years have passed since the incident.
Lt. Colburn called the sexual harassment complaint ridiculous.
He said the female police officers who claimed to be offended by his bulletin-board message used profanities occasionally, just like many male officers.
“I was not offended by their foul language,” Lt. Colburn said. “I was only offended by their hypocrisy.
Mr. Clemmons said he understands Lt. Colburn's feelings about the case.
“I'm sure he felt he was being singled out by the people who were complaining,” he said. “We were happy to resolve it and hope it's a closed issue.”
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