A year after a city watchdog documented that the head of the city Board of Elections (BOE) regularly made inappropriate sexual and ethnically biased comments to a younger Hispanic staff attorney, the BOE has yet to implement most of the oversight agency\u2019s recommended reforms.<\/p>\n
The boss involved, executive director Michael Ryan, also remains at the board, where he makes a quarter of a million dollars a year. Ryan is now the subject of a new civil rights lawsuit.<\/p>\n
The board rejected the city Department of Investigation (DOI)\u2019s call to require that all harassment complaints \u2014 including those directed at the director or board members \u2014 be referred to an outside agency to ensure there\u2019s independent oversight of these types of internal complaints.<\/p>\n
In a January 2025 report first revealed<\/a> by THE CITY, DOI substantiated allegations<\/a> by a BOE lawyer, Stephanie Jaquez, that Ryan, who is white, made numerous \u201cunwelcome gender, race and ethnicity-based comments\u201d in her presence.<\/p>\n That included Ryan singing a song in Spanish that translated to \u201ccome to bed.\u201d Jaquez also alleged Ryan stated, \u201cif a young woman wants me, I know why she wants me,\u201d and conversed with another male employee about \u201chow young is too young\u201d when discussing dating.<\/p>\n Jaquez also alleged he picked up a container of Vaseline on her desk and said, \u201cOh rosy lips,\u201d made a comment about \u201cdimples\u201d while trying to touch her face and told her she answered the phone \u201cso un-Latina like.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately Jaquez resigned and went to DOI to make a report. On Tuesday, Jaquez\u2019s attorney, Annie Seifullah filed a civil rights lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court against the board, the individual BOE commissioners and Ryan, alleging the board \u201cfailed to establish an independent and functional reporting structure for its employees.\u201d The system, as it existed, instead \u201crerouted the complaints to the very executive responsible for the misconduct.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time, all complaints went directly to Ryan or his immediate subordinates. DOI recommended that, because of this, an outside entity should also review complaints, particularly if they\u2019re directed at the director or board members. DOI also recommended that Ryan be terminated or resign.<\/p>\n The board declined to fire him or give him an opportunity to resign, and he remains in his $274,000-a-year position to this day. The board docked him three weeks pay and made him take sensitivity training.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Board exists to ensure fairness, accountability and public trust in the administration of elections,\u201d the suit alleges. \u201cYet as this action makes plain, defendants failed to uphold even the most basic standards of integrity within their own agency when they allowed their senior leadership to engage in unlawful harassment and when they maintained policies and procedures that rendered their employees unprotected and without a safe avenue to redress their harms.\u201d<\/p>\n DOI also recommended that the board should submit to regular audits by the New York City Equal Employment Practices Commission. The board rejected that suggestion, as well.<\/p>\n And DOI specifically suggested that the board appoint a formal EEO officer who reports to both the director and the board president. BOE told DOI it \u201cpartially accepted\u201d this recommendation, but DOI records show as of this week had yet to implement it.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the board did not respond immediately to THE CITY\u2019s questions about its rejection of DOI\u2019s recommended reforms.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year after a city watchdog documented that the head of the city Board of Elections (BOE) regularly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-168345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}