By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
YACHATS – The city of Yachats’ deputy city recorder and a former temporary employee have filed suit in U.S. District Court against the city, seeking unspecified damages for what they claim is racial discrimination, retaliation and discriminatory pay practices.
An attorney for deputy city recorder Kimmie Jackson of Yachats and former administrative assistant Anita Sites of Waldport filed the lawsuits May 10 in U.S. District Court in Eugene.
The lawsuit follows two Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries investigations into their similar complaints released in March that for the most part deemed their allegations either too old under Oregon law to be considered by the agency or unsubstantiated.
Sites’ portion of the federal lawsuit mirror allegations in the complaint to the state agency during portions of two years of work as a contract employee between September 2019 and June 2021.
However, Jackson’s portion of the federal lawsuit brings up new issues relating to a change of office duties and access to emails and files, turmoil that often led to her often being the only employee in city hall, not considering her for the interim city manager’s job while offering the job to white women who had less municipal experience, and attempts by city manager Heide Lambert to review and discipline her over performance issues.
Allegations by both Jackson and Sites gives a peek into the chaos and management of city hall employees during the last year of former city manager Shannon Beaucaire’s work, followed by two interim managers, several years of city council oversight, and then Lambert’s 15 months as manager. Lambert resigned April 1, effective Wednesday.
The lawsuit does not ask for a specific monetary award, but that Jackson and Sites “are entitled to recover from defendant such lost wages and benefits of employment and other economic losses in such amount as may be established at trial.”
Jackson and Sites are represented by attorney Rebecca Cambreleng of Portland. There are three sets of lawyers involved with the city – legal advisers from the Local Government Law Group of Eugene, from insurance carrier CIS Oregon, and from the State Accident Insurance Fund.
As it its practice, Yachats mayor Craig Berdie said Wednesday the city would have no comment on the litigation.
Jackson’s allegations
Jackson started working for the city in 2011 and after Sites left in 2021 was its only employee of color. Her lawsuit said that she complained to five city managers, former Mayor Leslie Vaaler and several council members about “systemic discrimination and harassment” that included racial and ethnic slurs, false accusations of laziness and incompetence, and accusations of running a notary business from city hall.
Jackson’s lawsuit said many of her duties were taken away when the city began using an outside contractor in 2019 to handle billing and finances. When she complained about that, Beaucaire added back some responsibilities but added more “that created an overload on plaintiff Jackson.”
“She was ignored and received no additional help and was still expected to take on all the extra work, as she always had after each of the white co-workers left and the city managers changed from under qualified white person to under qualified white person,” the lawsuit says.
Not mentioned in any of the legal documents were concerns among some city officials and council members about Jackson’s access to financial accounts. In July 2005 she pleaded guilty to embezzling $208,775 from a bank in southern California, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and to pay restitution, according to U.S. District court records. During three years probation following her prison term she was prohibited from working for banks or have control or manage any employer’s funds.
Jackson’s lawsuit said Katherine Guenther was appointed interim city manager in June 2021 “even though she had no municipal experience and had only recently started her position as city planner.”
“No one asked plaintiff Jackson at any time to take over as interim city manager despite her taking on the job duties in between city managers,” her lawsuit says. “Instead, Ms. Guenther was told not to worry about not having any experience with the position as ‘Kimmie will do all the work’ and she could just hand it all to plaintiff Jackson.”
The lawsuit alleges the issues forced Jackson to take medical leave in December 2021. She remained on it until July 2022, when she returned to city hall.
“Upon her return, she was subject to retaliation by city manager Lambert, including stripping of her job duties and responsibilities, denying previously approved and provided accommodations for her disability, and attempted discipline,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit recounts issues with a desk that did not accommodate her injured back, banning her service animal from the office because Lambert was allergic to dogs, and changing Jackson’s email access.
“Prior to her medical leave and filing her BOLI complaint, plaintiff Jackson had not, in her 12 years as a city employee, been given any discipline related to her work, or even been told that there were concerns over her work product,” the lawsuit said. “As soon as she returned, Lambert began to question plaintiff Jackson’s work, including having her send it to a white employee for review having her submit it to Lambert for approval, and attempting to discipline her for poor work product.”
The lawsuit recounts an incident in March between office staff and Yachats Brewing owner Nathan Bernard, and Lambert’s handling of it a day later that led three temporary workers to resign their positions. The lawsuit said when Jackson returned to work after their departure she was the only person in the office, was unable to answer phone calls “or help the public in any meaningful way.”
