City Urged To Reconsider Firing Of Community Services Manager

EVANSTON, IL — The firing of the director of the Evanston's outreach program for at-risk youth over a series of alleged violations of the city's personnel rules involving parking tickets triggered an immediate backlash. Dozens of members of the public spoke to an overflow crowd at Monday's City Council meeting, urging city officials to reinstate the community service manager who has led the Youth and Young Adult Division within the city's Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department since it was created seven years ago.

Kevin Brown, 56, was terminated Friday from his position as community service manager. Since he was hired in 2012, Evanston has seen a 219 percent decline in the number of people between the ages of 16 and 24 arrested by its police, Brown said.

Meanwhile, city's youth employment program expanded from 163 positions in 2012 to 350 in 2013, 500 in 2014 and eventually 600 or more young people a year. A Cook County grant allowed the program to hire year round, providing an opportunity to provide job opportunities to young people and work with private employers.

Prior to coming to Evanston, Brown's career had spanned the public and private sector from California to New Jersey. He graduated in 1985 from Northwestern University, where he met and married his wife, an Evanston native. While associate dean of admissions at Pomona College in southern California in the late 1980s, he decided to go to law school, graduating in 1992 from Washington University in St. Louis. From there he worked as a city attorney in St. Louis, where he recalled seeing a lot of young people coming through the criminal courts.

"I decided I wanted to be on a different side," Brown said. "To try to prevent people from interacting with the criminal justice system."

From there, he worked briefly at Carlton College in Minnesota before taking a job at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey in the mid 1990s. When the head of that school became the superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute, he brought in Brown to help with institute's court-ordered transition to a coeducational school.

He later wound up as the head of St. HOPE Academy in Sacramento, founded by former NBA player and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. Brown said he helped with its transformation into a charter school and later ended up working for the district that granted its charter. He spent about 16 years in northern California, most recently as a policy consultant for the California School Board Association.

But when his mother-in-law fell ill in 2011, Brown found himself commuting back and forth between Evanston and Sacramento and began looking for a job in his wife's hometown. He had interviewed for a position as an executive director at a local nonprofit, but chance meetings with former Deputy City Manager Joe McRae and then-City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz led him to apply to become the first head of a new Youth and Young Adult program. He got the job.

Starting with one deputy and two outreach workers, Brown set about putting together a plan to address youth development, violence interdiction and workforce development. Reducing youth violence was a top priority of former Mayor Liz Tisdahl, Brown said, remembering there had been a spike in violence in during the summer and fall of 2012. One of those killed was 14-year-old Evanston Township High School freshman Dajae Coleman. The man convicted of his killing five years later was sentenced in April to 71 years in prison.

Public Support

Tisdahl, who served as mayor from 2009 to 2017, was among about 40 people who spoke in support of Brown during public comment at the City Council's Nov. 18 meeting. In her first few years as mayor, Tisdahl said, she attended far too many funerals of young men killed in gun violence. At one such funeral in what she described as the "pre-Kevin Brown" era, she urged those assembled not to retaliate.

"I looked at the faces of the congregation, and the stony faces of the young men made it clear that they were going to retaliate. I had not walked in their shoes. I am white and a grandmother. They discounted everything I had to say," Tisdahl said.

"After Kevin came, I went with him on Saturday nights in the summer, several Saturday nights, to talk to the people who were out on the street, young men who did not come to City Council meetings," Tisdahl said. She remembered being skeptical they would listen to her, but Brown asked her to come anyway. "So I went with him and with a couple outreach workers and I went up to the young people who were on the streets and I said, 'I'm your mayor, and you don't come to council meetings, so I'm coming after you to find out what you want.' And they all wanted jobs, so Kevin and the Youth and Young Adult group did a tremendous job getting jobs. The reason that those kids would talk to me — I was still a white grandmother — but I had Kevin and they trusted him and they figured if he was with me, he vouched for me, I must be OK."

The former mayor said it was terribly sad to be discussing Brown's termination rather than celebrating the work of his division.

"The young people who wanted jobs have much better options now thanks to Kevin," she said. "I know that Kevin did not do all of this on his own. Many of you were on the council when I was and helped him, and he stands on the shoulder of the police force, the not-for-profits in town, many, many people. But Kevin has done an remarkable job and one of the best things I did as mayor, I believe, was to encourage Kevin and to support Kevin and I am here to ask you to do the same."

