Thursday, March 28, 2019 | Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com
Barge suspends Bloomington mayoral campaign By Caroline Anders anders6@iu.edu | @clineands
Amanda Barge suspended her campaign for Bloomington mayor Tuesday, less than a day after the Indiana Daily Student published an article outlining sexual harassment allegations against her. In a statement posted on her campaign’s Facebook page, the Democratic county commissioner denied the allegations made by former county contractor Brandon Drake. The page has since been deleted.
“We are all fragile and flawed human beings,” the statement read. “Although I vehemently deny engaging in sexual harassment, I recognize that my actions have caused pain to my family and others.” Mayor John Hamilton, whom Barge was running against in the Democratic primary, released a statement Tuesday evening. “Brandon Drake showed courage in coming forward to report a disturbing pattern of behavior that he suffered,” it read. “Sexual harassment and other abusive behaviors
can happen to anyone.” The steering committee for the Democratic Women’s Caucus, a Monroe County group that endorsed Barge’s candidacy two weeks ago, is working to schedule a meeting to discuss the situation. Caucus chair Carolyn VandeWiele said the group takes the allegations very seriously. The Monroe County Democratic Party released a statement Tuesday. “We are aware of the published article in Indiana Daily Student regarding Mr. Drake and Amanda
Barge and we are saddened and disappointed,” it read. “At the end of all of this, no one wins and there is much healing, restoration as well as meaningful conversations within our community that is needed after this.” The party said its leadership plans to meet to further discuss the matter but had no additional comment. Indiana Public Media reported Wednesday that Barge is not planning to step down as county commissioner. Barge has not replied to multiple requests for comment from the IDS on the matter.
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Season closes for Hoosiers Tuesday
‘She should’ve known better.’ Monroe County commissioner and former Bloomington mayoral candidate Amanda Barge is being accused of sexually harassing a county contractor for more than a year. By Caroline Anders anders6@iu.edu | @clineands
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randon Drake, 42, alleges Barge repeatedly expressed feelings for him and asked him to date her beginning in fall 2017. Drake said that after harassing him for months, Barge ultimately played a significant role in dismantling the project he worked on for Monroe County. Her actions, he said, forced him out of his professional community and left him feeling isolated from his colleagues. “She took away a year of my life,” he said in an interview. Documents and recordings Drake provided to the Indiana Daily Student show Barge, 46, seeming to admit that she repeatedly crossed a professional line. Drake gave the IDS hours of recorded conversation between himself and Barge and hundreds of other instances of communication including text messages, emails, Facebook messages and a Google note. After the IDS approached Barge about the allegations, she released a statement that called Drake a “disgruntled former Health Department contractor who has chosen to take public and private communications out of context to further his personal and political agenda.” Apart from denying she would ever engage in harassment, Barge’s statement did not address specific allegations in this story, which were outlined to her in a meeting Monday. Barge became angry and shut Drake out professionally when he refused to date her, Drake said. Texts and emails show he told her he might also have feelings for her in July, but later said her advances made him uncomfortable. Drake said he felt he could not deny her advances because of his position. “I was scared that she could destroy my career,” he said in an interview. He told Barge something similar. “When you come onto me over and over again with the power that you have in your hands it can be very scary for me,” he wrote to her in an Aug. 2, 2018, email. “We have a lot tied up with our work in the community.” * * * Barge was elected Monroe County Commissioner for District 3 in 2016. She graduated from IU with a degree in gender studies and political science before earning a master’s in social work at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a licensed clinical social worker and owns her own practice, Amanda Barge Counseling. Barge was married at the time she was allegedly pursuing Drake but told him she was getting divorced. On Aug. 15, 2018, she told him she was legally divorced. She was not. Drake said he has experienced substance use disorder throughout his life. While struggling with addiction in 2004, he was arrested for battery. The charges were later dismissed. He also pleaded guilty to invasion of privacy in 2006. He has worked as a drug and alcohol interventionist, recovery coach and public speaker. He founded Keystone Interventions Group and co-founded Courage to Change, a group of sober living houses in Bloomington and Ellettsville, Indiana. Drake speaks around central and southern Indiana about surviving sexual abuse as a child and how that kind of trauma links directly to addiction. His past, he said, exacerbated the distress Barge’s actions caused him. He said Barge had heard him speak about the abuse he endured as a child before the alleged harassment began. “The thing about a brain that’s been through trauma is it doesn’t take the same shit it takes a person who doesn’t have that to trigger some kind of episode,” he said in an interview. “She’s a trained therapist. She should’ve known better.”
Under Indiana law, county officers — including county commissioners — “are liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor in office.” It is not clear whether Barge committed a misdemeanor while in office. She was absent from Wednesday’s meeting of the Monroe County Board of Commissioners. The board did not address the allegations. In an email, county commissioner Julie Thomas wrote that the county will issue a statement regarding the allegations.
