By John Pacenti
Accusations that rocked the Delray Beach apparatchik for weeks came to an end June 27 when an independent investigator found the claim by a recently hired director that her job was threatened by Vice Mayor Rob Long to be “unsubstantiated.”
Still, the investigator — attorney Brooke Ehrlich — found plenty of room for improvement, recommending City Manager Terrence Moore stop his practice of conference calls with city employees and individual commissioners. She also recommended that commissioners stop directly contacting city directors — and, if they do, ensure the city attorney or internal auditor is on the line.
In the meantime and before the investigation’s conclusion, the center of the storm — Rodney Mayo, lightning rod restaurant and coffee shop owner — decided to pour gasoline over the already raging fire by releasing a scathing email that blasted the director who leveled the complaint: Jeri Pryor, the neighborhood and community services director who also oversees code enforcement.
The report redacts Pryor’s name, but The Coastal Star previously identified her as the complainant, citing a leaked document.
Pryor accused City Manager Terrence Moore and Long of telling her in a Feb. 20 conference call to “stand down” on code enforcement for Mayo’s Subculture coffee shop and his restaurant Dada. She said they “threatened her employment,” according to the report.
Moore and Long react
The 52-page report — obtained by The Coastal Star July 1 through a public records request — also found “unsubstantiated” Pryor’s complaint that Moore directed her to go soft on businesses represented by the Downtown Development Authority.
“With the conclusion of this investigation, the City remains committed to fostering a respectful and supportive work environment,” Moore said in a July 1 statement.
“We look forward to strengthening leadership within Neighborhood and Community Services and across all departments to ensure positive, productive relationships both internally and in service to our community.”
Long emailed a statement, saying the complaint called his integrity into question.
“The report also raises legitimate concerns about the reliability of the complainant’s account. She waited two months to raise her complaint, never brought her concerns to her direct supervisor, and acknowledged that her decision to file was shaped by prior trauma in a different workplace,” Long said.
“Those factors, combined with the absence of corroborating evidence and the consistent accounts of multiple witnesses, speak for themselves. I’m grateful that the facts are now on the record.”
Pryor, when she was working as chief of staff for Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Warren Sturman, filed a complaint against Commissioner Steve Glassman there for using an expletive in her presence on Jan. 9, 2024. Pryor accused Glassman of “violent, hostile and aggressive behavior.”
The investigator ended up recommending that the Fort Lauderdale City Commission adopt a code of conduct, but concluded that Glassman’s comments did not constitute harassment or bullying.
Pryor did not return a phone call for comment.
Not a whistleblower
At times, the report flies far afield from the central complaint to address Pryor’s numerous accusations.
There are pages delving into alleged bad behavior by a developer subject to a noise complaint and how Pryor felt undermined by Moore and Deputy City Manager Jeff Oris at the April 22 commission meeting when commissioners inquired about code violations by Subculture on Northeast Sixth Avenue.
The meandering report was released to The Coastal Star without any supportive documentation or addendums — such as Pryor’s original complaint and her supporting material.
It also made another significant finding: Pryor was not considered a whistleblower. Pryor had claimed protection under the state law, stating that Long and Moore violated the city’s charter by telling her to engage in “selective enforcement.”
“Whether or not (Pryor) engaged in a protected disclosure is unnecessary to examine in this matter, given that ultimately, no adverse employment action has been taken by the City against (Pryor) since the time her disclosure was made,” Ehrlich found.
The phone call
Pryor was hired in January and Moore said he felt the phone call was more of an introduction between her and Long.
Long said he felt the phone call was cordial.
Both men denied putting any pressure on Pryor to go easy on Mayo’s establishments but said the conversation may have addressed prioritizing “big” code violations, rather than “small” ones.
Dada had been cited for using an A-frame sign, which is prohibited by the city.
Pryor, though, said Long yelled at her and threatened her employment.
“I’m telling you right now, lay off of them, just lay off of them,” Pryor claimed Long said. “This person [Mr. Mayo] has been in business for 25 years. You need to leave them alone. This is just a small issue.”
Long disputes that, saying: “The conversation at the center of this investigation was described consistently by both myself and Mr. Moore as brief, professional, and focused on broader goals such as education, voluntary compliance, and rebuilding trust in Code Enforcement.”
Ehlrich’s report claims that Moore and Long contradict each other, but then goes off on an unrelated tangent. At most, the two men’s accounts have insignificant differences.
Commissioner Juli Casale said there had been at least one other incident of Long — her political nemesis on the dais — yelling at a city director.
“The report ignores the fact that this is not the only recent incident of this nature, involving the same city commissioner,” she said. “I am inclined to believe the city employee who had no reason to falsely report the incident and immediately documented it verbally and in writing.”
Long said he doesn't know of any other email from a director making a complaint about him. "I virtually never speak to our directors unless Terrence is present and I have absolutely never disrespected, bullied or given specific directions to them. Any aspersions to the contrary are more politically motivated lies," he said.
Mayo on the attack
Mayo certainly didn’t sit on the sidelines when his businesses were brought into the fray.
He unleashed a June 17 email — at 3:14 a.m., no less — to Delray Beach commissioners, blasting Pryor. Mayo entitled his email, “The Jeri Pryor Dossier — politics is ugly and inept!”
“Can anyone on the Commission or city staff justify the newly hired head of community services Jeri Pryor?” Mayo wrote. “Was there any due diligence, background checks or concern of Mrs. Pryor's past job performance and strange anomalies? Is this the best hire the city of Delray can offer its residents?”
Mayo attached documents that showed poor performance reviews and Pryor’s previous complaint against the Fort Lauderdale commissioner.
“Our staff work hard. They deserve to be protected from persistent offenders when they are merely doing their job,” Casale said at the June 17 meeting.
Moore and Mayor Tom Carney also criticized Mayo’s email as inappropriate.
Mayo said he is concerned his coffee shop has been unfairly targeted for having modest events.
“I had to cancel our chess club, comedy night, open mic night, poetry readings. Everything has been canceled in Delray because I was told I'm going to get another $3,500 violation if I do it.”
When asked why he went on the offensive with the email, Mayo said he is being singled out and targeted for political reasons.
He said Long was going to have his wedding reception at Dada because the commissioner met his fiancée there. But Long cancelled because of the uproar with Subculture and the whistleblower complaint. “He was going to pay full price, no discount,” Mayo said.
“The whole whistleblower thing was about Subculture and me and that started with Jeri and since then, I’ve had nonstop violations, inspections,” Mayo said. “I’ve been scrutinized to the nth degree.”
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