Rudy Meo, senior accountant at Evanston Township High School District 202 and a coach for the ETHS boys basketball team, said Brown had a unique ability to empathize with those in need of male mentorship in the Evanston community.

"He does more than what is asked of him. For example, we had a troubled youth who was dealing with a ton of adversity recently. He needed another route, another scenery. Kevin took the two of us and introduced him and I to an opportunity that would change his life forever," Meo said. "This meant taking an entire weekend simply to mentor this child and show him that there is hope for him. He truly makes our city a better place. His spirit of mentorship, volunteerism is a natural part of his life and for that, I can't imagine this community without him."

The public outpouring of support for Brown at the City Council meeting following his termination echoed an episode from last year's budget process. At the Oct. 22, 2018, meeting, more than a dozen community members spoke out against a plan by the former city manager to restructure Brown's department and move his position to the Community Development department to focus on workforce development with a smaller staff.

Brown and many of his supporters felt the move was designed to lay the groundwork for his job to be eliminated. Though aldermen admitted they had little control over Bobkiewicz's managerial decisions — in Evanston's council-manager form of government the city manager is responsible for all staffing issues and the City Council is not supposed to intervene in personnel matters — the reorganization plan was withdrawn and the Youth and Young Adult Division remained intact.

Bobkiewicz's last day as city manager was Sept. 27, after he was hired by the city of Issaquah, Washington. He was succeeded on an interim basis by his assistant, Erika Storlie, so it is up to her to determine Brown's fate. Evanston aldermen have no power to reinstate Brown, but Storlie could accept an appeal of his termination. According to the city's personnel manual, that must be filed by Nov. 25.

All but one of the allegations concern conduct prior to Bobkiewicz's departure. But the moves to build the groundwork to justify Brown's termination appear to have ramped up the week after he left, with reminders to submit proper receipts or statements signed by immediate supervisors and that tickets for illegally parking in city lots will not be waived and employees will be held personally responsible for paying them.

Storlie and Mayor Steve Hagerty have declined to comment on the matter, citing policies prohibiting the discussion of personnel matters.

"I cannot share any of the details other than to say that Mr. Brown has selectively decided to make his case to the public without putting forward all relevant information," Hagerty said, in his response to communications from community members.

Brown pointed out he has publicly shared the full memo of the allegations against him and his response. It is not clear what other relevant information Hagerty might have meant, but the substance of the allegations is below.

Parking Ticket Allegations

According to an Oct. 31 memo from Lawrence Hemingway, director of Parks, Recreation and Community Services, the city determined Brown had violated a series of city regulations and personnel rules in a manner "which rises to the level of gross incompetence." It accuses Brown of insubordination, theft, negligence and a violation of the city's purchasing card policies, among other things. All the allegations relate to parking tickets the city has issued to vehicles used by Brown's staff for city business.

The city has issued 14 tickets to outreach staff, most of them for parking over the two-hour maximum time limit in the Civic Center parking lot at 2100 Ridge Ave., according to Hemingway's memo. One citation involved a street cleaning ticket and a towing fee after a city vehicle was moved onto the adjacent street. Another involved a ticket to a city-owned car which had expired registration.

The parking restrictions at issue were put in place August 2017, when some portion of the Civic Center lot converted to two-hour visitor parking spots. Hemingway said Brown's staff was reminded in February 2018 not to park in the areas, which on at least one occasion impeded snow plowing in the lot. Brown was told again in July 2018 not to park in the lot, with an email from Assistant Director of Community Services Karen Hawk to Brown including a "gentle reminder" not to park in in the two-hour spots and saying it would be enforced by parking tickets for which staff would be responsible.

Hemingway noted two tickets issued in August 2017 to a city-owned Nissan Altima were voided by an unspecified staff member. (The city has yet to respond to a request for records of all tickets voided by Hemingway.) The memo also acknowledges in both cases where Brown appealed the ticket in 2018, an administrative law judge found that he was not liable. The city's "official business parking permit" placard, displayed on city vehicles while performing city business, allows for staff to "park in areas that have a posted time limit of 30 minutes or longer," as well as areas that require residential parking permits.

The memo asserts Brown demonstrated a blatant disregard for city policies, accusing him of "gross incompetence and negligence" for paying tickets with the city card and filing appeals. It says he did not reprimand his staff, although Brown says there was never any investigation that interviewed his staff. Paying the city-issued fines with a city-issued credit card resulted in $1 credit card processing fees for each transactions. Since two tickets were appealed and three were voided, that amounted to a total of $9 in fees. Hemingway said that qualifies as theft of city funds and a misuse of city property in violation of the city's code of ethics.