Drake started off as a supporter of Barge and her work. He wanted her to be mayor. Then, he said, the advances began. “The thing is I was fucking praying she was who she said she was,” he said in an interview. “I really believed in the Amanda Barge mission.”
By Cameron Drummond cpdrummo@iu.edu | @cdrummond97
As Devonte Green limped around Branch McCracken Court on Tuesday night inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, the self-proclaimed “human cheat code” tried every combination in his repertoire to try and lift IU to an NIT quarterfinal win against Wichita State University. He tried pushing the fast break, heaving up seven 3-pointers and 14 total shots, and utilized his tight defensive stance. For every action by Green, the Shockers had a response, usually in the form of a 3-pointer, to win 73-63 and end the 2018-19 IU men’s basketball season. Five of those responses by the Shockers were 3-pointers by freshman guard Dexter Dennis, while senior forward Markis McDuffie added four threes of his own. Green was inaccurate from deep, making just two of his seven tries. IU finished the season making 31.2 percent of its 3-point shots. “Shooting from the 3-point line is the number one reason in many ways that our team could not get over the hump so many times,” IU Head Coach Archie Miller said. “You have to be able to stretch games out and break them open when you have your opportunities from three and this team this year couldn’t make shots.” A 9-0 scoring run from Wichita State at the midway mark of the first SEE BASKETBALL, PAGE 5
* * * Barge convinced Drake to spearhead Pathways, a helpline for people struggling with addiction in Monroe County, he said, after he spoke at the first South Central Opioid Summit in September 2017. Drake left his job as an intervention and recovery coach to start working with the county to structure Pathways in October 2017. Barge told him she was confident she could get enough grant money to fund Pathways, he said. He alleges she also promised she could give him job security when she was mayor. “She was always dangling that over my head,” he said in an interview. Barge first told Drake she had feelings for him in November 2017, he said. He told her he didn’t date married women. Looking back, he now says he should have been more clear that he specifically did not want to date her. Less than a month later, Drake said, Barge told him she was getting a divorce. Barge’s campaign website read, “Amanda is a mom, a wife, a gardener and loves hanging out on her porch with her family!” at the time of publication. Donyel Byrd, an adjunct professor for the IU School of Social Work, said Drake first told her about what he then called “Amanda’s crush on him” near the beginning of 2018. “My very first thought was, ‘This is not going to end well,’” Byrd said. “It went from bad to worse.” Byrd is a colleague of Drake’s. She said it’s been difficult to watch Barge gain so much support from Bloomington’s social work community after hearing Drake’s allegations. Drake said the next time Barge told him how she felt was over the phone around December 2017, while she was in Indianapolis. When he rejected her, he said she told him he had too many rules in his sex life. He alleges she also told him she was in love with him during that conversation. Around February 2018, Drake said, she began accusing him of having sex with some of their mutual acquaintances and colleagues. Byrd said she remembers Drake telling her that Barge accused him of having sex with his therapist. Drake denies Barge’s accusations. He said Barge also began acting jealous of women he spent time with and showing up at events he spoke at outside of Monroe County. This, he alleges, continued for months. “Every time I spoke or did anything she was right there,” he said in an interview. “I felt like it was to watch me.” She sent strings of texts and Facebook messages that Drake ignored until business required that he respond. Her messages ended with things such as “That’s all I’m gonna say, promise!” and “I’ll totally give you space and this too shall pass.” One day, when a volunteer for Pathways wore a dress Barge thought was inappropriate, Drake said she threatened to report the volunteer to the board of social workers. He said he believes this was out of jealousy. After he told her to stop threatening his staff, he said, things got a little bit better. SEE BARGE, PAGE 5 WEB SPECIAL For audio recordings, text messages, statements and emails, visit idsnews.com/barge.
‘Star Wars’ inspired play to premiere By Clark Gudas ckgudas@iu.edu | @This_isnt_clark
The IDS sat down with Chad Rabinovitz, director and producing artistic director of Bloomington Playwrights Project’s “The Jedi Handbook,” to talk about the production. The play was written by Stephen Massicotte. Rabinovitz has been directing new plays at the Bloomington Playwrights Project since 2013. “The Jedi Handbook” runs March 29 to April 13 at the Bloomington Playwrights Project. Responses have been shortened for brevity and clarity. IDS: Tell me a little about the premise of this production. Rabinovitz: It’s a coming of age story about a boy who grows up with the original “Star Wars” films and checks in on his life as they’re released. It’s not “Star Wars on Stage,” but it’s “Star Wars” through the eyes of this kid who moves to a new town and has to make new friends in elementary school, as the first movie is released. With a little help from the Force, he learns to acclimate to his new home. He meets his best friend, James, along the way. The two find that reenacting “Star Wars” and their imagination playtime is what brings them together. I’m interested in how “Star Wars” functions in this show, other than being a thing through which these characters interact with each other. It influences the overall tone, but the script itself parallels the movies. When the kid is nervous, all of a sudden, he’s very much like SEE STAR WARS, PAGE 5