Councilman Emmanuel Remy: Guilty as charged, your honor!
It was exactly as The Rooster reported late last month, not that Councilmembers Dorans or Day-Achauer will be apologizing for their nasty behavior anytime soon.
Columbus City Council unanimously approved an $84.7K settlement to a former female staffer of Emmanuel Remy on Monday night.
Remy was the only member absent due to a previously scheduled conflict, according to one impeccable City Hall source.
You can watch the entire 16-minute proceeding, which ended at 10:11 p.m., after the council spent nearly three hours in executive session discussing the night’s settlement allotments.
The Rooster broke the news on Oct. 27—days before voters re-elected Remy, who was running unopposed, to another four-year term.
Remy also helped underwrite the campaign of successful council newcomer Tiara Ross with at least $71,605 in “in-kind” donations. That number could grow even higher in the yet-to-be-filed final campaign finance report.
Remy, and by extension Ross, who took his money and touted his endorsement, never had to speak about the documented allegations of a toxic workplace that Council was aware of in June, as Councilman Rob Dorans admitted.
In my opinion, City Hall worked to keep these allegations under wraps throughout the election season, especially now that we know the aggrieved staffer resigned on Sept. 29, which suggests the settlement payout was all but assured.
But staking my opinion on the public timeline of the allegations, resignation and settlement negotiations is all I have.
In the council’s defense, it’s as Dorans and the city’s attorney’s office said: There is no set timeline to settlements. Every situation is different.
And compared to the timeline and payout to the former staffer that Mayor Suburbs illegally forced to work on his re-election campaign, Council President Shannon Hardin looked like a beacon of transparency compared to our odious mayor, who never took public accountability like Hardin did on Monday night:
The only way that statement could have gotten better was if he had asked Councilman Remy for his resignation.
But if you go back and read The Rooster’s original reporting, almost every element was confirmed last night.
According to sources in the City Attorney’s office and City Hall, the letter documents Remy’s toxic behavior in the workplace in a way that’s unsurprising to anyone familiar with his drinking habits or his ability to cycle through aides.
The letter, according to sources, also alleges that Council President Shannon Hardin called Remy’s wife in an attempt to curb the problematic behavior.
That effort appears to have been unsuccessful. According to multiple City Hall sources, the filing led the council to strip Remy of his aides—a disciplinary action that, as of this writing, remains in effect.
The only exception is the reported notice of allegations mentioning that President Hardin called Remy’s wife in an attempt to quell his dickish behavior.
And we’ll have that confirmation soon enough.
Council affirmed last night that the lawyer’s letter of allegations will be subject to public records requests when Mayor Suburbs signs the emergency legislation in the coming days, likely while traveling in the back of a taxpayer-funded SUV to a golf course outside city limits.
Given that The Rooster was the only outlet in the city to expose the settlement—apparently within hours of the settlement being finalized, according to Dorans’ timeline—before the election, it’s curious then that Councilwoman Nancy Day-Achauer accused The Rooster of “lying to the public” in a communication with a constituent:
It’s a sentiment that Dorans echoed in his missive when he was greasing the tracks to make the settlement look as benign as possible.
He referenced a “public speaker” who had “leveled accusations” about Remy’s sexual misconduct.
Day-Achauer, and to a lesser extent Dorans, were intentionally gaslighting well-intended citizens to damage my credibility.
Thankfully, there’s video evidence to refute their claims.
Around 12 p.m. on Oct. 27—the day of the last council meeting before the election—The Rooster received a credible tip that Councilman Remy was the subject of a six-figure sexual harassment payout that the council was intentionally stalling until after the election.
It was an explosive allegation any day of the year, but especially eight days before Remy was set to waltz to another four-year term while also underwriting Ross’ campaign.
I knew my usual City Hall sources wouldn’t deliver the goods without something concrete.
And City Hall does not operate like the Statehouse, where legislators must navigate public areas. Thanks to City Hall’s private garage, private stairwells, private entrance and elevated dias, councilmembers don’t have to set foot in a public area throughout their hours-long meetings if they don’t want to.
And so, I used my famous trick: I signed a speaker slip for a totally mundane legislative action before pivoting to the matter at hand:
I intended to confront Remy directly, but he wasn’t there—a previously scheduled absence, according to multiple council sources.
So, I did the next best thing. I asked some loaded questions, without ever mentioning Remy by name. Because, if there was truth to the allegations, I wanted the denial on record for after the election.
Ultimately, I gleaned valuable information when President Hardin, always the consummate poker player in that situation, said he couldn’t speak to “any sexual anything.”
It wasn’t a denial that there was any claim against a council member, just that the allegations weren’t sexual in nature.
I could have gone home, cut the video, and posted the exchange on my social media channels. And maybe in my more drunken days, I would have done just that.
But instead, I went home and continued to shake some trees in private conversations. And they were bountiful conversations that led to 100-percent accurate reporting about a settlement three weeks before it appeared on the city council’s docket.
And I would have let my work speak for itself if Councilmembers Day-Achauer and Dorans hadn’t tried to soil my name.
My style is unorthodox. I don’t follow standard journalistic rules.
Dorans and Day-Achauer don’t have to respect it.
Still, they must acknowledge that I wouldn’t have needed to resort to audacious tactics if their instinct wasn’t to protect an obnoxious, often-drunk cretin and they had leaked the news to The Rooster in June when they learned of the allegations.