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Sexual Harassment

1162: Derek Cornette

Cajsa LilliehookLeave a comment
Derek Cornette

Derek Cornette was the alderman representing Davenport, Iowa’s Seventh District. Employees complained that he had a habit of sexually harassing female employees. When asked to stop, he said he would start calling men sweetie, honey, or darling.

There is video evidence of him attending city meetings while drunk.

The City called a special meeting and he was removed by a 7-3 vote. He has since sued the City.

Local News 4 WHBF
Davenport council removes alderman on allegations - Quad-City Times, The (IA) - September 8, 2023 - page 1 September 8, 2023 | Quad-City Times, The (IA) | Sarah Watson The Davenport City Council voted 7-3 to remove 7th Ward Ald. Derek Cornette Thursday night. The vote came after a two-hour hearing in which the city's legal department presented evidence Cornette came to council meetings appearing intoxicated and persistently addressed female employees inappropriately despite requests to stop the behavior. Cornette's attorney, Mike Meloy, argued that Cornette was not given enough time to thoroughly build a legal defense, and that Cornette's due process rights were violated. He argued that the voters, not the council, should be given authority to fire Cornette from representing the ward, and that the charges did not rise to the level of removal from office. Cornette, who was elected in 2021, has filed to run for reelection. A primary will be Oct. 10, the regular election Nov. 7. After the meeting, Cornette said he plans to run again, but declined to speak to allegations other than the intoxication charge, on which he says he was within legal limits. Assistant City Attorney Brian Heyer asked for statements from or asked questions of City Administrator Corri Spiegel, HR Director Alison Fleming, Police Chief Jeff Bladel and City Attorney Tom Warner, as well as played a video and voicemail recordings. Evidence presented included a voicemail Cornette left for Spiegel, which ended with "love ya, babe." Then, after Warner said he told Cornette not to call employees "babe" or other pet names, Cornette left another voicemail for Spiegel where he said "still love ya, babe." "This isn't a strip club. This isn't Tinder. This is the City of Davenport, a quarter of a billion-dollar municipal enterprise," Spiegel said in an impact statement she read aloud.
Quad-City Times, The (IA)
September 8, 2023
"I have successfully led this organization through thick and thin for the past eight years. I am blessed to work with an extraordinary professional employee team who's dedication and commitment to this community leaves me in awe," Spiegel said. "But to an elected official apparently all I deserve is to be harassed, demeaned, and belittled. And this is not something I should have to do in public in front of my bosses, in front of my staff, in front of the community." Then Fleming, answering questions from Heyer, said she'd received at least 10 to 15 complaints from female city employees about how Cornette interacted with them. She said that she and Warner had multiple meetings with Cornette to tell him that he couldn't use pet names such as "sweetie" or "dear" to address employees. Warner also told the council he had witnessed Cornette grab a female employee's hand and refer to her as "his little mama" and told her she was beautiful. Cornette also left a voicemail for At-Large Ald. Kyle Gripp on the city council voice mailbox, where he calls him a p***y. Heyer said two female administrative employees monitor and listen to the voicemail inbox to distribute voicemails and argued they were the intended audience for the message. Asked what would've happened if Cornette was a city employee, Fleming said the city would've terminated his employment. Heyer argued that the city has a legal obligation to protect employees from known harassment. But Meloy argued that no written complaint was made to the city's Human Resources department. Heyer pointed to previous reporting by the Quad-City Times where Cornette admitted employees had told him they were bothered by the way he addressed them.
"Alderman Cornette claimed to the media that he had talked to those two female staffers who were affected by his language and his conduct and that he had apologized and made amends. Is that true? There are two empty workstations upstairs. I believe to say that's not true," Heyer said. "Instead, the harassment continued. How many more empty workstations should we expect to suffer? How many more empty workstations are we willing to allow?" Heyer also outlined at least two meetings where Cornette appeared to be intoxicated. During a Feb. 28 management update meeting, Warner expressed concern to Bladel that Cornette's speech was slurred and his eyes were glassy, red, and bloodshot. After the meeting, which lasted about an hour, Warner, Bladel, and Fleming met with him in the HR conference room. Warner asked Cornette if he'd been drinking, he said, and Cornette said he had been earlier in the day, but he was fine. Cornette was offered assistance for alcohol usage and told that if he was drinking alcohol or intoxicated he shouldn't attend city meetings. Cornette declined a breathalyzer test, but was given a ride home. In a follow-up meeting March 10, Warner and Fleming urged Cornette not to show under the influence of alcohol, according to Heyer. On May 3, after officers noticed Cornette's eyes were glassy and bloodshot at a city council meeting, a Scott County sheriff lieutenant and Warner approached Cornette. In a video played for the council, Cornette admitted he'd consumed alcohol prior to attending the meeting and agreed to submit to a breath test. The test showed Cornette had a blood alcohol concentration of .072, which is .008 under the legal limit to drive. Heyer argued, however, that his blood alcohol content would have been above the legal limit before the meeting, which he had driven to. Meloy, in his closing statement argued: "the legal department has orchestrated this unlawful hearing which fails to comply with fundamental due process." Before the vote, Matson said he called the meeting "because we have went through many iterations of trying to address this and it hasn't been done, and we owe it to the employees. So, the question is do you condone this activity, behavior, or do you not?" The seven aldermen who voted to remove Cornette expressed disgust with how Cornette had conducted himself, especially after he'd been asked to improve his behavior.
The seven aldermen who voted to remove Cornette expressed disgust with how Cornette had conducted himself, especially after he'd been asked to improve his behavior. The three votes against removing Cornette were himself, Ald. Tim Kelly, Ward 5, who expressed concerns about fairness, and Ald. Judith Lee, Ward 8, who questioned whether the council was acting outside its legal authority and expressed concern that she could be the next alderman removed. Both were critical, however, of Cornette's actions. Copyright 2023, Lee Enterprises, Incorporated d/b/a The Quad-City Times, All Rights Reserved.

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