NEWS
‘Undisputed’
Investigation finds Arcata councilmember harassed city employee By Kimberly Wear kim@northcoastjournal.com
A
n outside investigation has found Arcata City Councilmember Brett Watson sexually harassed a city employee and used his position to make undue demands for the individual’s time and attention over the course of more than two years. That included expecting her to respond to text messages about his personal life and feelings for her at all hours, wanting to spend hours with her each week and insisting on drawn-out hugs when the two met professionally. He was, according to the employee, a “constant interruption” in her life. It also found Watson retaliated against the unnamed employee — criticizing her work and threatening to put her job performance up for review — when she deflected his romantic interest and tried to set boundaries on their interactions. The recently released findings by the Danville-based law firm Kramer Workplace Investigations offer the first real insight into allegations that surfaced publicly at an Oct. 20 special Arcata City Council meeting when Watson’s fellow councilmembers removed him from his second turn as mayor and cast a vote of no confidence in his ability to serve as an elected representative, citing unspecified “alleged behaviors” that had come to light. Within days, Watson announced he was entering a treatment program “to focus on depression and personal issues,” but returned to the dais in late November, with the city launching the investigation shortly afterward. The names of the employee and seven witnesses interviewed were redacted from the 28-page report released to the Journal under a California Public Records Act request, which included hundreds of additional pages of support documents, including
emails and text messages between Watson and the employee, as well as contemporaneous notes she took to document their interactions. Watson was not interviewed, according to the report, despite repeated unsuccessful scheduling attempts with a succession of three attorneys who each represented him briefly over the course of two months. In a statement to the Journal, Watson wrote that he has “never harassed anyone” in his life, “worked tirelessly for the residents of Arcata” and tried to make himself available for an interview but was “never contacted by the investigator.” “I’ll likely make further comment after I’ve been able to completely review the report and additional documents,” he wrote in the email. “I’m grateful to the public for their continued support over the last several months.” Citing the totality of the information gathered during the investigation, including interviews with the employee and witnesses, as well as the volumes of exchanges between the employee and Watson, the report found Watson engaged in “unprofessional and inappropriate conduct,” and “abuse of his power as a city councilmember.” “The credible evidence presented during the investigation establishes by a preponderance of the evidence that the allegations against Watson are sustained,” it states. The employee’s interview with the investigator and her notes detail an escalating pattern of behavior that began in 2019 and continued into late 2021. She said she first noticed a change in Watson’s demeanor when he became mayor following his 2018 election to a four-year term after being appointed to the council in 2017. The employee said she “developed an uncomfortable sense” about the way Watson wanted to control meeting agendas
and council discussions, and that he began to focus on “the rules pertaining to his authority and her authority,” describing him as a “conspiracy theorist.” She said Watson also began making staff uncomfortable by spending more and more time at city hall, constantly nitpicking their work and statements. Around this time, the employee received her first indications that Watson had feelings for her, when an unnamed individual she knew called to say he was “bizarrely critical of staff” when they met in Sacramento while he was interviewing for a seat on the California Coastal Commission but talked about having “deep feelings” for the employee. The employee said she decided to “let it go” and not tell anyone. Later that year, the employee said she first noticed Watson “was being possessive of her” after he became upset she was going on a business trip with another councilmember, calling each of his fellow council members to “see if they thought that was appropriate and to tell them why he thought it was inappropriate.” When the employee told Watson he’d crossed a line, he reportedly responded by saying he should call a closed session discussion on her performance, then said he hoped he would be traveling with her at some point. Between late 2019 and early 2020, the employee said, Watson became “obsessed” with minor city issues and “created” problems as an excuse to call her, with his demands on her time continuing to increase, which she attributed to things being “rough in his life.” The situation began to spiral in May and June of 2020, the employee said, after Watson told her during one of their weekly walks that he had developed a crush on her and his “feelings were really deep” and “not something that will just blow over.” The employee said she responded by telling Watson he would need to work out those feelings on his own, saying Watson said he “understood,” but went on to talk about how their relationship was “so different” and “she was the best friend he ever had.” When the employee insisted they could not be best friends because he was her boss, Watson reportedly became very mad, telling her they could “do the employer employee
thing” and that it was easy for him to be “cold-blooded and tell her everything she was doing wrong,” according to the report. For the next several months, the employee said, their interactions fell into a “recurring theme,” with Watson getting angry at her then apologizing and saying how much he needed her, and insisting he was working on his behavior. Instead, he continued to push to spend more time with her, sending her incessant text messages and emails about his feelings, mental health state, work, family life and sometimes just the minutiae of his day, and becoming upset when she did not respond fast enough, the employee told investigators. Around the same time, she said, Watson began talking about stepping down from the council but did not follow through. The employee said she knew he was struggling with his mental health and other personal issues, and he often brought up his drinking, marital troubles, therapy sessions and inability to sleep. “You’re the only person I’ve ever known that always makes me feel like everything is going to be okay,” he wrote her in June of 2020. “There’s no amount of exercise or medication or anything that compares to how you make me feel better. You’re so important to me and it makes me really afraid of losing you as a friend and I’m really afraid of doing something or saying something that will detract from our friendship in any way.” But, the employee said, Watson continued not to accept the boundaries that she tried to establish. Hundreds of pages of text messages between Watson and the employee disclosed as a part of the report paint a picture of a man struggling with depression and other mental health issues, struggles that he seemed at times to use to manipulate the employee into further interactions as he navigates marital and family problems, as well as the death of his father. In her interview with investigators, the employee noted this, saying Watson had “found her kryptonite,” knowing she wanted to help people and needed to support him “to ensure the city functioned properly.” The report also notes that Watson’s text messages evidence not only an “unrealistic expectation” of the employee, “but also Continued on page 13 »
northcoastjournal.com • Thursday, May 12, 2022 • NORTH COAST JOURNAL
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