Complainant said Manager ‘laughed-off’ Mayor’s comments
The complainant in Blackstone’s recent sexual harassment scandal told the investigator that she had negative interactions with Mayor Ben Green months before the Jan. 8th incident at Town Hall.
“She explained that the Mayor took office in January 2023, and by Summer 2023, he would make…inappropriate comments to the Town Manager, and the Town Manager would relay those to her.”
When asked for examples, according to the report, “she said that at least once,” she was in another employee’s office “and the mayor stopped in and said something to the effect of, ‘I hate to interrupt, but I wanted to tell you that you look beautiful today.’”
The investigator noted, “She said that when the Mayor would come by, he would make inappropriate comments to the Town Manager, and the Town Manager would laugh and joke about those comments.
“She said she told the Town Manager numerous times, ‘Stop, don’t tell me what the Mayor says. It’s gross.’
“She said the Town Manager laughed-off her concerns every single time she told him to stop relaying the Mayor’s stories. Notably, she said the Town Manager told her the Mayor had ‘the hots’ for her.”
The complainant said another employee also asked Vannoorbeeck to “stop telling stories about what the Mayor said.”
The complainant told the investigator that on one occasion prior to Jan. 2025, Manager Vannoorbeeck pulled her into his office “and told her it was ‘not okay’ to complain about him.”
From that day, the complainant said, “She was very leery of approaching the Town Manager with her concerns. He has made comments regarding those who have ‘crossed him.’ She has been concerned and does not want to risk her job with the Town.”
She said that on another occasion — prior to Jan. 2025 — Vannoorbeeck told the Town Treasurer that she (the complainant) wouldn’t get her annual raise “because she did not appear for work during a winter storm.”
The report states, “The complainant was able to describe other occasions when the Mayor had made comments on her appearance. She said that he has stopped more than once to tell her that she looks ‘beautiful.’ She said that even when she dresses very, very conservatively, the Mayor says that she is a ‘beautiful woman.’ She said she stopped coming to Council meetings in late 2024 because she simply wanted to avoid interaction with the Mayor. She resumed coming to meetings when the Manager told her she was required to attend. She said she often shut her office door to avoid having to talk to, or see, the Mayor.”
The investigator said the complainant “described the Town Manager and Mayor as ‘friends.’ She said that apparently, the Town Manager and the Mayor discussed the Mayor’s intimate details of the Mayor’s marriage, which the Town Manager then recounted” to the complainant. “Those conversations all occurred before Jan. 2025.”
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