EVERETT — Snohomish County councilmen get to decide next week how they want to address the county’s handling of harassment and discrimination complaints, now that they have a summary in hand.
The county’s equal employment opportunity investigator sent a list of 27 cases and how they were resolved to councilmen late Friday afternoon. That’s all of the allegations investigated during the past two years.
Complaints in four cases led to some action. Results are pending in 10. The rest of the complaints were deemed unfounded or insignificant, the report shows.
County Council Chairman Dave Gossett, who hadn’t had a chance to review the information because he was in Olympia, said he hasn’t decided whether a public meeting on the topic is appropriate anytime soon.
“We really have to look and see what’s in there,” he said.
Gossett requested the information on Jan. 11, after reports that employees complained of sexually charged antics in the planning department long before their boss, former planning director Craig Ladiser, was fired for exposing himself at a building industry golf tournament. None of the prior planning department complaints were substantiated.
This week, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office approved County Executive Aaron Reardon’s request to spend up to $12,000 for a Seattle lawyer’s review of how the county deals with work-force complaints.
The county employs an in-house attorney, Mark Knudsen, as an equal employment opportunity investigator. His job is to look into reports of sexual harassment as well as various types of discrimination and work-place retaliation. Knudsen reports his findings to Reardon’s second-in-command, deputy executive Mark Soine.
In the summary sent to councilmen Friday, Knudsen said that he investigated 28 complaints since Jan. 1, 2008. His report lists only 27.
Public works, which includes crews for solid waste and roads, generated the most complaints at 11. The jail was next with five, followed by the planning department with four.
The most common complaint among the county’s work force — nine — centered around race, ethnicity or national origin. The next most common complaints were five allegations of a sexually hostile workplace or gender discrimination. There were three complaints of age discrimination.
There was even one complaint about foul language in the workplace. The investigator found no violation of county policy in that case.
Most cases were closed for reasons such as lack of evidence, lack of cooperation by the complainant or because the charges didn’t violate county policy.
The cases that resulted in some action included:
A solid-waste employee complained that a co-worker created a sexually hostile work environment. Supervisors moved the alleged offender to another work area.
Another solid-waste employee reported being treated unfavorably by co-workers who were not black. The matter was closed after directors discussed the situation with the employee.
Meanwhile, the county is facing a $500,000 claim for damages from the planning department’s former human resources manager. In the claim, Debbie McPherson accuses the planning department’s former deputy director and others of creating a hostile environment for women, older workers, disabled workers and minorities.
In late 2008, the planning department also settled a case that former planning department employee James Tracy brought to the state Human Rights Commission alleging retaliation for opposing an unfair action.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465, nhaglund@heraldnet.com.
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