Carmel public works director placed on administrative leave after epic fail at working with a member of the public.

Maybe Carmel Public Works Director Bob Harary was having a bad day when an anonymous person sent an email last week to the city royally chastising officials for their storm preparations—or in the author's opinion, the lack thereof—before a major storm that hit at the beginning of February.

The complaint, written almost like a poem, evidently hit Harary the wrong way, because he lashed out at the writer in a return email on Feb. 11, addressing the email to a "Nameless Bafoon (sic)."

"We suggest that you go to a proctologist who may have a chance of extracting your entire head out of your anus," Harary writes.

He signs it, "As politically correct as we can muster, Carmel Public Works."

Harary's day then got much worse. Within hours he was placed on paid administrative leave after the anonymous writer forwarded Harary's email to other City Hall officials and copied two local TV newsrooms, says City Administrator Chip Rerig.

"The city does not communicate like that," Rerig says. "Even if we sometimes disagree with the public, we try not to become disagreeable."

The Weekly reached out by email to the writer, only identified as "Carmel Highlands." He declined to be interviewed or give a name, but confirms that he lives in Carmel Highlands, which is in unincorporated Monterey County, not the city of Carmel.

The complaining poet says he attempted to come into Carmel on Feb. 3, just as people were starting to arrive for the AT&T Pro-Am, only to find numerous streets closed and some parts of the city still without power. (He himself was without power in Carmel Highlands for two days.)

He also tried unsuccessfully to go to Monterey, but was stopped by a downed tree on Highway 1.

"Is this a 3rd world country OR one of the richest cities on the planet?" he writes.

The power outage the weekend of Feb. 1-3 was the second time in just a few weeks that the city experienced an outage. A storm in January shut down businesses along Ocean Avenue for at least a day.

The complaint sent to the city on Feb. 3, with the subject line "Public (no) Works," asked:

The complaint went on for a number of stanzas, suggesting someone's not doing their job to prepare the city for winter storms. He also recommended that all Carmel officials—"slackers," as he called them—should lose their jobs.

The email ends with:

The writer says he was shocked at how many trees and power lines came down, sending the city into chaos for a few days. Ditto when he read Harary's response.

"I frankly was surprised to hear from him use cheap vulgarities than behave like a professional," the man says. "The email account is from the government and administration of a United States City. A very amazing one. So, to hear him cuss and curse like a junkyard dog was, frankly, shocking. Absolutely shocking.

"Carmel is a city of class. And if its politicians have no class, they need to get out. Get out of office and go somewhere where your cheap vulgarity is appreciated," he tells the Weekly.

Rerig says an investigation is ongoing. His goal is for Harary to apologize to the email writer, Carmel residents and city staff. What Harary's ultimate fate might be is not known at this time.

In the meantime, Rerig defends the city's storm preparations, even as another storm is set to hit the Central Coast within the next two days. The National Weather Service is predicting a 100-percent chance of heavy rain and winds all day on Wednesday, Feb. 13. Warnings for both flash floods and heavy winds for Monterey County are in effect from 10pm on Tuesday, Feb. 12 until 10am on Thursday, Feb. 14.

Rerig says the city routinely monitors at risk trees and has five tree service companies on call for emergencies. He also says city staff—and even Rerig's own children—pitch in to clear storm drains and do other tasks to prepare before storms hit.

Here's the original complaint in its entirety: