Mayor Byron W. Brown owes this city and, particularly, this city’s public employees a much more forceful rebuke of the stunningly unethical behavior of one of his own department heads.



The longer it takes him to do so, the more people will have a right to believe that the improper politicking engaged in by his commissioner of community services wasn’t quite so unauthorized as we are being led to believe.



As reported in The Buffalo News Monday, several City Hall employees have received weekly e-mails from the commissioner, Tanya Perrin-Johnson, basically assigning them extra—unpaid—duties and hours on behalf of Brown’s reelection campaign.



“Your services are needed minimally 8 hours a week,” Perrin-Johnson messaged her workers. “Everyone is expected to be at the Headquarters after work.”



There’s no way to spin that as “voluntary” work.



Those who weren’t able to report as ordered to Brown’s campaign headquarters were instructed to e-mail back and receive alternate assignments.



This reeks of nothing but a clear violation of both the City Charter and the city’s own Code of Ethics, both of which forbid any abuse of a city official’s position to command political activity or to extort personal favors.



The lame protests by Perrin-Johnson and by Peter Cutler, Brown’s spokesman, that the e-mails do not constitute a blatantly improper action on the part of a Brown appointee would be funny if the matter weren’t so serious. Just because the words “show up or you’re fired” don’t actually appear in print doesn’t mean that such a message from one’s employer won’t be read to say exactly that.



The excuse that the e-mails were sent from and to private accounts, not city-assigned e-mail addresses, is no disinfectant. Even if they arrived by carrier pigeon, the memos could hardly be read as anything other than high-pressure solicitation of a campaign contribution, even if it is a gift of time and not of money.



(Another disturbing question: If the e-mails were being sent to employees’ private e-mail accounts, how did Perrin-Johnson get those addresses?)



Pressured by The News’ reports and criticism from rivals on the Common Council, Brown has issued a troublingly meek statement trying to wash his own hands of the matter and restating that any campaign assistance he receives from public employees should be strictly voluntary.



Yeah. Right. If Brown thinks the e-mails in question could be read as anything other than a threat to each employee’s livelihood, it will be hard for him to suggest he identifies with the lives of the average citizen. Even when we aren’t suffering through the worst recession in 70 years, people who work for a living can’t afford to risk their income, their health insurance and their family’s future by ignoring even the most indirect suggestion that staying in the good graces of their employer involves a little extra-curricular activity.



The only person whose job should at least be threatened by this kind of activity is that of the city’s community services commissioner. The mayor needs to let her, and the rest of City Hall’s workers, know that—in no uncertain terms.