Huntington Park

The City Council has unanimously approved a modified policy prohibiting discrimination or harassment of city employees.

The city already had civil service rules forbidding discrimination, but the new policy expands the language of those regulations. It now forbids sexual harassment and establishes a grievance procedure for discrimination and harassment complaints.

The policy was prompted by a complaint filed by a Latino police dispatcher in 1984, said Craig Robinson, the city’s head of personnel.

Robinson said that in the complaint filed with the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing, the former employee claimed that racial discrimination was the basis for parking citations issued to her, vandalism to her car and evaluations that found her work was “less than satisfactory.”

Robinson, who declined to identify the dispatcher, saying it was a personnel matter, said an ensuing investigation conducted by the Department of Fair Employment and Housing found no grounds for the complaint. And, he said, the case has not been pursued by the former employee, who has since resigned to take another job.

However, Robinson said, the fair employment department has required the city to be more specific in the language of its policy before it drops its complaint against the city.