Lawrence Hemingway’s resignation is the latest in a string of departures of high-level officials since beach workers’ accusations became public.
The parks director for the city of Evanston has resigned, the latest of several top officials in the north suburb to leave amid a sexual misconduct scandal involving lifeguards and other young, female beach workers.
Lawrence Hemingway quit his $179,909-a-year job with the city, according to an internal email obtained by WBEZ.
In the email to the mayor and Evanston City Council on Monday, Interim City Manager Kelley Gandurski wrote, “Please be advised that this morning, Lawrence Hemingway resigned from his position as Director of Parks and Recreation and he left his employment today.”
Mayor Daniel Biss and city officials did not return messages seeking comment. Evanston officials said they would not speak about the topic until an independent report from the law firm Salvatore Prescott Porter & Porter firm is completed.
The city hired the lawyers last summer, days after WBEZ reported on accusations of rampant sexual harassment, abuse and assault from 56 female current and former lifeguards and other beach workers.
Evanston officials recently said the law firm’s report would be released soon.
The firm so far has billed Evanston taxpayers about $103,000.
Hemingway, who began working for Evanston six years ago, could not be reached for comment.
His resignation was the latest in a string of departures of high-level officials at Evanston’s city hall since the beach workers’ accusations became public. City Manager Erika Storlie and top human resources official Jennifer Lin were among those who left the city of Evanston’s payroll last year, after WBEZ broke the story.
Hemingway was mentioned in another story, published last week, which detailed why young, female beach workers confronted officials with their accusations in July 2020. According to former city employees and public records, a petition drive making accusations of sexual misconduct was circulated among beach workers and presented to officials after an earlier complaint about a manager resulted in no disciplinary action.
Records show that, in 2019, Hemingway was found to have “violated the City’s Healthy Work Environment and Sexual Harassment policies” after a complaint from a co-worker prompted an investigation.
In their report on the investigation, city officials wrote that Hemingway “admitted” calling the co-worker by inappropriate names and commenting on vacation photos of her in a bathing suit and on a beach that were posted on social media.
“Mr. Hemingway was apologetic and took responsibility for his comments,” according to the city records .
The Evanston city manager at the time, Wally Bobkiewicz, gave Hemingway a written reprimand.
The report concluded: “Mr. Hemingway has been previously counseled on how to address staff in the workplace. He has been advised to refrain from gratuitous comments and casual name-calling. He needs to do a better job of toning his voice down and avoiding colloquialisms and casual language in the workplace. Mr. Hemingway needs to be more mindful of his professionalism and his expectations as a director.”
Anna Fredrick, a former beach worker who helped organize the 2020 petition drive, said beach workers knew of the 2019 accusations against Hemingway and, because of that, they did not want to discuss their complaints about beach managers with him. She said organizers of the petition consequently had little contact with Hemingway when they pressed officials to change the sexist workplace culture.
“We never would have been comfortable bringing [the petition] to him in the first place, given his own history,” Fredrick said.
After Hemingway’s resignation, Fredrick and another organizer of the petition drive said they welcomed his departure.
“It’s good to see some repercussions for him in a way because he had been heading up the whole department,” Fredrick said. “Somehow, he remained in his position for a long time despite the allegations against him.”