Montijo’s Staff Reviews Criticized : Report Says Ex-Housing Chief Filed Reports After Ouster

Former San Diego Housing Commission Director Benjamin Montijo improperly used employee evaluations to punish and reward three top aides for personal loyalty after he was ousted from his job March 2, an internal city investigation has found.

The investigation, disclosed in a confidential memo dated Aug. 18 and distributed this week to Mayor Maureen O’Connor and other housing commissioners, also found that Montijo backdated the evaluations and, in one case, didn’t submit an evaluation to the employee until July--fully a year after it was due and four months after Montijo was fired.

Pulled From Files

Larry Marshall, the agency’s attorney, wrote in the memo that “it can be reasonably inferred” from Montijo’s actions that the evaluations and recommendations for raises “represent an improper effort on the part of the former Executive Director to reward those who he perceived to be supportive during the period of controversy which culminated in his departure, and to punish those who he perceived to be less supportive or even disloyal to him personally.”

Marshall informed O’Connor and the commissioners that he ordered the evaluations nullified and pulled from the personnel files.

Although they aren’t mentioned by name, Marshall said Friday that the evaluations in question were written for Elizabeth Morris, now acting director for the agency; Cathy Lexin, deputy director in charge of general services; and Bob Ross, a deputy director in charge of the housing agency’s rehabilitation loan program.

Marshall declined to discuss what Montijo had recommended, but the former director said in a separate interview that he had advised low pay raises for Morris and Ross, and a higher pay increase for Lexin.

Montijo also denied that he wrote the recommendations after his March 2 departure. When asked if he used the personnel documents as rewards and punishment for personal loyalty, he said: “Absolutely not.”

Montijo’s evaluations have had no immediate effect on the employees because raises for the three aides and other top positions in the agency have been held up for more than a year after O’Connor and fellow housing commissioners--most of whom are City Council members--decided to take a closer look at the agency, which was embroiled in controversy under Montijo.

The flamboyant former director was ousted by the commissioners in March after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development began an investigation into how Montijo and the agency fashioned a favorable financial package so that a local developer could renovate a large Southeast San Diego apartment complex. HUD had warned that the deal appeared to show “favoritism,” and it opened its investigation after receiving inquiries about the transaction from The Times.

Marshall said Friday that he initiated an investigation into Montijo’s use of employee evaluations after one of the three aides complained.

Housing agency policy dictates that a personnel evaluation for each employee be made by July 1, but in these three cases, Montijo made his recommendations late, the memo says.

In one case, an evaluation had been typed and signed by Montijo on March 26, although the document was dated March 2, the memo says. The memo also says that Montijo has yet to sign a letter of settlement from his job that was furnished to him in May.