"In every situation that you used a City credit card to pay a ticket, fine, and/or late fee, which was the responsibility of the respective drivers, you exercised incredibly bad judgement. You had no permission or authorization to pay for these on behalf of your staff, and you did nothing to curb or stop the behavior. Instead, you ignored, and endorsed the behavior by paying these tickets with your City credit card," Hemingway said.

Hemingway also took issue with Brown's description of the credit card expenses. Brown described them as "city ticketed outreach vehicle," "city towed outreach vehicle," "city of Evanston parking ticket on outreach vehicle," "outreach parking" on the website of the bank used by the city. The department director said that "demonstrated an intent to deceive."

The most recent ticket was issued on June 26 and paid on Sept. 17. According to Hemingway, Youth and Young Adult outreach staff have continued to ignore the parking restrictions.

"The Nissan Altima has continued to be parked past the 2-hour restriction and overnight in the 2-hour restricted areas, which prompted Karen to send another email on October 3, 2019, directly to you reminding you to advise your staff not to park in restricted areas," he said in his Oct. 31 memo, which put Brown on paid administrative leave and set a pre-disciplinary meeting of Nov. 6.

Outreach Staff Respond

Brown denied the allegations and said he was instructed by Hemingway and Hawk to pay the parking tickets with a city card. He pointed to the past practice of employees getting their parking tickets voided, and questioned why he was never previously disciplined. He said Hemingway never raised the issue with him personally or in a meeting or issued any warnings of discipline.

"To make an example out of me, and not consider others, in my opinion, is a pretext," Brown said. "It wasn't the real reason for the termination." He said he had been directed on numerous occasions by department director Hemingway, his assistant and other senior managers no longer working for the city to pay for the tickets with a city card. He emphasized that all credit card transactions and descriptions were approved by the director or assistant director.

"We took tickets to the director, and I believe he actually got those voided himself, Lawrence Hemingway. So we took the tickets to Lawrence and said, 'Hey they're ticketing our vehicles, it's not fair.' He goes down to parking, he gets the tickets voided. So, he doesn't like doing that and neither does Karen Hawk, so what they end up doing is say, 'OK, I don't want to deal with the parking people, just go ahead and pay it,'" Brown said. He refuted the claim in Hemingway's memo that he never had permission or authorization to pay the fines on the city card, recalling a conversation following the Sept. 17, 2018, towing of an outreach vehicle.

"I'm not paying for it, how do you want me to do this?" Brown remembered saying. "'Well just go down and get the vehicle, use your city credit card,' that's exactly what they said."

Brown suggested his his advocacy on behalf of non-white employees in Evanston's city government likely contributed to his termination.

"I have been very outspoken on injustices that I see happening within the city. I talk a lot about equity. I don't think black employees are treated fairly at the city. I think more are terminated," Brown said. "Certainly the pay scale, black staff are paid less. I was even on a different managerial pay scale than white managers, so I was making less money than white managers who had similarly situated duties."

With a nearly $90,000 annual salary, Brown had the highest base earnings of any of the managers in the parks department, according to the city's 2019 budgeted employee compensation and organizational charts. The city's website does not list the races and years of service of city employees, so no white managers with comparable duties could be immediately identified.

"No one ever said why I was on a different track than these other managers," Brown said. He suggested it was not about experience or qualifications, considering his 30 years of experience with youth and multiple post-graduate degrees. "I can't explain what makes one person in one track, [or] in another track. I don't think they can adequately explain it either."

Brown believes his advocacy in management meetings about inequities in city government contributed to his ouster. In one meeting, he said he responded to Hawk's efforts to change the policy of where participants in the city's summer jobs program received their paychecks. Instead of having them delivered through their place of employment, they would have had to pick up the paychecks at the Civic Center between noon and 1 p.m. on payday or, otherwise, receive them through the mail. Brown said that would have meant delays of three or four days for many young employees to get paid.

"In the challenging of the policy, I raised the issues about equity and white privilege and I said, 'This is going to impact kids of color,' because a lot of them don't have direct deposit for a variety of reasons," he said. "And some people did not like that. I know that that's a fact, and I think that that's part of the retaliation."

Another speaker at City Council introduced a different possible motivation for retaliation against Brown.

