Courtesy of Gray Media Group, Inc. – WMTV NBC15
Link to https://www.nbc15.com/2023/05/25/dane-co-judge-backs-transparency-mmsds-spokespersons-attempt-suppress-records/
Madison schools spokesperson Tim LeMonds lost his bid to keep the complaint filed against him by staff under wraps.
“I fucking hate Beth Beyer,” Madison schools spokesperson Tim LeMonds said about the former Wisconsin State Journal education reporter, according to a 14-page complaint filed by former and current district staffers, released to the public Friday in response to a court ruling. Weeks later at a staff meeting, the complaint says, LeMonds asked communications staff to go around and list negative interactions they had with Beyer. When a staff member defended the reporter, LeMonds called Beyer “a horrible human being.”
The complaint, filed by current and former school staffers in October, alleges a wide range of mistreatment by LeMonds, including “years of consistent emotional abuse, bullying, unequal pay, and harassment on the basis of gender, and race or ethnicity.” Staffers also pointed out how he mistreated journalists.
“Tim’s offensive and dismissive treatment of Madison-area journalists, especially female journalists, dissolves the district’s ability to communicate broadly with the community,” staffers said in the complaint, noting several instances of LeMonds’ treatment of Beyer and other local reporters over the last year. “Female journalists have shared how their treatment by Tim is incredibly more severe than that of their male colleagues.”
Beyer says that she didn’t perceive LeMonds’ treatment as sexist until others pointed it out. “I just thought he was an equal opportunity asshole.”
Beyer, who now works in Washington, D.C., tells Isthmus she read LeMonds’ comments in a copy of the complaint sent to her by a former colleague. “I chuckled a bit,” says Beyer. “I thought that sounds about right, as far as how myself and how I heard other reporters were treated.”
Beyer describes “a series of calls where he just would start yelling at me.” One night, while she worked a second job on off hours, Beyer says, LeMonds reached her late in the evening, around 10 p.m. “He just starts going off. I’m like, ‘OK, man, take a breath, what is this all about?’ I was like, ‘I don’t think this is normal.’”
Beyer says her editor suggested that she have coffee with LeMonds to improve their working relationship, but he did not respond to her offer. “This is a source that I needed to work with in order to do my job properly,” says Beyer.
Given LeMonds’ treatment of journalists, Beyer says that if she were new to the school beat she would not go directly to him with media requests. “I would go around him,” she says. “I would not want to work with him at all.”
“A very aggressive and nasty news media”
In a recording of LeMonds, included with the complaint, he says that “we have a very aggressive and nasty news media” in Madison. He also describes a communications effort to counter negativity from reporters and a reluctance to write stories that he pitches them. “We got to a point where we had really good stories, we would pitch it to every reporter in town, and they were making choices not to report. And in a conversation with [Madison schools superintendent] Dr. Jenkins, I’m like ‘screw it, we’re going to hire our own reporter,’” LeMonds says in the recording.
According to the complaint, LeMonds also called NBC15 reporter Elizabeth Wadas “a pig of a journalist” in a Zoom meeting with other staff last spring and said she was “quickly becoming the sleaziest journalist in Madison.” The complaint details another incident in which a female reporter was denied access to school buildings on the first day of school last year, while a male Capital Times journalist was allowed unrestricted access.
The complaint also describes other instances of disparate and abusive treatment of women among district staff. “He was immediately sexist and belittling to all the women in the department, demonstrating how little he cared about our opinions and how little he valued our work or contributions,” said Taryn Johnson in comments collected by the complaint. “Within the first week of his employment Tim had made our graphic designer (at the time) Amy cry.”
Beyond their own work lives, staffers were concerned how LeMonds’ behavior toward journalists “harms the overall goal and effectiveness of the communication department, as exemplified by the high rate of employee turnover and consistent department understaffing.” At least five communications employees cited LeMonds as among the reasons they left the district in exit interviews, according to the complaint, including a communications manager who left after just 31 days on the job.
According to the Wisconsin State Journal, LeMonds denied the allegations in the complaint in a statement: “All allegations in the complaint of emotional abuse, bullying, unequal pay, and harassment on the basis of gender, and race or ethnicity were thoroughly investigated and determined to be without merit.”
Dane County Judge Rhonda Lanford on Thursday ordered the district to release the complaint filed against LeMonds, the district’s executive director of communications. The district wanted to release the complaint, but LeMonds sued to keep it private. In April, NBC15 intervened in the lawsuit.
