Labor Pains: The case of the banished code compliance officers

Another annual festival bites the dust in Riverside. The Multicultural Youth Festival which was supposed to be held next month has been canceled which is a truly sad development.



The upcoming recession and the current renovation of the downtown pedestrian mall has catalyzed the cancellation. Not long after the city council made a huge show of adding another title, "City of the Arts" to the city's stockpile of them, a major cultural event has fallen by the wayside at least for a while. Perhaps it might be back in 2009. Perhaps not.





If you've read the lawsuit, Steve Livings v the City of Riverside which has been filed in Riverside County Superior Court, it'll make you cringe. It's not like there hasn't been a lawsuit involving a hostile workplace in Riverside (and it's not the only one that's been filed this year) but this one includes a new twist to an old practice.

Banishment.


This lawsuit isn't good news, certainly not for the city but not for city residents either.


And not just because you know the city's going to pay out on this one down the road. The whole sorry episode of banishing the three troublemakers to the corporate yard (which itself was the epicenter of some of the worst allegations of a hostile work environment in recent city history) is surreal, as is imagining them sitting tucked away from public view inside a cramped, dirty bug-infested shack writing tickets next to storage containers with "radioactive" marked on them. Are they kidding?

Apparently not.


If these banished employees stepped inside the halls of City Hall, perhaps even the lobby, they could face immediate discipline? Personas non gratis on the turf occupied by their boss? Does the same now apply to their old boss? Is he allowed to be inside the halls of power by invitation only?

There's more to come to add some clarity to this latest episodes from the still-expanding tome, Labor Pains. After all, the year's still young but except for a candlelight vigil or rally now and then usually when the media is present, there's not much else that's said by the local leadership on this issue. But speaking out on issues like this one in public means that the welcome mat to City Hall might be pulled out from under you. And of course that mat is much more important than whether employees have access to clean drinking water or not.

I mean, what is the city thinking? Which is part of the problem, that it clearly isn't thinking ahead down the road any more than it did when several men of color filed lawsuits alleging a hostile working environment inside the police department or more than a dozen Black city employees filed a lawsuit in 1997. Has it learned anything in the past several years?


Here are the categories of allegations listed under actions in the lawsuit.





Unlawful discrimination-age

Unlawful discrimination-physical disability

Failure to accommodate physical disability

Failure to engage in the interactive process

Unlawful harassment-age

Unlawful harassment-physical disability

Intentional infliction of emotional distress

Retaliation



Retaliation is one area where Riverside should have learned from paying out on settlements or jury verdicts in several other noted employment lawsuits. Whether it's allegations of smearing human feces on a city-owned vehicle assigned to a Black Public Works employee, or keying the car owned by a Black police officer that's parked inside a secure parking structure reserved by employees. Whether it's putting advertisements for sex toys and graphically sexual cartoons on the desk of a female detective or forcing Black employees who file grievances to go in for a psychiatric evaluation. These actions have been painful for those who were subjected to them and they've been expensive for the city to pay out on when the day comes when the city does have to pay out.

The jury which awarded the Black police officer with the keyed vehicle a verdict of $1.64 million said afterward that the strongest part of his case in its opinion had been the claims of retaliation. The presiding judge agreed when she heard and ultimately rejected a motion to grant the city a new trial. The city rewarded her decisions on the case by papering her in future court appearances on other cases, an action which can itself be read several different ways.


The case of the banished code compliance offers apparently began several years ago, when a key shift change was made within that division and elsewhere.


Steve Livings, Mary Furfaro and Todd Solomon had all been working for the code compliance division before Mark Salazar became its manager in 2005. The previous code compliance manager, Doug Leeper had been removed allegedly due to the large number of personnel complaints filed against him. No word yet on whether he had ever worked as a "full-time advisor on code issues" for the city manager's office before his departure.

Livings had been one of the officers who had filed complaints against Leeper for among other things, using the power of his position to enforce a code action against someone he had a personal disagreement with as well as threatening to bring a gun to work. Livings also claimed that Leeper had stolen a code enforcement work badge from San Bernardino County. Filing complaints against Leeper resulted in retaliation in the workplace according to Livings.

When Leeper stepped down and was replaced by Salazar, Livings stated that he was immediately concerned because of a close relationship that existed between the two men.

Furfaro started reporting in August 2005 that Salazar was touching her "inappropriately" and after she told him that this behavior was unsolicited and unwelcome, she stated in the lawsuit that he began retaliating against her. Livings also complained that Salazar was making inappropriate and sexually-oriented comments to younger female employees and when he complained on their behalf, Salazar began retaliating against him.

In March 2006, Solomon complained that Salazar was making inappropriate comments to him about his weight and physical disabilities. When he told Salazar that the comments were offensive and discriminatory, Salazar told him that if he didn't like it, he could file a complaint with the Human Resources Department which Solomon did.

