On the steps of the Monroe County Office Building, Lakaya Sinclair Friday said she wants the ethics board to pass laws that would prohibit sexual harassment, saying a current proposal by legislators does not go far enough.
Monroe County Legislator Ernest Flagler-Mitchell. Monroe County Legislator Ernest Flagler-Mitchell violated the county’s code of ethics when he sent a sexually-explicit photo to a 19-year-old woman, the county Board of Ethics ruled Thursday. The board had been reviewing the matter since January, when it first received a complaint from the woman, Lakaya Sinclair, that Flagler-Mitchell sent her a Facebook message containing a photo of his genitalia and other messages that made her feel uncomfortable. Flagler-Mitchell, 43, a retired firefighter and married father of eight children, acknowledged sending the photo but said it was done in error and that the image was meant for his wife, whom he said he had been messaging simultaneously with Sinclair. He has also said that the genitalia pictured was not his.
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Politics is all about power. Yeah, that’s a little cliché, but it’s also the easiest way to explain what’s happened in the Monroe County Legislature over the past year or so. Since Democratic County Executive Adam Bello took office in January 2020, two different power struggles have been playing out in the Legislature, where Republicans hold a one-seat majority over Democrats. Rifts in the local Democratic Party over the selection of an elections commissioner and other matters led four Democratic legislators to break away from their colleagues and form the Black and Asian Democratic Caucus.