The Downtown Long Beach Alliance, a multimillion-dollar nonprofit that manages two local business improvement districts, is investigating accusations that its CEO overlooked harassment and discriminatory behavior within his organization, including a claim that he witnessed one of his employees grope a woman after an evening of drinking.

The employee in question and the CEO have both denied the accusations, but the DTLB Alliance has hired a former attorney to investigate the claims, said Sam Pierzina, chairman of the organization’s board of directors.

The investigator is interviewing employees and other potential witnesses in the hopes of reaching a conclusion “in the next couple of weeks,” Pierzina said. This comes in response to a 46-page open letter and collection of internal communications published by local consultant Kena Fuller, whom the DTLB Alliance paid to provide small business coaching and other services to Downtown entrepreneurs.

The cover of Kena Fuller’s open letter about the Downtown Long Beach Alliance.

The Alliance, which is funded mostly by fees the city levies on Downtown, exists to market the area, spur economic development and advocate for the residents and businesses that pay into its coffers. In her letter, Fuller broadly criticizes the organization, saying it’s failed at its mission and fostered a culture that harms the people it claims to serve.

She calls for the dismissal of its Economic Development Policy Manager Stephanie El Tawil “for her sexual harassment and misconduct” and of CEO Austin Metoyer for his “enabling behavior,” including “directly witnessing my sexual harassment by Stephanie El Tawil.”

Fuller wrote that she was commonly subjected to inappropriate comments and “subtle, racist phrasing” from El Tawil, who managed her contract. Fuller, who is Black, said El Tawil would respond to emails with phrases such as “you is amazing” or “you da best!”

Stephanie El Tawil. Photo courtesy of the Downtown Long Beach Alliance.

In one 2023 meeting, Fuller wrote, El Tawil said marketing efforts would benefit from “your perky tits and your gorgeous face!” On another occasion, according to Fuller, El Tawil apologized for being late to a meeting because she “had to poop.”

“This is simply how Stephanie speaks,” Fuller wrote, calling her a “messy” person.

Fuller said Metoyer witnessed El Tawil’s behavior in early 2023 when they attended a business gathering where alcohol was served.

“Upon close of the gathering, having drank, Stephan[i]e proceeds to get close to me, grope my breast in front of Austin and brush off her behavior, which appeared to make him uncomfortable,” Fuller wrote. “She was new to her role and had too much to drink, so I opted to excuse her having touched me and comforted Austin. I could tell he was uncomfortable and that made me more uncomfortable, he didn’t know how to handle the action on Stephanie’s part.”

Both El Tawil and Metoyer denied this took place, according to Pierzina.

“They both recall the event that she alludes to,” but, he said, when it comes to the alleged groping, “Neither of them recall that happening at all.”

After hearing of Fuller’s letter, which she shared on social media on Jan. 6 and supplemented with a video, both El Tawil and Metoyer pushed for an outside investigation, according to Pierzina.

“They want to clear their names,” he said.

Fuller said she did not speak out earlier because her livelihood was dependent on her contract with the DTLB Alliance, but that business relationship deteriorated and they parted ways after a contentious meeting in 2024 about the performance of her business coaching program. Fuller says she’s still owed money for her work.

Intertwined with her many specific complaints, Fuller’s letter also broadly criticizes the DTLB Alliance, saying the organization has “a consistent habit of not supporting its downtown businesses or the Black community, despite its positioning via social media and other forward-facing placements.”

She cites instances where her consultancy and other Black-owned businesses were left out of promotional material or not tagged on social media — even when their images were being used to promote Black History Month.

Pierzina said he and other DTLB Alliance board members disagree with Fuller’s characterization of the organization.

“We’ve made several commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion,” he said. “That’s a cornerstone of the mission of the organization.”

Nevertheless, he said, “we prioritize the seriousness of these claims and are addressing them with the utmost care and transparency.”

Jeremiah Dobruck is executive editor of the Long Beach Post where he oversees all day-to-day newsroom operations. In his time working as a journalist in Long Beach, he’s won numerous awards for his investigative reporting and editing. Before coming to the Post in 2018, he wrote for publications including the Press-Telegram, Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times. Reach him at [email protected] or @jeremiahdobruck on Twitter.