Ex-Compton Official Settles Sex Bias Suit : $80,000 Accepted as ‘Clear Acknowledgement’ of Unfair Firing

Former Compton City Manager Laverta S. Montgomery announced a settlement Saturday in her $1-million sexual harassment suit accusing a City Council member of leading a move to fire her because she spurned his proposal of marriage. She hailed the $80,000 settlement of the suit filed last August by Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred as a “clear acknowledgement that the termination was unwarranted.”

“I’m glad that it’s over and that my name has finally been cleared,” she said after making the announcement in front of Compton City Hall.

The city councilman, Robert L. Adams, was attending a city retreat in Oxnard and did not return telephone calls placed to him there. But he has denied that Montgomery’s firing had anything to do with personal relationships.

Montgomery was dismissed unexpectedly by 3-2 council vote in October, 1986, after a 20-minute closed session on a motion made by Adams, who had been a staunch supporter of her in the past.

Disputed Explanation

The council members complained that she had been chronically absent from work, and an official explanation sent later to Montgomery said that she was fired “based on a pattern of repeated, willful and intentional failure to carry out the policy decisions of the City Council.”

But Montgomery, who had served in the post for 3 1/2 years, objected, saying she had been a conscientious employee, working 60-hour weeks or “most of my waking hours.”

Montgomery, a widow, claimed that the firing was in retaliation for refusing to accept a marriage proposal made by Adams only a month earlier.

After being spurned, according to the suit, Adams asked Montgomery to resign her position and said “that if she did not do so voluntarily, he would see to it that she was fired by the city.”

Compton Mayor Walter R. Tucker and Councilwoman Jane D. Robbins opposed the firing, but Councilmen Maxcy D. Filer and Floyd A. James supported Adams in his motion. Both Filer and James were named in the suit, which Filer called “frivolous.”

Ended 15-Year Career

At the time of her firing, Montgomery was the first black woman to have been named manager of a U.S. city. The action ended her 15-year career with the city.

Three months earlier, the council had given her a three-year contract extension at an annual salary of $73,452.

A former Montgomery assistant, James Goins, was named acting city manager.

Montgomery, a 51-year-old Marina del Rey resident, now works as a municipal finance consultant and serves on the State Lottery Board, a position to which she was appointed during her tenure as city manager.

She also acts as an occasional consultant to a Century City investment banker hired last September to stave off a looming budget crisis in Compton.