Fourth Ex-City Worker Alleges Oakland Auditor Abuse
Mary Seymour was out on medical leave last month when the Express published an investigative report on her boss, Oakland City Auditor Brenda Roberts, detailing Roberts' verbally abusive behavior toward staffers, the rampant turnover that resulted, and the sharp decline in substantive output from an office tasked with rooting out corruption and waste in city government. But Seymour knew that she likely would never return to her job.
Seymour, a performance audit manager hired in 2015 who had worked in the office longer than any other staff member currently employed, said she witnessed Roberts' verbally abusive behavior toward several employees over the past two years — and experienced it first-hand. "It is a very abusive workplace," she said during a recent interview. "It's toxic. Hostile."
Seymour is now the fourth former employee of the auditor's office to speak openly about the city auditor's abusive behavior. The others are Robert McMenomy, a former longtime FBI agent who was the audit manager running Oakland's Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Prevention Program; Timothy Knight, a former Indianapolis police officer who was Roberts' executive assistant; and Sharon Ball, who ran the Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Prevention Program before McMenomy. In addition, several other current and former employees have spoken anonymously to the Express about Roberts and have confirmed the abuse allegations against her.
Seymour decided to come forward with her story after Roberts put her on administrative leave following the release of the Express' report, "Watching the Watchdog," published on Oct. 11. She said she and others had tried all of the city's mechanisms available to them to try to solve the problems with Roberts before going public. "We have reported it to Employee Relations; we have reported it to Sabrina [Landreth] the city administrator; we have reported it to HR [Human Resources]. We have done the full chain of command, and we have no alternatives."
Read more: https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/fourth-ex-city-worker-alleges-oakland-auditor-abuse/Content?oid=10842381