{"id":2419,"date":"2021-12-03T08:46:19","date_gmt":"2021-12-03T07:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2021\/12\/03\/state-investigates-if-ogdensburg-lawmakers-facebook-post-was-sexual-harassment-wwny\/"},"modified":"2021-12-03T08:46:19","modified_gmt":"2021-12-03T07:46:19","slug":"state-investigates-if-ogdensburg-lawmakers-facebook-post-was-sexual-harassment-wwny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2021\/12\/03\/state-investigates-if-ogdensburg-lawmakers-facebook-post-was-sexual-harassment-wwny\/","title":{"rendered":"State investigates if Ogdensburg lawmaker&#039;s Facebook post was sexual harassment &#8211; WWNY"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"cfbc967f0983488262956e73eca9483a\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3859091246952232\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- blok -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3859091246952232\" data-ad-slot=\"1334354390\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n\n<\/div>\n<p>OGDENSBURG, New York (WWNY) &#8211; Was an Ogdensburg lawmaker\u2019s Facebook post sexual harassment? A state agency is investigating that.<br \/>It happened at the height of the battle over library funding.<br \/>Ogdensburg City Councillor Steve Fisher posted the following comment on Facebook about library executive director Penny Kerfien: \u201cPenny she gotten a little bitchy. She\u2019s only worried about herself. Even when we gave them money it was never enough I hope it\u2019s voted down. It would reduce our tax cut of 10 percent to 5. Let\u2019s not forget we pick board members. I won\u2019t!\u201d<br \/>It was the last word in the first sentence of Fisher\u2019s comment that jumped out at Kerfien.<br \/>\u201cI was kind of shocked,\u201d she said. \u201cThat word is not a good word as far as I\u2019m concerned. So, I was surprised it was put out there in public.\u201d<br \/>It was in response to a post from the Friends of the Library urging people to vote \u201cyes\u201d on a $225,000 funding referendum.<br \/>Kerfien was also concerned about Fisher\u2019s last words on picking board members \u2013 essentially Kerfien\u2019s bosses. She took it as a threat.<br \/>\u201cI think it added insult to the injury,\u201d said Kerfien.<br \/>Fisher took the post down that same day. He later apologized to Kerfien.<br \/>But, the library board investigated. It recommended certain actions to the city. They included banning Fisher from discussing or voting on library funding as well as board appointments.<br \/>\u201cMost of their demands were things the city could not entertain and certainly we couldn\u2019t force Councilman Fisher or any councillor to entertain, which is ultimately to give up their right and their duty to vote on certain issues and abstain from things,\u201d said Stephen Jellie, Ogdensburg city manager.<br \/>Jellie noted Fisher took the comment down and apologized. Jellie acknowledges the post was \u201cinsensitive.\u201d<br \/>\u201cBut insensitive is a long way from sexual harassment,\u201d he said.<br \/>When the city failed to act on the library board\u2019s recommendations, Kerfien took matters into her own hands. In July, she filed her own complaint of sexual harassment and retaliation with the state\u2019s Division of Human Rights.<br \/>Before the Division of Human Rights takes any action, Kerfien and the city could elect to settle this voluntarily. But right now, there seems to be little chance of that.<br \/>The city sent its response to the complaint to the Division of Human Rights in July. Since then, neither Kerfien nor the city has heard back.<br \/><i>Copyright 2021 WWNY. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wwnytv.com\/2021\/12\/02\/state-investigates-if-ogdensburg-lawmakers-facebook-post-was-sexual-harassment\/\">source<\/a><\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OGDENSBURG, New York (WWNY) &#8211; Was an Ogdensburg lawmaker\u2019s Facebook post sexual harassment? A state agency is investigating that.It happened at the height of the battle over library funding.Ogdensburg City Councillor Steve Fisher posted the following comment on Facebook about library executive director Penny Kerfien: \u201cPenny she gotten a little bitchy. She\u2019s only worried about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAow1sXXCw:productID":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}