Ex-Hauser clerk alleges harassment

A former Hauser city employee accuses a city councilwoman of offering her a city job, and then retaliating against her when she declined sexual advances, in a complaint filed with the Idaho Human Rights Commission.

In the complaint, often the first step in a discrimination suit, former City Clerk Janet Crapo outlines alleged sexual harassment by Carmen Miller, one of four City Council members in the 670-person lakeside town.

The allegations include home phone calls, questions about sexual orientation and inappropriate comments.

Crapo resigned as city clerk March 26 after 15 months on the job. Her last day was April 8.

“I just don’t want anybody to have to go through what I went through,” the 51-year-old mother of two said in a phone interview. “I was so uncomfortable that I left a job that I really loved.”

Miller, who newspaper archives show has been involved in town politics since at least 1995, declined to comment, directing inquiries to City Attorney Nancy Stricklin.

Stricklin said the complaint is being treated as a tort claim and will be handled by the city’s insurance company, the Idaho Counties Risk Management Program.

Idaho law requires complainants file with the Human Rights Commission before filing a discrimination lawsuit. A state-appointed panel reviews the charges and decides their merit. All complaints and findings are confidential.

Crapo began her job in December 2006, three months after she said she met Miller at a free fitness class offered twice weekly at the town fire station.

The two became fast friends, Crapo said, and the two-days-a-week city clerk job Miller pitched sounded perfect. In the complaint, Crapo writes that Miller said the job would be great for her if she would “play the game.”

“When I asked Ms. Miller what ‘play the game’ meant, she explained that it would be like any other job, you just have to ‘play the game,’ ” according to the complaint.

Miller soon began visiting Crapo at work, bringing her lunch or offering to take her out, the complaint said.

Crapo claims Miller talked about having gay friends, discussed her own sexual orientation and showed pictures of herself in a bikini during a body-building competition in Hawaii.

“I was so uncomfortable being around Ms. Miller, I would come home from work and cry or tell my husband that I did not want to go back because I was so uncomfortable,” Crapo wrote. “I even spoke with my doctor about the situation.”

Crapo said she spoke with then-Mayor Ed Peone and City Council President Don Werst about the alleged harassment.

After Crapo made it clear she wasn’t interested in Miller, “she began picking me to pieces and making me look bad in front of the council members at our meetings,” according to the complaint.

Neither Peone nor Werst could be reached for comment.

In her resignation letter addressed to Werst, who was elected mayor in November, Crapo writes that she “can not handle the stress any longer due to the harassment.

“As you may well know the last few months have been a very difficult time for me,” the letter reads. “I have decided that all of this is not worth it.”