That was allegedly on March 15, 2006. And guess what? On March 23, these three employees who had complained to or against Salazar had found themselves transferred to the city's corporate yard (already infamous for its long-time hostile work environment for the city's Black employees) and housed in a shack where hazardous material was stored. There was no air conditioning, no heat, no clean drinking water and it was bug-infested. Hazardous substances were stored there, some in containers marked, "radioactive". There were no working fire extinguishers and exposed insulation on the electrical wiring.

The three of them were essentially banished. If they left their workplaces, they were threatened with termination. If they entered City Hall, they could be immediately disciplined. Their laptops and other equipment were handed off to younger employees for use. They alleged this was done to them as an act of retaliation for complaining.

The excuse for their relocation? That they were going to be charged with handing out tickets for people whose vehicles were left abandoned more than 72 hours.


What's so interesting about this is that recently, the city ran a television program on the code compliance division's volunteer division and the responsibilities of those assigned to that division. And what was one of the assignments of the volunteer division? As cheerfully explained by several volunteers and at least one city employee, it was to be responsible for ticketing vehicles abandoned for longer than 72 hours so that the actual paid code compliance officers could spend their time dealing with other more serious issues.

Livings and Solomon among other things complained to the fire department and CAL-OSHA about the poor safety conditions of their new assignment. Other employees and supervisors made them the butt of jokes including referring to them as the "HazMat Team".

In June of 2006, the employees in the code compliance division were required to take a self-defense class but Livings, Furfaro and Solomon said they could not because the training would aggravate old injuries they had received. Solomon was forced to take the training and injured his back further.

Furfaro, who had fractured her foot twice and developed a deformity as a result, was placed on light duty for no reason and the city made no effort to accommodate her physical problems. She had heard that a Riverside County Grand Jury investigation had uncovered that the city was not accommodating those employees with physical disabilities.

Between September 2006 and January 2007, Solomon was placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation that he told another employee to be concerned about being falsely disciplined by the manager. After returning to work, Solomon stated that he was suspended for two weeks without any justification. He resigned in May 2007 due to a hostile working environment.

Furfaro suffered health and breathing problems she believed were related to the exile of herself, Solomon and Livings to the corporate yard and soon resigned in the autumn of 2007 due to intolerable work conditions.

Livings was terminated on Feb. 26, 2007 allegedly after presented with a signed complaint by the entire code compliance division, the signatures of which he stated was "an act of forgery".




And one question that still remains is why does the city manager's office need a "full-time advisor to the city on code issues"? Isn't that part of the job of the code compliance manager? Assuming that if Salazar was removed from this position, then that means that there would at least be an interim manager, so why wouldn't this individual be performing this job responsibility?



It would be like removing the police chief or the fire chief, replacing them and then making them full-time advisers to the city manager's office on police or fire issues. It would be like replacing the head librarian and museum director and making them full-time advisers to the city manager's office on their respective issues. Which of course didn't happen. They took the quicker route out of the city.



It would be like removing the human resources director. Oh wait, never mind. That's been done before already.



But what if we could have a city manager's staff that not only includes department heads but also full-time advisers to the city manager's office on issues usually handled by department heads? Why not just have two people head every city department? One of them can report to the city manager's office and the other can advise it.




But there's likely more lawsuits in the city's employment arena to come because there always is. It's better to sue in the long run because in several of the city's departments, those who staff them have discoverered that utilizing the city's policy against racial and gender discrimination and harassment has led to pink slips.

Such as in the case of the city's three "P"s during the past two years. Two people who represent two separate city departments were treated this way after reporting the use of a racial slur in the workplace. What was the slur? The N-word.

Their supervisors or department heads told them in one case that the employee who used the word didn't mean it that way. In the other case, it was paired up with a gender slur, the B-word and that woman was told by her supervisor when she tried to complain that she had to learn to get along with the other people in her division and there was nothing to be done. Actually there was, which was to hand her a slip.

And it appeared that the environment inside that particular city department as well as code compliance and perhaps others is as toxic in its own way as anything stored inside a container inside the shack that housed the "HazMat" team at the epicenter of some of the city's worst racism, the corporate shed.





Civilian review is returning to Salt Lake City after a bit of an absence, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.



(excerpt)



Salt Lake City's Civilian Review Board, which was rendered inoperable last year by a series of resignations, met again today and prepared for a new series of investigations into police conduct.

It was the board's first official meeting in 11 months. They did not consider any misconduct cases but heard Mayor Ralph Becker and Police Chief Chris Burbank commit to the board's success.

Becker said the board must safeguard the Bill of Rights and public confidence in the police. Burbank pledged to give the panel full access to police reports and evidence. Burbank said he relies on panel's judgment in helping adjudicate allegations of misconduct and has cited the members' rulings when he has terminated police officers.

