Mayor James West said on Monday that he would take a leave of absence for a "few weeks" to prepare to defend himself against a newspaper's reports of child molesting.
West, a longtime Republican foe of gay rights, told the City Council that the contentions in The Spokesman-Review last week were false.
...Oelrich said he resigned from the commission in January after West ``hounded me for months, telling me I was cute and asking me out on dates.'' Oelrich said he refused the mayor's advances, the newspaper reported. Oelrich told the newspaper he knows of ``five or six other young gay men that Jim West has met online and offered City Hall jobs.''
The newspaper said another man, who is 25 and spoke on condition of anonymity, claims West, who is divorced, offered him a job as the city's human resources director and then a post as the city's aquatics director. The man rejected both offers.
Earlier on Monday, city officials seized Mayor West's City Hall computers for an investigation into whether he improperly used them to visit gay online chat rooms.
West, a longtime Republican foe of gay rights, has acknowledged offering autographed sports memorabilia and a possible City Hall internship to someone he thought was an 18-year-old man in a gay online chat room. The man was actually a computer expert hired by The Spokesman-Review as part of a journalism sting operation.
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