People working for Riverside County Counsel Greg Priamos, and employees in other county departments, face retaliation and unfair labor conditions at the hands of poor managers according to a new report from the Riverside Civil Grand Jury.
The 16-page report, which details allegations of workers being told to ignore the law and others who were fired or transferred, will be investigated by Supervisors Karen Spiegel and Jeff Hewitt, Board of Supervisors Chairman Kevin Jeffries announced Tuesday, July 2.
“The Grand Jury report has raised a number of concerning issues regarding internal practices and management supervision,” Jeffries wrote in an email. “(The managers in question) need to be promptly investigated and evaluated by the board.”
Priamos, who has worked for the county for five years, was not available for comment.
The county, which has until Oct. 1 to answer the grand jury, is likely to dispute at least some of the allegations. “The county looks forward to responding to the inaccuracies in the report,” said county spokeswoman Brooke Federico.
The report is the latest clash between the grand jury, a rotating group of 19 citizens impaneled annually by a judge to investigate public agencies’ inner workings, and Priamos, the county’s top in-house lawyer. The county counsel’s office has a total of 81 authorized positions.
In 2015, a different grand jury accused Priamos of interfering with its work. That year’s panel said Priamos unnecessarily asked for written requests for information and made sure lawyers from his office were present during interviews involving the grand jury and county workers. The 2015 jury eventually recommended that Priamos be dismissed.
Priamos said at the time that the grand jury didn’t understand its role, or his job. County supervisors stood by him.
A former county employee, Neal Kipnis, said he filed a complaint with the grand jury last year after being forced out of an almost 30-year career in the county counsel’s office.
In a 2018 letter to then-Supervisor John Tavaglione, Kipnis wrote he received no warning before he was put on a performance improvement plan that, he said, violated county procedures.
He wrote that Priamos put him on administrative leave and forbade him from communicating with county employees after complaining about his treatment to Tavaglione and County Executive officer George Johnson. The grand jury report does not mention Kipnis, but does describe an employee who was told to cease all communication with other employees after contacting a county supervisor “about his problems which were a matter of public concern.”
Kipnis wrote he did not plan to sue the county. In an email to The Press-Enterprise, Kipnis wrote that some former colleagues faced similar treatment.
“Priamos is a very powerful, imposing, unfriendly, mean and threatening figure – and most people just took retirement immediately as they did not want to face the extended (and obviously rigged and unfair) process that I went through to try to fight what was happening.”
“Above their duty”
The new report focuses on Priamos’ office and the human resources department. While the grand jury wrote that human resources has effective leadership, those leaders lack “the power base and support of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors to enable them to perform their duties without interference from other managerial entities.”
The report also cited a charge by county Auditor Controller Paul Angulo’s, disputed by the county executive office, that Riverside County spends more to settle lawsuits against it than is spent by other counties of similar size. The grand jury said some managers worsen those costs by routinely ignoring advice they get from human resources.
“Certain county managers have set personal ego, arrogance, power and personal control above their duty to serve the people,” the jury wrote, without naming specific leaders. “These county managers, the CEO, and to some extent the prior (Board of Supervisors), have failed in their leadership to provide a positive, supportive environment.”
The report added: “Prolonged mistrust due to harsh personnel practices as well as unscrupulous tactics by some managers has created a climate of fear, intimidation and anxiety among county employees.”
“Employees know it is ‘go along to get along’ even if it is immoral, illegal, unethical or goes against policies and laws. One employee was told ‘You have to learn how to do things the county way.’”
The report cited examples of employees subjected to what the grand jury described as unfair treatment.
In one disciplinary case, in response to a request from a deputy county counsel, “a letter was provided by a senior HR analyst, detailing specific instructions” about how to fire a county lawyer. That request came, according to the grand jury, even though the attorney “had not received a (performance) evaluation in over five years, and no investigation had commenced.”
The grand jury also alleged that the subsequent investigation into that attorney’s performance was set with a pre-ordained outcome, a potential violation of state and federal law.
“A senior HR analyst assigned to investigate this case was removed and replaced by another HR analyst who determined there was cause to terminate the attorney,” the grand jury wrote. “Testimony revealed that the replacement analyst was assigned the case to ensure the employee was terminated.”
The grand jury also alleged that the county exhibited bias against older workers, another potential violation of labor law.
“Constructive discharge” or employer conduct that forces an employee to quit “was used to force out a significant number of individuals over the age of 40,” the grand jury wrote.
The report singled out an unnamed “high level manager” for applying “retaliatory and discriminatory action against employees, most of whom were over the age of 40.”
“Freeway therapy”
The grand jury described difficult work conditions for county lawyers and others.
“Employees who have displeased managers in the Office of County Counsel, as well as other departments, have found themselves the recipient of a number of ‘Special Treatments.’ Instead of being assisted, if performance issues are present, they are subject to various stressors,” the grand jury wrote.
Some workers, according to the grand jury, are “transferred to distant workplace locations for punitive reasons.” Such transfers, according to the grand jury, are common enough to have a nickname — “freeway therapy.”
The grand jury also described a workplace environment that discourages workers from speaking up about problems, even when the issue might save taxpayers some money.
The report described a county lawyer finding a legal problem when reviewing a lease agreement involving the county’s Economic Development Agency — a problem that could have led to a $1.5 million lien against the county. The report noted that the project previously was handled by a Deputy County Counsel. But when told of that problem, grand jury wrote, the Deputy County Council chastised the lawyer who spoke up about the problem, writing to the lawyer: “(You) had no business informing (the Economic Development Agency) of this matter,” and “you do not understand your role as a Government Attorney.”
The attorney was later fired, the grand jury found.
“This is a brutal example of how a subordinate was unjustly terminated for bringing to light negligence on the part of a supervisor,” the report read.
The grand jury suggested a number of reforms, including new policies “mandating adherence to following HR policies and procedures.”
“The current (Board of Supervisors) must address and stop all abuses of power in the Office of County Counsel,” the report read.
“The record of culpability is long and convincing.”
July 2, 2019
The Press-Enterprise
By Jeff Horseman
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