"There are times when an officer's judgment is so far outside of what I consider reasonable, I ask them to leave," Burbank said.

Most of the 14-appointed-member review board resigned or stopped attending meetings in 2007. There had been simmering complaints from members about having their findings overruled by Burbank and the former chief, Rick Dinse, and complaints the police department was not sharing evidence with the board.

Conflict peaked in April when someone disclosed to The Tribune that the review board sustained an allegation of excessive force used against a Korean War veteran.

information would have been announced publicly a few days later, but the city investigated who leaked the news early. The source of the leak was never uncovered but the suspicion angered board members and spurred enough resignations to prevent a quorum.

The review board has had critics as well. The president of the police officers' union assailed the board over the leak in the war veteran case and accused board members and the board's former investigator, Ty McCartney, of being biased against accused officers. Nobody representing the police officers' union attended tonight's meeting.





Here's a job opening.




The City of Berkeley's Police Review Commission invites candidates to apply for the position of temporary Investigator.
Please see attached brochure for more information.

Salary
$73,092 to $88,092 annual salary. In addition, the City pays the 8% employee's share to the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and $2,170 to the City's Supplemental Retirement Income Plan (SRIP), and IRC 401(a) plan, making the effective salary $81,109 to $97,309 annually. Full benefits, i.e. health and dental.

The Position
This temporary benefited position, not to exceed six (6) months, will serve as an independent investigator of citizen complaints against members of the Berkeley Police Department or against police policy or practices. This position places an emphasis on utilizing investigation and dispute resolution techniques, and improving the relationship between the Police Department and the diverse community it serves. Under the supervision of the PRC Officer, the incumbent interprets data and makes reports for the benefit of Commission members; utilizes a variety of resources to pursue complaints and investigations thoroughly and impartially; is expected to work with considerable independence and initiative while adhering to strict deadlines; prepares detailed reports on completed investigations.

Required Qualifications
EDUCATION: equivalent to graduation from a four-year college with major coursework in law, criminology, public administration, business, or a closely related field. A law degree is desirable.

EXPERIENCE: two (2) years of analytical, investigative, or legal-related experience in a public agency setting. Experience which provided a familiarity with law enforcement procedures, and skill in dealing with members of carious ethnic and socio-economic groups is desirable. Progressively responsible related experience may be substituted for the college requirement on a year-for-year basis.





New York City Police Department Det. Gescard Isnora testified in a matter of speaking at his own trial, through his grand jury testimony which was read out loud. Isnora and two other NYPD officers are on trial after being charged by a grand jury in connection with the shooting death of Sean Bell and injuries to his two friends.




(excerpt, New York Times)



In his narrative of the fatal shooting outside a Queens nightclub on the morning of Nov. 25, 2006, he said he had shouted “Police!” several times, his badge clipped to the collar of his plainclothes sweater, and had thought that Mr. Bell’s front-seat passenger, Joseph Guzman, was pulling a gun from his own waistband.

Even in the testimony read aloud by a proxy on Thursday, the detective’s panic was clear as he approached Mr. Bell’s car with his gun drawn.

“I stated: ‘Police! Don’t move! Police! Don’t move!’ ” he said. “The driver floored the car and struck my leg.” He said he stumbled onto the sidewalk as Mr. Bell’s car continued forward, striking an unmarked police van, then backed up toward him. He jumped out of the way as the car backed into a storefront and charged forward again.

“I maintained focus on Guzman,” he said in his testimony. “I kept noticing he was going into his waistband.”

“I was watching the passenger side and I noticed he kept reaching into his waistband area and I kept saying: ‘Police! Don’t move!’ ” he said.

“I noticed that his arm was going up in an upward motion, and I yelled ‘Gun!’ and my mind, I felt that he had a gun and I couldn’t wait anymore. It happened so quick. It was like the last thing that I ever wanted to do.”

“I felt maybe if I waited a second longer, he would have fired at me,” he said. “I’m sorry, I am just — once I seen the arm go up, I fired. I yelled ‘Gun!’ and I fired.”




One of the guests at the bachelor party Bell attended the night before his own wedding testified that officers brandished their guns but did not identify themselves, according to the New York Daily News.



(excerpt)



James "Quick" Kollore said he saw Bell's car slam into a van and then a man emerge with his gun blazing.

"I did not see a shield," he said. "He had dark hair, he was holding a gun. He went to the edge of his car door. I heard gunfire. I seen flashes from his muzzle."

Whether or not the undercover cops identified themselves as police before they began firing is a key issue in the trial of three NYPD detectives who gunned Bell down on his wedding day.

"At any time, when you were on the street, did you hear any police commands?" asked prosecutor Charles Testagrossa.

"No," Kollore replied.



A New Rochelle Police Department sergeant has been charged with raping a 17-year-old girl.