LAKE STEVENS — The Lake Stevens police commander has filed a lawsuit against the city, saying he is being wrongfully fired in violation of employment laws.
Dennis Taylor, 53, is accusing city leaders of trying to ruin his reputation as retaliation for how he managed others in the workplace. The lawsuit names Mayor Vern Little and former city administrator Jan Berg as defendants.
Little’s term ends this year, and he didn’t seek re-election. Berg resigned last week. City officials did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The lawsuit touches on a complicated situation at a police department that has tried to stay out of the news after a series of scandals in recent years.
Taylor is second in command in the Lake Stevens department. The city hired him in November 2013, to help overhaul the police department. That came after a number of problems became public involving officer discipline and accountability. Taylor served in the U.S. Marine Corps for 15 years and has been in law enforcement for 20 years, including time as the Granite Falls police chief.
He was put on paid leave from the Lake Stevens job in July. The city hired an outside investigator to look into claims that Taylor had been dishonest. The investigators’ reports, obtained by The Herald through public records requests earlier this year, centered on Taylor rebuking another supervisor at the police department. Taylor had confronted the man about reports he’d used inappropriate language during a meeting. The supervisor denied using a slang phrase for a sex act to describe a problem at the department.
The investigator hired to look into the controversy determined that Taylor was being dishonest. Taylor’s lawsuit describes that conclusion as “false and defamatory.”
The allegations questioning Taylor’s honesty “are geared to sully and destroy (his) reputation and ability to regain employment,” the lawsuit says. The suit, filed Oct. 28 in Snohomish County Superior Court, seeks undetermined damages.
In the paperwork, Taylor alleges that Berg was angry at him for his support of former Lake Stevens police Sgt. Julie Jamison. The city a year ago paid Jamison $325,000 to settle a lawsuit she brought alleging sexual harassment and retaliation. Berg at the time said Jamison’s complaints were not sustained.
The police department supervisor who accused Taylor of dishonesty is the same man who Jamison said had been sexually harassing her, according to Taylor’s lawyer, Judith Lonnquist, who also represented Jamison.
“We firmly believe it’s retaliatory for what (Taylor) did for the officer,” Lonnquist said Wednesday. “He was supporting Julie and Jan Berg said … basically, ‘I’ll get you.’ ”
Lonnquist joined Taylor at a disciplinary hearing earlier this year.
“I really hoped they would just let him be,” she said. “He was one of the best things in their police department.”
In the lawsuit, Taylor also says that safety complaints he brought to Berg were dismissed, including concerns over the elimination of an animal control officer. Police officers were transporting stray animals in their patrol cars, a violation of state health rules, the suit says.
When Taylor approached his boss, Lake Stevens Police Chief Dan Lorentzen, “he was ordered to cease and desist discussing his safety concerns with anyone, at pain of discipline,” the suit says.
Mayor Little sent Taylor notice of his pending termination Sept. 3. The letter also was obtained by the newspaper through public records requests. Little accused Taylor of being dishonest — a potential death blow for a career in law enforcement, where officers’ testimony is relied upon in courtrooms. The mayor said that he was keeping Taylor on paid leave through 2015, provided that Taylor retired Dec. 31. The letter forbids Taylor from talking to the press, the public or the City Council about police department business.
Taylor’s lawsuit is not the only fresh legal trouble for the rapidly growing city, the fifth biggest in Snohomish County. Earlier this month, a Pierce County woman filed a lawsuit against the city in federal court, alleging that the police department should have stopped a former police officer from reportedly harassing and stalking her.
The former officer, Andrew Thor, resigned last year amid an internal investigation. After conferring with prosecutors, Lake Stevens police determined there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue a criminal case against him.
Meanwhile, in an email to The Herald on Oct. 15, Berg wrote that the city was considering getting rid of the commander position and creating a second lieutenant position.
“The main reason for the recommendation is to realign the organizational structure to allow the operations lieutenant to be more responsive to the needs of the patrol section and supervisors,” she wrote.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
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