The lawsuit said Jackson wrote a letter April 10 to her union, Berdie and council members repeating the many issues, and asking for help in the office. As of its May 10 filing, she had not received a response, the lawsuit said.
The BOLI decisions
Similar – but not the same — accusations Jackson made to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries were not upheld in a March report by senior civil rights investigator Tyler Stokes.
Stokes wrote that a large number of Jackson’s 32 allegations were outside the agency’s statute of limitations, and “many of the remainder are so vague/generalized that (the city) was unable to reasonably respond to them.”
Jackson filed the complaint in March 2022 alleging she’d been “subjected to a campaign of discrimination” almost since her hiring in July 2011, and that campaign included demotion, harassment, racial slurs and unequal pay practices.
The city of Yachats spent $8,589 to hire a firm to do its own investigation — not yet public — of Jackson’s complaint in case it had to fight the BOLI decision.
Stokes’ memo addressed 27 contested allegations. Some of Jackson’s allegations are neutral statements of fact, such as her hiring date or the names and terms of Yachats city managers. Stokes found that the events in 14 allegations occurred too long ago to be pursued under Oregon law. These involved previous city managers and office staff between 2015 and 2019.
In a footnote, Stokes added, “the facts do not indicate the existence of continuing violations that would justify consideration of allegations 6-19 in spite of their untimeliness.”
Sites’ allegations
Anita Sites’ portion of the federal lawsuit mirror much of what she alleged in her complaint to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries.
Sites began working for the city via an employment agency in September 2019, left four months later to travel and then returned in June 2020. The lawsuit says when Sites returned then-city manager Beaucaire increased her workload and duties but did not respond to requests to increase her pay that white women had been paid to do those jobs.
She also complained to Beaucaire about what she felt were harassing comments by a male employee but got no response until she sent an email to then-mayor John Moore and council members. After that, the lawsuit said Beaucaire’s actions resulted in “a campaign of retaliation based on her allegations of racism and request for equal pay.”
The lawsuit said that in March 2021, Beaucaire directed the temporary agency to offer an ultimatum to Sites to take on an additional seven pages worth of job responsibilities with no additional pay or leave within 24 hours. Sites accepted the new responsibilities for no pay increase, the lawsuit said, because Beaucaire was leaving for a new job and that Sites hoped a new interim manager “would be more reasonable, and the retaliation and harassment would stop.”
That manager, Lee Elliott arrived from Texas in March 2021 and left three months later.
The lawsuit said Sites went on vacation in late May and shortly before Elliott left the employment agency called her to say her contract with Yachats was terminated.
That July – after Elliott departed and Guenther became interim city manager – Sites applied for a full-time job with the city that was similar to the work she had been doing but paid $56,000 to $60,000 a year, the lawsuit said. Guenther needed city council approval for the hire and recommended Sites for the job.
But, the lawsuit said, during the hiring process, Mayor Leslie Vaaler insinuated that “Sites was not ethical, but said she would allow her to work in that position if she accepted a salary of $48,600 – almost $10,000 below the approved budget for the position.”
“Prior to this offer, Mayor Vaaler had asked if Yachats had $76,000 for the other candidate, a white woman,” the lawsuit said. “Plaintiff Sites did not accept the offer and had to pursue a job out-of-state as the reporting of the mistreatment and the smear campaign made her unemployable in Lincoln County.”
The BOLI senior civil rights investigator who conducted that agency’s investigation said in his March report that Sites’ complaints against Beaucaire were not filed within a year of occurring but also failed to establish “substantial evidence” that the city manager committed discriminatory pay practices.
He also found that Elliott acted within his authority to cancel Sites’ temporary work contract and there was not “substantial evidence” that the employee’s comments to her constituted discrimination or retaliation.
The BOLI investigator did find substantial evidence that Beaucaire used the term “ESL girl” to other employees in referring to Sites and that it did constitute harassment. However, the investigator said the city was not liable for Beaucaire’s remarks “because no tangible employment action was taken” and that when notified of the comments, Vaaler promised to immediately talk with the city manager.
The agency investigator ended his report on Sites’ complaint saying that while “the city council, then mayor, and then pro tem city manager collectively exhibited severe disagreement and paralysis of leadership in summer 2021 while deliberating about whether to hire complainant back into a new position, what said position would involve in terms of responsibilities, whether she was qualified for said position, and how much to pay her … the chaotic conduct of (the city’s) leadership in summer 2021 did not constitute unlawful action in violation of complainant’s civil rights.”
- Quinton Smith is the editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com