Corruption Watch: Panama City Beach (this past week)
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Sept. 21, 2023 - Black employees were told not to use the employee restrooms in the Street Division of the Public Works Department for the City of Panama City Beach.
Four men filed a lawsuit three years ago. Mayor Mark Sheldon, City Attorney Cole Davis, and their legal team have delayed the trial as long as possible.
Now it's scheduled for Oct. 9 in Bay County.
Sept. 19, 2023 - It’s been a long time coming, yes it has. But a trial is gonna come in about three weeks.
Right here, in the Bay County courthouse.
In 2019, several black workers in the Street Division of the Public Works Department began to endure humiliating treatment while working for the City of Panama City Beach.
They didn’t work out of City Hall, but rather in a separate building down the road.
A few of them had been employed for more than a decade. They had stellar employment evaluations until one of the newest employees, a white male, was quickly promoted to supervisor over everyone else.
Then the black workers couldn’t do anything right, according to the new boss. They were reprimanded for petty things, such as not making eye contact when spoken to.
At the maintenance shop building each morning, they donned wide-brim sun hats, reflective gear, and work boots before heading out to pick up trash along the roads, mow fields of grass, stripe the streets, erect traffic signs, and anything else the new boss told them to do.
But once the workers left the shop in the morning, the new boss told them not to use the employee restroom when they returned in the middle of the day to dump the trash or change out equipment.
Instead, they had to use a public restroom while they were out cleaning or fixing the roads and right-of-ways. Find a Tom Thumb or any other gas station or convenience store when nature calls. Or maybe even go into a department store at Pier Park. Hell, go out behind a tree in those wooded areas if necessary - there are plenty of those.
But the employee restrooms were off limits at the shop building where they clocked in and out of work. And especially those nice restrooms at the fancy new City Hall - those were definitely not to be used by sweaty, dirty road maintenance workers.
They knew that the new boss was always watching. The workers were surveilled with cameras above their lockers at the shop, and their maintenance vehicles were tracked with GPS devices.
So even sneaking into an employee restroom when nobody was around could spark a call to the new boss’s office. Working in the Street Division felt like being tied to a leash all of a sudden where your every move is recorded.
After the workers felt harassed long enough to report the City to the EEOC, the new boss went on a write-up spree against them. He even accused one worker of intentionally damaging equipment.
So the City fired the longtime employee right before Christmas 2021. It’s been a long and difficult couple years trying to make ends meet for him.
The racial discrimination lawsuit has dragged on for three Christmases. Now after all the delays and denials by the City’s legal team, a trial date is set for Oct. 9 at the Bay County courthouse.
The jury, the Press, and the public finally will get to watch City officials take the witness stand to explain under oath that the black workers were just “unhappy,” and that they didn’t like the new boss’s supervisory style.
Most of the black employees have been fired or have quit the Street Division of the Public Works Department. A couple years ago, the City posted a picture of the crew without a single black employee.
City officials say these were business decisions.
And the City insists that even if the workers were mistreated or discriminated against, it certainly wasn’t motivated by racial animus or anything like that.
More to follow …
