During the parking-lot confrontation, Kevin Anderson said he won’t resign from office.
By Bob Norman
When local activist Yenori Alvarez happened to see Fort Myers Mayor Kevin Anderson over the weekend outside a downtown Starbucks, she took the opportunity to ask him some questions, first about ICE enforcement, then about the sexual misconduct scandal that has rocked his office and the city.
When Alvarez asked if he was going to resign, Anderson quickly responded, “No.”
“There is no proof I did any wrongdoing, okay?” he said as he walked away from Alvarez.
“You’re a predator!” Alvarez called after him. “Resign!”
Alvarez said her recent friendship with one of the mayor’s accusers, 18-year-old Dominic Hendricks, helped spur her to action. She said she met Hendricks this spring at City Hall and was impressed by his enthusiasm to engage in city policy and was shocked when she learned of Hendricks’ allegation that the mayor asked him a series of sexually explicit questions during the July 4 celebration in Centennial Park, including whether the teenager found him attractive and would consider having sex with an older man.
“When I heard the mayor did that, and saw [Hendricks] as someone to prey on rather than someone to help, that bothered me a lot,” said Alvarez.
The 68-year-old mayor, while admitting the conversation with Hendricks veered into the topic of sexuality, told the Lighthouse it was the teenager who raised it, denied making the more obscene remarks or propositioning the teenager, and blamed it on a possible misunderstanding prompted by his own “warped sense of humor.”
At the recent Sept. 21 city council meeting — where Hendricks and another of his accusers, Kagan Vann, confronted the mayor face to face — Anderson said the “exchanges” he had with both were “being taken out of context to create a false narrative.”
[Read the text exchange between the mayor and Vann here].
Since that meeting, a former young male co-worker of Anderson’s at Chico’s shared his story with the Lighthouse of what he claimed was chronic unwanted attention from Anderson at work ten years ago, and a Fort Myers bar staffer alleged Anderson asked one of her young male co-workers if he would accept money for sex. The Lighthouse verified the identities of both accusers, who each requested anonymity. Anderson did not respond to requests for comment in either case.
Since the scandal broke three weeks ago, Anderson has resigned as a member of three prominent local non-profit boards — Valerie’s House, FGCU Alumni Association, and United Way — but has vowed to continue leading the city.