Porschia Davis started working the city in early 2013 shortly after Brown was hired. In 2016, her work with the Youth and Young Adult division earned her recognition as one of Chicago Scholars' 35 under 35 Young Leaders Making an Impact in 2016. Tisdahl described her as "terrific." She said she departed the city in February 2019 following a period of harassment while working under Hemingway, who she said had plotted to remove Brown within the first six months of his hiring in early 2016.

"The biggest red flag is when the director [Hemingway] sat in my office and flat out said, 'I know you want a promotion. I know you want to make more money. The only way for you to get more money is for us to get rid of Kevin, and the only way I can get rid of Kevin is through you. You're the only one that's protecting him,’" Davis said.

Davis said she suspected Hemingway wanted her to stop providing Brown with administrative support. After receiving a raise in 2016, she said the director told her she would not receive another one until Brown was removed.

"He pretty much said I can't do much for you unless you get Kevin out. 'If you can get him out, you'll get his job.' This was said, like, verbatim. I was flabbergasted, to say the least. I allowed him to continue to talk. I just let him kind of diarrhea of the mouth. When he left, I immediately went in to my boss, Kevin, and told him, 'This is what he said, I can't believe he said this,'" she recalled. "Exactly what he told me his intentions were, it's been executed."

Davis said outreach workers had long felt city parking enforcement staff had unfairly targeted them in a way that other departments did not experience. She said Hemingway demonstrated little interest in understanding what the Youth and Young Adult division did.

"He had made it a point to discredit the Youth and Young Adult division on several instances where it was just flat-out a lie. There're instances I can reference specifically where he intentionally discredited the division, and honestly kind of put some of their lives in danger. Because the work that they do is off of credibility, so if you're telling the community that outreach workers are police — or work with police — that is a direct and an intentional effort to discredit the work that they're doing, and it puts them in danger. So we know for sure that was done."

Davis speculated the former city manager resented that the division, along with the police and fire departments, were the only parts of the city’s budget that remained untouched amid reductions in recent years "because the community deemed it a critical resource for them. So the city manager listened, but I would say he was pissed off about having to do that. So this backhanded documentation, I think, was a way to get rid of [Brown.]"

She said increases in the budget for Youth and Young Adult services have come at the expense of the parks department's budget, so Hemingway had directed staff to minimize spending to allow him to use its budget as a "slush fund."

Addressing the City Council Monday, Davis told aldermen Hemingway had called her "Pocahontas" and "Lil' Bit" and told her she "looked good over the weekend in a bikini" in front of other employees.

"You all did nothing to protect staff from being openly targeted, harassed and, for me, sexually," she told elected officials and city staff. "I'm again asking City Council that an independent investigation be conducted on the current director of the Parks and Recreation Department for harassment, the Human Resources [Department that] actively participated in this cover-up and the intentional targeting of the division and the employment of Kevin Brown be reconsidered and overturned because this is not right.”

After speaking during public comment, Davis explained she first did not recognize Hemingway's behavior as harassment. She initially "just thought he was being an idiot." Eventually she was confronted by co-workers.

"'I have kids your age, and if my daughter was being spoken to in that manner, I would be very upset,'" she recalled being told. "They brought the race card and were like, 'If this was a white man talking to you in this manner, you would have reported his ass.' And that truly was like a light bulb moment ... I started to replay all the thing that were happening and then, 'You're right,' and that's when it was like — this is wrong.

"It did not register, I just registered him as being an idiot and just inappropriate, but it began to get more progressive, and my need to get the hell out of here," Davis said, explaining she could document the issue over a two-year period and the city was well aware of the problem.

Human Resources Director Jennifer Lin conducted interviews with her co-workers, who told her it felt more like the city was going through the motions than trying to resolve the issue regarding her harassment, Davis said.

Brown said he defended Davis against Hemingway and reported the harassment to Human Resources, but Lin never interviewed him as part of any investigation of the department director.

"So I think he resented me over that situation, because, you know, he was sexually harassing her," Brown said. "I overheard the comments that he would make toward her."

Davis said she was not the only woman subject to Hemingway's harassment. Other women he harassed, including one who used to sit in her office and cry as a result of how uncomfortable the director had made her, had since departed, according to Davis, who now works as a financial operations manager at a nonprofit.

"You can't cherry pick right and wrong, and there's a lot of things that have been cherry picked here that are just not right," Davis said. "It's just not right and there's been no due process."

Hemingway has not responded to requests for comment regarding the allegations of sexual harassment or whether ever he directed his staff to pay parking tickets using a city credit card. This article will be updated with any response he provides.

