Jan 1, 2018 4 min read

It may be a new year, but Tim Solobay isn’t celebrating.

The former state legislator from Canonsburg resigned as Pennsylvania fire commissioner during the holiday weekend. He did so, according to several media reports, over a sexual harassment complaint filed by a former staffer of Solobay’s in 2011, when he was in the Senate. The complaint was not made public until the media reported it over the weekend.

Harrisburg-based PennLive.com reported Solobay resigned Sunday, although he posted a message on his Facebook page Saturday saying: “Left Job at Pennsylvania Office of the State Fire Commissioner.” Solobay did not respond to two messages the Observer-Reporter left on his cellphone.

The office of Gov. Tom Wolf declined to comment about the resignation Sunday, saying it was a personnel matter. The fire commissioner’s office, based in Harrisburg, oversees funding and training across the state.

Responding to an individual comment on his Facebook page, Solobay said, “This ain’t over. Retaining legal counsel and will bring out the really (sic) issue.”

A Democrat, Solobay, 61, served six terms in the state House, from 2000 to 2010, and one term in the Senate. He was defeated in his bid for re-election by Republican Camera Bartolotta in November 2014. Shortly after leaving the Senate in January 2015, Solobay was appointed fire commissioner by Gov.-elect Wolf.

PennLive reported it approached Rachel Moore, Solobay’s former staffer, about the complaint and she consented to be interviewed in November. Moore told the news service on June 14, 2011, as she walked past Solobay in a Senate office, her boss slapped her on the butt.

It was not “the worst thing that’s ever happened to anybody at the Capitol, by a long stretch,” Moore said.

She filed the complaint the next day with Sharon Willison, Solobay’s chief of staff. Moore told PennLive: “I knew if I didn’t put a stop to it, I would not know what would happen next. And that’s not something I will entertain.”

At that time, Solobay denied he slapped her. Sources in the Senate, according to PennLive, did not get another complaint during the Canonsburg resident’s one four-year term there.

Moore, then 25 and newly married, told the news source she was uncomfortable afterward. She said she essentially had two options: pursuing a formal complaint with the Senate chief clerk’s office or agreeing to transfer to another Harrisburg office. The complaint process could have been grueling and a few weeks later, she accepted the transfer.

Now, 6½ years later, concerned about harassment, she decided to speak out. Moore also provided PennLive with a copy of the email she sent to Willison the day after the alleged incident. It reads:

“As we passed, he hit me on my backside. At first I was in shock by what had happened, given the number of staff members present in the open space of the office, but I don’t think anyone was in the line of sight to see it. I wondered if this was unintentional, but it was a “direct hit” and I still felt the physical impact a few moments later,” Moore said.

“I went about my work for the rest of the day; however, I slept on it, thought about it on my run this morning, and knew something was wrong. I considered using compensatory time so that I would not have to come in today and I am very uncomfortable in the office. As such, I feel that it is incumbent upon me to formally report this incident.”

“… I understand that Tim is a very friendly person, but at times he has crossed and does cross the line of decency. I have scoffed about the off-hand, off-color comments made about females every once in a while, but unsolicited physical contact of this nature warrants your notification …

“I hate that I have to even write this to you right now, but silence is complicity, and I cannot support enabling this behavior.”

Moore worked in Harrisburg for several years, but now has a job in the private sector.