Submitted by admin on Fri, 2007-03-30 08:00. ::
SOMERSET — Reacting to a daily barrage of talk-show allegations that the town Highway Department has been — and may still be — a bastion of pornography and sexual assault, two recent female employees said yesterday they have seen no evidence of any sexual material at the department and insisted that they have been treated with nothing but respect by workers there.
And male workers at the department complained yesterday that repeated smears by WSAR radio — particularly by talk host Keri Rodrigues — have turned them into outcasts in the community.
Meanwhile, Rodrigues is calling on residents to converge on Town Hall tomorrow morning to confront the Board of Selectmen and Town Administrator John McAuliffe during a previously scheduled budget workshop.
Long-time Highway Department driver Kim Pelletier was given a $1,875,000 judgment against the town on Monday by a Superior Court jury, an amount that could swell to more than $2.7 million once interest is figured in.
During the week-long trial, Pelletier complained that during her 16 years at the department she had her breasts and butt grabbed, was called a "diesel dyke," and was subjected to other indignities.
She and others also testified that pornography was common in the department, and that workers viewed obscene videotapes at the department on at least three afternoons, on town time.
Rodrigues, since the start of the trial, has referred to the video showings as "the 3 o'clock matinees" and to the "perverts at the Highway Department."
She said it's not surprising that some town work would go undone these days "if you're spending 2 1/2 weeks a year watching pornography from 3 to 3:30."
After she tried to inspect the department on March 20 and was told to come back in an hour, she declined to wait, checking a few trucks on her own. "A lot can happen in an hour," she told her audience yesterday.
Both said, separately by phone yesterday, that they are stunned by the suggestion that there might be a culture of harassment and pornography at the facility.
"It's a great place to work down there," said Paskov-Sirois. "All the guys are gentlemen. I'm alone with them quite often. I've never had them say anything inappropriate to me. I've gone through the lunchroom, there's no porn."
"I am absolutely surprised by this because the treatment I received while working at the Highway Department was nothing but respectful," Farr said. "It was one of my most positive work experiences."
Asked if she ever saw any pornography anywhere on the premises, Farr said, "Absolutely not. And I wasn't restricted to one part of the building. I had free reign. I popped up everywhere in their building.
"The extent of the television these guys would watch at lunch time was soap operas and talk shows. Some of the guys, we would talk about cooking. These are average guys with families."
At Monday night's Special Town meeting, there was derisive laughter when the Playground and Recreation Commission said a proposed snack shack would be built by Highway Department workers. And when the commission said the shack would serve people coming to concerts or watching movies during recreation programs, someone in the audience got a big laugh by yelling "porn."
"I feel ashamed to out there, and it has nothing to do with me," said Michael Davidson, a truck driver. "It's sad for the town. The people don't know everything that's going on" because of WSAR's distorted coverage.
You can sometimes find porn at the department, the workers said. It's sometimes dumped by residents or found as part of a cleanup, particularly around some of the schools, they said.
"I take my job very seriously. I'm proud to wear my uniform. In five years, I haven't taken a sick day yet," he said. "But now people look at me like I'm a sex offender. Dogs are barking at me that never barked before."
John Sebastiao, the office clerk, said that when Rodrigues made a surprise visit last week, Highway Department Supt. Thomas Fitzgerald was called and the talk show hostess was asked to come back in a half-hour — not an hour, when Fitzgerald would be there. She went out and started checking trucks herself, and found nothing. Then she never came back. As for the allegations in the lawsuit, "The radio station makes it sound like [Pelletier] was coming to work everyday and being grabbed and groped and having Playboy thrown in her face," said Jeffrey Borges, a laborer.
Martins said complaints of harassment are taken seriously. "Someone was fired three years ago for making a comment. It's not that we don't follow through."
Thomas Pemberton, a laborer, said one of the people who testified against the town initially said, in a 2005 deposition, that he did not recall any lewd sexual comments being made toward Pelletier. "Then he got to thinking about it and suddenly he started to remember some. How does that work?"
Martins said the coworkers who sided with Pelletier "hated management. These were very bitter people. … She could have gone to the union, gone to the cops. It's political business. It's dirty business. We're stuck in the middle."
And Davidson said Selectman Eleanor Gagnon was happy when the verdict came in. "She just gave $3 million of taxpayers' money away. What's so funny about that?"
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