Elected Officials Respond

City Clerk Devon Reid spoke during public comment after the mayor denied his request to address the public from the dais. Instead of addressing aldermen, he picked up the microphone and turned toward the overflow crowd.

"The decision that has been made regarding Kevin Brown doesn't reflect our principals, nor does it reflect our rules, and that is the concern that I have," Reid said. "We have seen a pattern, in this city, of racial inequity. We've seen a pattern of folks who speak out about racism and call out the city being systemically, systematically fired and terminated, and I think we have a duty to address this."

"The council and the mayor do not have the authority to hire and fire staff," Reid pointed out. "One of the things that we must do as citizens is rethink the foundation of our government, re-think whether a city manager form of government is what we want. We should be able to hold our elected officials more directly accountable to the decisions that are made here in the city."

Ald. Cicely Fleming, 9th Ward, said she heard the community's concerns about the firing of Brown, who she described as a dear friend.

"The clerk has explained to you what our role is as City Council, I have told the previous city manager and the current city manager that I would love to be in charge of HR, but that is not the job that I have now. My job is to hold accountable those folks who make these decisions. So, I am not consulted when we are hiring or firing staff, which is a frustration of mine but it is the position that I have," Fleming said. She said she had pushed for racial equity during her campaign for the council and since her election in 2017.

"I did not think it would be this hard from my seat. I thought being in this seat you would have a little more influence, and I'm learning that it's not as fast as I thought. So as much as I want us to get there, we are not there, it is slow, hard painful work, I don't know if we will achieve it before my term is over, if I'm being honest," she said.

"I am all for the rules. I am a rule follower, but I always object when the rules have to start with black folks," Fleming said. "I will always stand up for the rules. I will always tell people, even my friends, if I think that they're out of line, but the rules have to apply across the board and whenever the rules, in my opinion, sway one way, whether it's race or gender, they're not really rules, they're just preferences. "

Ald. Peter Braithwaite, 2nd Ward, said he was always moved when the black community comes out to the City Council.

"I hope that you continue to come back until we get this matter resolved, because for me this is not a personnel issue, it's really deeper and it speaks to the community, our values and, more importantly, our black children," Braithwaite said. "Thank you all so much, from my seat, thank you, thank you, thank you."

Ald. Don Wilson, 4th Ward, also thanked attendees for sharing their thoughts.

"Rules exist for a reason, however rules have to evolve, and rules have to sometimes change," Wilson said. "So I think what's instructive for us is we listen to what people have to say, and Aldermen Fleming kind of identified the fact that we expect the people that are doing the work to follow the rules and we expect those at the dais to evaluate how it all works. So it's on us to see whether it's working or whether it's not working, and it's on us to make that evolutionary change. I accept responsibility for that going forward, and I think we all take it seriously and I think that's what we're all aspiring to do — the nine of us and the mayor."

Ald. Robin Rue Simmons, 5th Ward, said she wanted to celebrate all of Brown's work for the city.

"I don't think that can be argued with anyone," Rue Simmons said. "And I want to share my frustration in the way this is managed and I'm not able to speak to it. With that said, I'm hopeful that our community can be comfortable and trust that every member of City Council is doing their very best that they know how from their lived experience, and we will continue providing the necessary services of the Youth and Young Adult department."

Rue Simmons said that she was listening to all feedback from the public even when unable to respond.

"So know that I've read all of your emails, but it is a personnel matter and the way the policy works is we just can't discuss it," she said. "I'm certain that more information will come out about this, but please do feel confident that our city staff and our city leadership is committed to providing the services that you all have spoke so eloquently about."

The other aldermen present following the public comment period at the end of the meeting — 1st Ward Ald. Judy Fiske, 3rd Ward Ald. Melissa Wynne, 6th Ward Ald. Tom Suffredin and 7th Ward Ald. Eleanor Revelle — did not address Brown's termination. Ald. Ann Rainey, 8th Ward, departed the meeting before the public comment began.

While his sudden departure without an opportunity to notify the city's partners has already had some negative impacts on the work of the Youth and Young Adult division, Brown said he loves the work he does and would be ready to return despite what has transpired so far. Before his termination, the division had been due to move from the parks department into the Health and Human Services department with the city's new budget.

"I think it's important work, it's extremely valuable," he said. "I'd be willing to come back to the city and just continue what I was doing because I really think we make a difference in the lives of a lot of residents."

Read more: Oct. 31 Notice of Pre-Disciplinary Hearing and Nov. 6 Response and Rebuttal from Kevin Brown