The City of Corning has agreed to pay a Quarter Million Dollars to settle a lawsuit filed by a police dispatcher who accused the police chief of sexual harassment. Chief Jeremiah Fears was dismissed from city employment last November, but nothing was made public about a reason for the dismissal. Paris Fountain filed a suit in April. She claimed that she and Chief Fears had a brief romantic relationship in 2016, and when she was hired as a dispatcher in 2018 she was subject to inappropriate conduct by Fears but she was afraid to complain because she didn’t want to put her job at risk. The lawsuit says that when she finally spoke to her supervisor about the harassment she was treated with hostility and nothing was done to correct the situation. She now has only positive things to say about the department and the changes that have been made. A couple of weeks ago Corning’s City Council approved a $250,000 settlement.
-Steve Gibson