Nancy Oakley, a Florida politician, has resigned from her post as city commissioner of Madeira Beach after an ethics report found that she acted inappropriately when she licked the face and neck of a city manager in 2012.
According to the report from the Florida Commission on Ethics, Oakley had been at an outdoor meeting to honor a sister city in the Bahamas when she spotted Madeira Beach city manager Shane Crawford and his executive assistant, Cheryl McGrady. Oakley, who by her own account had been drinking, allegedly suspected the two of having an affair and approached them using expletives and demanding that McGrady be removed.
After the meeting was over, she reportedly went up to Crawford again and licked him on the side of his neck and face, and groped him around the crotch and buttocks. The report says that she also threw a punch at McGrady, who had witnessed the face-licking and told Oakley that she was behaving inappropriately.
According to another report from the ethics commission, Crawford waited five years to file a complaint because he was worried he would lose his job, but decided to do so when she sought office again in 2017.
He also told Bay News 9 last month that Oakley had “a habit of licking men that either she was attracted to or thought that she had authority over,” and claimed in his complaint that she previously made unwanted advances towards other city staff.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, Oakley resigned on Tuesday, and wrote a resignation letter insisting she is innocent and plans to appeal the ethics ruling.
“It is time for us all to move on,” she wrote, according to the Times.
Meanwhile, Madeira Beach residents say they just want to move on from the reputation their city has gotten. The Washington Post reports that during a Madeira Beach City Commission meeting on Wednesday, residents accused Oakley of making them look bad.
“I am sick and tired of the embarrassing headlines created by the majority of this commission, and it is time for a change,” a woman named Helen Price said.
Robert Preston, another resident, told the commission, “I would love to be part of a city that’s in the news for good things, not dirt and garbage.”
