---
title: "A Harassment Complaint Went Nowhere at East Lansing City Hall — Until It Went Public"
description: "The city manager was placed on leave a week after an employee told the council, publicly, what the process hadn’t fixed"
author: "Penny Quirke"
published: 2026-09-26T00:38:44.433Z
modified: 2026-09-27T03:05:41Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/a-harassment-complaint-went-nowhere-at-east-lansing-city-hal-442593
language: en
tags: ["politics", "harassment", "workplace", "city-council", "investigation", "us"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# A Harassment Complaint Went Nowhere at East Lansing City Hall — Until It Went Public

*The city manager was placed on leave a week after an employee told the council, publicly, what the process hadn’t fixed*

By Penny Quirke · September 26, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/a-harassment-complaint-went-nowhere-at-east-lansing-city-hal-442593

## In brief

- Grants Coordinator Erica Dziedzic-Hernandez publicly accused City Manager Robert Belleman of sexual harassment on May 19
- A Miller Canfield investigation found no evidence of the alleged harassment but criticism of Belleman’s treatment of staff
- Council placed Belleman on paid leave May 26, a week after she spoke out; he resigned June 16, per WKAR
- Mayor Erik Altmann called the claims ‘unfounded’ and backed Belleman, drawing boos; a council colleague disputed him
- Advocates say the handling shows East Lansing lacks trauma-informed processes despite the Nassar scandal’s legacy

East Lansing, Michigan, has had a bruising run of public meetings lately — residents raging over police accountability, over city commissioners, over the general sense that local government is not leveling with them. The newest rupture in public trust is different. It is about what happened, or rather what visibly didn’t, after a city employee did everything according to procedure.

On May 19, city Grants Coordinator Erica Dziedzic-Hernandez stood up at a City Council meeting and said that the previous year she had filed a sexual harassment complaint against City Manager Robert Belleman, had gone through the city’s own reporting process, and had seen no consequences. The complaint was filed in September, Mayor Erik Altmann later said, and alleged, among other behavior, that Belleman had nicknamed her “too easy.” [WKAR Public Media reported](https://www.wkar.org/wkar-news/2026-06-16/east-lansing-city-manager-robert-belleman-resigns-after-being-placed-on-leave) that her allegations also included Belleman yelling at and berating her, making her feel her job was threatened, making comments she interpreted as sexual innuendo, and leering at her. Belleman denied the allegations, WKAR reported.

The complaint was investigated late last year by the Miller Canfield law firm. The firm found no evidence and no witnesses of the sexual harassment Dziedzic-Hernandez described — or as WKAR put it, insufficient evidence to support claims of sex- or gender-based harassment or bullying. But the investigation was not exactly a glowing performance review. Other city employees told investigators that Belleman talks down to female employees, communicates with them in a more stern manner, and plays favorites in the office; witnesses described him to WKAR as stern, confrontational, overly direct, or prone to “dressing down” employees.

None of this was entirely out of character for the resume. Belleman was hired as East Lansing’s city manager after being fired from his job as Saginaw County controller amid complaints from staff there.

Here is where the timeline does its quiet, damning work. Council members reviewed the investigation’s findings in December. Councilmember Kerry Ebersole Singh said she came away believing corrective action was needed on Belleman’s leadership, and the council asked him to attend leadership training to promote a healthier workplace culture. The city did not disclose even that step publicly until May — months later — and Belleman was not placed on paid leave until May 26, a week after Dziedzic-Hernandez took her account, which she expressed great discomfort about sharing, to a public audience. [He resigned on June 16](https://www.wkar.org/wkar-news/2026-06-16/east-lansing-city-manager-robert-belleman-resigns-after-being-placed-on-leave), WKAR reported.

At a special council meeting on May 21, Altmann announced the investigation report would be released and said the city had taken the allegations seriously and acted swiftly. Then he offered his support to the city manager. “Everybody deserves process. Everybody has rights,” he said. “That applies to complainants and it applies to respondents, and it’s a relief for me to finally be able to make this statement to the public, that these claims were unfounded.” He added: “I look forward to continuing to work with City Manager Belleman in his position and I offer my support to him.” The room erupted in booing and cries of “shame.”

Altmann was not speaking for the whole council, Ebersole Singh wrote in a statement, and calling the complaints “unfounded” did not represent the investigation’s findings. “What the independent investigation concluded is that the complaints did not rise to the level of a legal or policy violation. That is one threshold — it is not a verdict on whether the conduct occurred or whether it was acceptable,” she wrote. “Coming forward takes courage, and you deserve to be heard.”

Tashmica Torok, a local sexual violence survivor advocate, said that requiring an employee to go public before anything visibly happens shows a council with a weak grasp of how to handle sexual violence complaints. “If a city employee has to come to a public session and disclose that they’ve been harassed at work and are feeling unprotected, I think that’s a clear indication that we have some workplace harassment policies that we need to be taking a look at,” she said. “Disappointing is not even the word … I’m so f\*\*\*ing glad I don’t understand these people.”

At the May 26 meeting where he was placed on leave, Belleman offered the city workforce an apology. “I’m sorry if any of you have felt that I have not been the leader that you needed me to be,” he said. “I can do better and I will do better. I have taken your feedback to heart, your comments and concerns have not fallen on deaf ears, and I will make positive changes going forward. I care about you, the residents we serve and our community.”

Abbie Tykocki, a volunteer advocate at the Michigan State University Center for Survivors who has repeatedly pressed the council on trauma-informed processes, said the city’s handling of the matter has corroded something harder to retrain than a manager. “Trust in local government and law enforcement depends heavily on the belief that the City leaders are fair, accountable, and capable of protecting employees, residents, and visitors alike,” she wrote. “That creates cultural and reputational consequences that can have long-term economic impacts … The city will have to show, not just say, that the culture has changed.” She noted the city has limited both its Human Rights Commission and its Independent Police Oversight Commission over the last year, and warned of leadership that might “wield their power in ways that prioritize political maneuvering and institutional self-protection over human dignity.”

For some residents, the case carries a specific local weight. East Lansing was the backdrop to the Larry Nassar abuse scandal — Michigan State University, where hundreds of women and girls testified against the former Olympic and MSU doctor, sits at the city’s heart. “Of all of the cities in the country, East Lansing should be the one that is modeling trauma-informed policing and awareness of sexual harassment and sexual violence, given the long history at MSU and the cases that have come forward in East Lansing,” said Valerie von Frank, whose daughter was among Nassar’s victims and who has since advocated for protective systems. Former Mayor Aaron Stephens, who served on the council from 2017 to 2021 through the worst of the Nassar outcry, put the obligation differently: the city should get prevention right not because of its history, but by virtue of leadership and community values.

Belleman’s resignation closed the personnel file. It did not resolve the question his case left hanging in the council chamber: in a city that has already lived through one of the worst serial abuse scandals in American history, the formal process for a harassment complaint still required a public act of courage, and a room full of booing, to produce a visible consequence.