Circuit Clerk Ken Blevins target of harassment, retaliation allegations

Complaints against Sebastian County Circuit Clerk Ken Blevins of alleged sexual harassment and retaliation are detailed in reports and grievance filings by some employees of the Circuit Clerk’s office.

The information, included in a 64-page release, was made available after numerous Freedom of Information Act requests by The City Wire and KFSM 5 News.

A grievance hearing, managed by Sebastian County Judge David Hudson, is scheduled for May 12.

Six office employees filed grievance hearing requests with Judge Hudson in which they summarized several months of behavior from Blevins that included:
• Frequent inappropriate touching;
• Frequent inappropriate comments of a sexual nature;
• Retaliation against employees who complained;
• Moving employees to different jobs without adequate time to train;
• Sharing details of employee counseling sessions with other employees; and,
• Wage discrimination.

Following are a few comments from the grievance filings.
• “Another day in the office, I do not recall the date, Willard Wentz, another Deputy Clerk, and I were discussing the fact that the county vehicle needed to be washed. Ken Blevins looked at me and made the comment, ‘Well, you could go out there in your bikini and wash it.’”

• “I told him he had no code of ethics. That we couldn’t come to him in confidence because he will go and tell. (The day he counseled REDACTED about her dress, I witnessed him go around the office and tell several about what this meeting with REDACTED was about).”

• “He (Blevins) has also made comments to me about we should have ‘bikini Fridays instead of casual Fridays’, that he ‘needs to find a good place to stalk women so he can find a wife’, that ‘strawberries can be crushed and rubbed on your breasts to make them bigger’.”

• “I have also witnessed him going up to several of the other women in our office and either rubbing on their backs or embracing them in hugs. This is also completely inappropriate conduct. It has now become an extremely hostile work environment since I came forward with initial concerns and I come to work daily and am scared as to what is going to be done.”

“Mr. Blevins has not kept confidential conversations between himself and employees. As well, he has changed the conversations to suit himself in such a way that employees began arguing with one another. When these arguments escalated, Mr. Blevins took employees aside both individually and as a group to discuss the problems and once again, began to ‘gossip’ and alter the conversations to create a hostile atmosphere.”

The City Wire has attempted to contact Blevins. We will update this post when he responds.

The information sought by The City Wire and KFSM was initially delayed in order to seek an opinion from the Arkansas Attorney General’s office as to whether the employee complaints could be released. On April 22, Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel denied the FOIA requests because they were employee-evaluation records and protected as a personnel record. On April 27, McDaniel changed his opinion, saying the the complaints were not employee-evaluation records but were employee complaints about a public official.