The Zen of Sexual Harassment
SAUNDERS, DEBRA J.
The Zen of Sexual Harassment Jerry Brown's guru has a zipper problem. BY DEBRA J. SAUNDERS Oakland, California Jacques Barzaghi is a legendary character in California politics, famed for his...
...His antics aren't so charming to women not his betrothed...
...At the peak of your popularity," Brown added, "people don't take you on directly...
...Clearly Barzaghi doesn't get it...
...That's a silly statement," he told me over the phone...
...In December, a city employee accused Barzaghi of sexually harassing her verbally during a trade mission to Mexico City...
...Today's young female workers don't appreciate questions about their undergarments...
...They find some indirect way to slow you down...
...I touch people...
...While neither Bobb nor Russo would reveal the outcome, the Chronicle learned that the city has suspended Barzaghi for an undisclosed length of time without pay and required him to undergo counseling and to limit his interactions with the employees who complained about his behavior...
...inseparable, the two are the zen twins of political events...
...Fortunately for women workers, Dao Mayor didn't have to decide what to do about Barzaghi...
...Jerry doesn't see a problem," she explained...
...For one thing, Brown objects to Barzaghi's being called his guru...
...Unlike Brown, he shaves his head...
...Jerry thinks it's the women's problem...
...Soon Barzaghi was hospitalized with heart trouble...
...Before he stopped talking to the press about the charges, he told the San Francisco Chronicle's Janine DeFao, "I'm a Mediterranean...
...So what was the mayor of politically correct Oakland, a city with "zero tolerance" for sexual harassment, supposed to do with his guru gone bad...
...You could say that Barzaghi and Brown came of age at a time when male leaders behaved like the libidinous Captain Kirk—and Barzaghi doesn't understand that managers today need to be hyper-proper and sensitive, a la Jean-Luc Picard...
...The city website informs citizens, "The source of art is in the natural flow of the human mind...
...This isn't the first time Barzaghi has shown a tendency to confuse liking women with liking to come on to women...
...Dao Mayor was not happy...
...Today it is a manager's responsibility to foster a professional atmosphere, but when Brown was governor, it was the woman's responsibility to graciously deflect unwanted advances...
...It's my culture...
...And he doesn't function in that capacity...
...I hug people...
...A friend of Barzaghi's sheepishly confessed, "If I was a woman, I wouldn't want to be married to him...
...His first marriage ended when he started sleeping with a woman who was living with the couple...
...That's kind of a clever putdown, but it bears no resemblance to reality...
...Besides which, it appears that Brown sees no problem in Barzaghi's behavior, although city policies, Brown says, forbid him from discussing the investigation...
...Like Brown, the 62-year-old former Frenchman is partial to dressing in black...
...The guy is going to do anything he wants," a source explained, "and he is still going to be living in the mayor's household...
...indeed, Barzaghi, his sixth wife, and his seventh child actually live with Brown in a live/work loft/commune that Jacques helped design...
...But Brown did reply that he did not see Barzaghi do anything untoward in Mexico City and has never seen him act inappropriately toward female employees...
...A friend of Brown's who wished not to be named expressed the same sentiment: People attack Barzaghi not because of Barza-ghi, but because of their desire to get at Brown...
...City hall wags see the two men's relationship as akin to a marriage...
...BY DEBRA J. SAUNDERS Oakland, California Jacques Barzaghi is a legendary character in California politics, famed for his 25-year role as top adviser, alter ego, and some say guru (or Svengali) to Jerry Brown, mayor of Oakland and former governor...
...Her attorney later explained that Barzaghi's behavior had humiliated the woman...
...Some insiders credit the mayor for not trying to interfere with Bobb, whom Brown has the authority to fire...
...They ruled all California, not little brunt-of-jokes Oakland...
...More important, Barzaghi is known as the person one has to go through to get to Brown...
...Back in the late 1970s when Brown was governor and Barzaghi was his aide—with titles ranging from "special assistant for liaison and coordination" to "director of administration"—the Zen twins were the young dons of Sacramento...
...Other observers doubt Barzaghi will reform...
...Brown and Barzaghi appear to be stuck in a time warp...
...In those days, working women often considered being hit on part of the job...
...them if they were wearing any underwear and if so, what kind...
...Barzaghi once explained that he treated then-governor Brown "with the same respect" he would show a shoemaker...
...Alas, trouble has come to shoemaker paradise...
...In fact, April 2000 guidelines call for Oakland to keep complaints and their resolutions confidential "to the fullest extent practicable...
...An investigation turned up a number of complaints from female workers in city hall, who said Barza-ghi frequently made inappropriate comments to them, such as asking Debra J. Saunders writes a nationally syndicated column for the San Francisco Chronicle...
...Guru is a rather precise term for people who follow an Eastern religion, which I don't...
...But that was only the beginning of Barza-ghi's woes...
...Wrong, noted one former city hall staffer, who said Barzaghi had come on to her and younger women in the office...
...The guy's a misogynist," the former city hall worker explained...
...Barzaghi is head of the Oakland arts department, in which capacity he enjoys a $114,000 annual salary...
...As prescribed by city policy, city attorney John Russo hired an outside attorney to investigate the claim, then recommended a remedy to city manager Robert Bobb...
...He left his fifth wife, he told the Chronicle, because she wouldn't move with him from New York to Oakland to help Brown's mayoral bid...
Vol. 6 • January 2001 • No. 19
