Last week's column discussed the message sent the County Commission by the jury in Stewart v Dona Aña County. Rejecting testimony from HR Director Debra Weir and former county officials Sue Padilla and John Caldwell, the jury awarded $1.45 million to Stewart, whom Weir fired from her County position. Jurors were so appalled by the county officials' conduct that some hugged Stewart after the trial and thanked her for fighting. Stewart's lawyer stated in closing that Weir had to go.
County Manager Julia Brown's response has been somewhat graceless: she disagrees with the verdict, as she has a right to do, and has accused county-related witnesses whose testimony she didn't like of perjuring themselves. That's strong. Perjury is a crime. I tend to disagree with her. She's declined to answer questions concerning the specific evidentiary support for her contention.
I like Brown, and I'm mystified by the strength of her support for Weir, whose alleged misconduct caused or contributed to two large jury verdicts and some settlements of suits by former employees. (It's also strange that pay for folks working at HR has improved since 2011, while pay for road-workers, detention center employees, and deputy sheriffs generally hasn't.)
Meanwhile, there's an interesting battle brewing between County Sheriff Kiki Vigil, on the one hand, and Weir.
Vigil feels pretty strongly that Weir has hampered his efforts to hire deputies. He says he's short 45-48 deputies from what should be 164 (or 210, according to the most recent census).
He says several criminal justice graduates were eliminated by HR because they didn't have work experience and left that line blank on applications, and that other minor defects in applications had elicited rejections; that at a recent meeting judges asked the County Manager why hundreds of applications for jobs at the jail had been rejected; that more than 125 credible applicants for deputy sheriff positions have been turned away; and that it took a month to get job notices posted. (A judge confirmed the meeting, and had serious questions about the County Human Resources Department.)
“HR is broken,” the Sheriff told me recently. He added that HR has also sought detailed justifications from Vigil, an elected official, for personnel hires, though no ordinance or rule required such justifications.
Addressing employees regarding Stewart, Brown said witnesses had perjured themselves. Employees understood her to mean witnesses who had worked for the County or still did – and possibly a County Commissioner. She emphasized that these were her conclusions as a lawyer.
Brown, who generally speaks well, appeared to be trying to reassure employees they could come to her with discrimination/retaliation complaints. But is it reassuring to defend former high-up County officials (and Weir), who many employees (and two juries) say were guilty of discrimination/retaliation?
Brown explained that problematic employees sometimes try to avoid discipline by filing preemptive complaints of discrimination, which make it hard for managers to fire them. She spoke of such employees (Stewart?) trying to reap big pay-days by suing for discrimination/retaliation. When two juries find discrimination/retaliation, is it reassuring to label as perjurers people who testify to having seen or experienced retaliation? When others see Stewart as a straight-shooter, is it reassuring to use her case as a platform to discuss under-performing employees seeking big pay-days in court?
Clearly Brown has disappointed the County Commission. You don't spend hours discussing someone's evaluation, then call another closed meeting to continue the discussion if everything's peachy. Commissioners' veiled public comments suggest that there are many reasons for the disappointment, and that all Commissioners share it to some degree.
Presumably if they terminate her employment she won't turn to litigation.
[The County Commission met Friday in closed session. I'm pretty sure they discussed (1) possible post-trial settlement of the Stewart matter [see below] and (2) the sources of their dissatisfaction with the County Manager and how she might improve on her performance as they perceive it. I'd be shocked if she were fired any time soon; but I'd be even more surprised if that possibility weren't in the minds of some Commissioners, perhaps all of them.]
[Several sources complained to me about Brown's briefings concerning the Stewart verdict. Therefore I requested copies of the tapes of the two briefings, and watched them. Brown certainly sounds as if she really does want to reassure employees and is truly committed to rooting out discrimination and retaliation by County officials. Unfortunately, she didn't listen to her own talk, in her mind before giving it, from the employees' perspective. People I've talked to consider Kim Stewart a straight-shooter, and many employees have complained to me about actual or alleged misconduct by Padilla, Caldwell, Weir, and their pals. While some of the complaints seem exaggerated, many seem to check out. Too many. In that context, Ms. Brown could assume a large percentage of her audience sympathizes with the verdict and with the county-related witnesses who dared speak up about discrimination or retaliation they felt they'd experienced. If so, adding the unnecessary complaints about bad employees making up frivolous lawsuits, or about perjury, or about calculating employees seeking a big pay-day in court is bound not to play too well, and to add to employees' uncertainty about where the County Manager stands on this stuff.
By the way, in requesting the tapes I also asked for documents supporting her statements about perjury. (Someone had told me Brown said during her briefing that she'd seen documents proving perjury. I didn't hear that. She did strongly imply it, by coupling the allegations of lying witnesses with a statement that she'd seen evidence that the jury didn't get to see; but she didn't state that any specific document proved any particular witness perjured himself or herself.) In any case, the County objected to production of any documents, on the ground of attorney-client privilege.]
Peter Goodman is a local writer, photographer, and sometime lawyer. He initially moved to Las Cruces in 1969, holds two degrees from NMSU, and moved back here in 2011 with his wonderful wife. This is his most recent Sunday column in the Las Cruces Sun-News. His blog Views from Soledad Canyon contains further information on this subject, as well as other comments and photographs, and past newspaper columns.