Westbrook’s assistant city administrator will attend sensitivity training as a result of the outcry over an email he wrote to the mayor mocking members of the community.

William Baker wrote a second apology for the email Tuesday and sent it to the members of the City Council, which met Wednesday to discuss its legal rights and responsibilities in responding to the incident.

WILLIAM BAKER'S APOLOGY LETTER

MAYOR COLLEEN HILTON'S LETTER TO THE COMMUNITY

The council does not have authority over personnel matters and Mayor Colleen Hilton, who does, said last week that she didn’t intend to discipline Baker.

Hilton issued a letter to the community Thursday clarifying how she has responded to the incident, saying she felt it “may have been misunderstood or misinterpreted.”

When she received the email in February, Hilton said it “shocked and perplexed” her.

“The words and manner in which they were presented were inconsistent with all I knew about Bill Baker,” she wrote.

In a profane rant, Baker made fun of several people, including a local artist, an environmentalist and the executive director of the city’s teen center, about their involvement in city government.

Hilton said she immediately contacted Baker to find out what prompted him to write such an email.

“I found a very good man who was struggling with health issues that he had never experienced previously, who was greatly disturbed by the recent rash of deadly attacks on police officers (in) the country and who had become increasingly frustrated by expression of dissatisfaction with his work from a few sectors of the community,” she wrote.

Baker, who was hired as the assistant city administrator and director of business and community relations in 2012, previously served as the city’s police chief.

“Having identified the problem, we have been dealing with it through corrective action. Awareness, counseling and formal training are all components of my response to employee issues such as this,” Hilton wrote.

In his letter sent to the City Council on Tuesday, Baker said he plans to register for “intense professional development training” that includes “strategies for improved self-awareness, resolving interpersonal conflict, sensitivity training and effective communication skills.”

Baker issued an apology last week, after Westbrook resident and business owner Deb Shangraw read the email aloud at a City Council meeting.

Shangraw, who was among those named in the email, received the document as part of a response to a public records request she made concerning the city budget.

In his initial apology, Baker blamed a “group of mean-spirited people with a harmful political agenda,” presumably including Shangraw, as the source of his frustration.

Last week, Hilton backed Baker, saying he and other members of her staff “are pummeled on a daily basis.”

On Tuesday, City Council President Brendan Rielly said he had been hearing from constituents who were concerned how the incident had affected Westbrook’s reputation and wanted to see “a full apology” from Baker and Hilton.

Rielly called an executive session of the City Council on Wednesday to talk about how it could legally respond.

Rielly couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday night, when Hilton’s and Baker’s letters were released.

Shangraw, who has called for Baker’s resignation or removal, said the latest letters don’t change her position.

After being named in the email and then blamed for it, Shangraw felt she also should have been singled out for an apology. But now, she said, it’s too late.

“I have a hard time having to pull out from these adults, professionals, an apology for what they’ve done,” she said. “I think if that’s in your heart you would have come out and said it already.”

Leslie Bridgers can be contacted at 791-6364 or at:

lbridgers@pressherald.com

Twitter: lesliebridgers

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