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Cary Park District to vote on workplace romance code

A Cary Park District committee has created a policy that governs personal relationships in the workplace and it goes to the full board Thursday for a final vote.

Commissioners can either adopt or reject the policy or send it back to the administration, finance and personnel committee for further revision, said Dan Jones, the park district’s executive director.

In December, the committee reviewed a draft policy the district’s insurance provider sent them. The code the board will consider this week discourages romantic relationships between supervisors and subordinates. It also puts the burden on the supervisor involved in the relationship to disclose it to the executive director. The supervisor could face disciplinary action, up to and including termination for failing to notify the executive director in a timely fashion, the draft states.

If the executive director becomes romantically involved with any employee, the executive director would be required to report the relationship to the board and faces the same penalties as a supervisor if it isn’t done right away.

Board President Bill Harvey did not return a pair of phone calls seeking comment, but in a previous interview he said a relationship between two high-ranking employees was the “trigger” behind establishing a policy.

In August, former Executive Director Steve Cherveny and Superintendent of Recreation Susan Mayer resigned for personal reasons. Court records show Cherveny and Mayer, employees for at least a decade, were cited in July for disorderly conduct, alleging they engaged in “obscene/sexual conduct in public” at the McHenry County Conservation District’s Fox Bluff Conservation Area near Cary.

They admitted to an amended version of the charge in which they “disturbed others by engaging in loud conduct and in doing so breached the public peace.” They were ordered to pay $216 in fines and fees and placed on 100 days of court supervision.