[Editor’s Note: The following report was relayed by Basil Kimbrew of the California Friends of African American publication.]
Carson City Clerk Jim Dear has created such a hostile work environment at City Hall with racist comments, angry outbursts and employee spying that city operations are now crippled, according to an investigative report obtained by the Los Angeles News Group.
Three months into the fiscal year, the city’s $70 million budget still has not been adopted and policymaking largely has stalled as the City Council tries to rein in Mr. Dear’s increasingly disturbing behavior, says the independent probe conducted by Riverside attorney Maria Aarvig.
Ms. Aarvig’s 52-page report, based on interviews with 13 current and former city employees, paints a portrait of an elected official whose inappropriate behavior grew worse after he gave up his political clout as mayor to run for the relatively obscure post of city clerk.
(Jim Dear investigation report)
Mr. Dear served as mayor for 11 years before capturing the $113,000-a-year clerk’s post in March. The mayor of Carson makes only about $25,000.
The report found that city staff members have, for years, enabled Mr. Dear’s bad behavior because they feared retaliation, particularly losing their jobs, if they spoke out.
When he served as mayor, employees said, Mr. Dear was so power-hungry and demanding that he would become enraged when he didn’t get his way. But now that he has lost most of his political clout, Mr. Dear’s abusive behavior has increased as he nevertheless tries to assert his will at City Hall, the report says.
Mr. Dear has called staff members derogatory names, pressured top managers to hire his girlfriend and give lucrative contracts to his friends, stoked racial divisions, and interrupted work to ask for favors and gossip about his political enemies, according to the report.
“Day-to-day operation in the city is adversely affected by a preoccupation with concern over Mr. Dear’s reaction to adverse events,” the report states. “Members of the staff are uneasy because they cannot predict what will trigger an outburst. Fear was expressed by multiple employees in multiple offices of City Hall. The fear expressed is assessed as genuine.”
Policy Violations
The investigation found that Mr. Dear repeatedly violated city policy, federal and state employment law and an internal code of ethics that he helped write. But, because the clerk was elected by voters, he can only be removed from his seat by the state attorney general or through a voter-initiated recall campaign, which is in the works.
The City Council voted last month to begin censure proceedings against Mr. Dear when initial results of the internal investigation became public. A censure hearing, which could lead to an official condemnation of Mr. Dear’s behavior, is set for Oct. 20.
Mr. Dear is actively fighting the recall campaign, and has hired a lawyer to defend him against the censure proceedings, which he likened to a “witch hunt.” Mr. Dear accuses the City Council and staff of drumming up false charges against him for political reasons.
The investigation, commissioned by interim City Manager Ken Farfsing, was done without City Council involvement. Its focus was on identifying whether Mr. Dear’s actions were making the city vulnerable to workplace harassment lawsuits.
Mr. Farfsing was hired in July following a turbulent two years in which the City Council hired and fired three city managers. He was tasked with stabilizing operations after a series of politically motivated firings and forced retirements resulted in the loss of the city’s most senior managers.
A month later, after he learned employees were planning escape routes from City Hall in case Mr. Dear were to “snap or go postal,” he hired Ms. Aarvig to investigate claims of workplace harassment.
“When the City Council hired me, they asked me to balance the city budget, find a new finance director, and work on the NFL project” to build a football stadium for the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders, Mr. Farfsing said. “I didn’t expect that, within a month, I would be calling for an investigation of the city clerk. I am duty-bound, by law, to do a thorough investigation of these complaints of a hostile work environment. And that’s what we did.
“The investigation proved there is a hostile work environment, but also came back with (Mr. Dear’s) racism,” Mr. Farfsing said. “I was shocked by the report. Jim put the code of ethics together, and he’s violated at least six of the provisions.”
Racism Allegations
The investigation found that Mr. Dear marginalizes black employees and often makes racially derogatory remarks about black residents and staff, associating them with his political rivals on the City Council.
Mr. Dear told developers of the city’s mall, SouthBay Pavilion, that ongoing public safety problems there were due to “the blacks,” according to Lisa Berglund, an administrative analyst, who said he routinely demeaned nonwhite staff members as “evil” and “not smart,” and mocked the hair of his black colleagues.
The city long has been divided politically along racial lines and, according to employee statements, Mr. Dear aggravates that with negative gossip about black employees and Council members.
A longtime clerk’s office employee, who did not make her name public in the report, said Mr. Dear excludes her from team projects, seemingly because she is black. She and other employees reported hearing Mr. Dear tell one of his friends, Miriam Vasquez, a vocal City Council critic, “the black people are taking over” and “we can’t let them.”
Ms. Vasquez, in turn, told employees that Mr. Dear told her the city’s Fourth of July celebration was becoming “a black event” and that “black people (are) taking over.”
Former City Manager Nelson Hernandez, who was fired in February after just nine months on the job, said Mr. Dear told him he didn’t want any nightclubs in Carson because “too many black people from Compton will come there.”
He encouraged Mr. Hernandez to fire a black employee if a white employee was fired, regardless of work performance, and talked down to black staff members, the former manager said.
Mr. Dear also pressured Mr. Hernandez to give a lucrative, “crooked contract” to his friend and insisted he hire his girlfriend, Monette Gavino, to be an assistant to council members.
“Mr. Dear threatened to fire Mr. Hernandez for the first time for refusing to recommend approval of a $700,000-a-year (labor union) contract,” Ms. Aarvig wrote in her summary of Mr. Hernandez’s interview.
Mr. Hernandez refused, saying the cost was exorbitant and could have been done for only $12,000. But Mr. Dear was livid that he wasn’t doing what he wanted, Mr. Hernandez said. Mr. Dear then threatened again to fire Hernandez.
“Dear manipulated staff, who were fearful of losing their jobs,” the report states. “Dear would go to (an) employee’s desk in the office and grill them, and try to direct people to do certain things.”