NEWPORT BEACH : Council Hears Plea by Fired Chief’s Wife

In her first public comments about the sexual harassment scandal that has embroiled the Police Department and her husband since September, Lavonne Campbell made an impassioned plea to the City Council on Monday night to let fired Police Chief Arb Campbell and Capt. Anthony Villa have a joint hearing before the Civil Service Commission.

Lavonne Campbell, a Newport Beach police officer for 21 years, said her family had been traumatized and tormented since the allegations of sexual harassment and other misconduct surfaced in a lawsuit filed by 10 female current and former police employees last fall.

She urged the council to combine the hearings for Campbell and Villa--who were fired separately after the city’s three-month investigation into the sexual harassment allegations and are now protesting their dismissal--so that her family would suffer the “trauma” of reliving the accusations just once.

“For 21 years it’s been my pleasure to get paid to protect the rights of children, and women, and men, from crime in this city,” Lavonne Campbell told the council at the end of a four-hour meeting. “Now I’m in the position to have to protect the rights of my family.

“I want to know if you are leaders of this city with your heads only or with your hearts,” she said as her husband and two of their four daughters listened from the front row. “I have been called a model employee. I’m a resident, I’m a taxpayer, I’m a feminist. And I’m appalled.”

At times raising her voice and at times holding back tears, Campbell said her grown daughters have suffered hair loss and ulcers from the stress, and that her 4-year-old grandson’s Christmas was ruined because of a National Organization for Women protest at the city’s annual boat parade that targeted her husband and Villa, his friend and former deputy.

Villa’s appeal of his termination is to go before the Civil Service Commission starting in June. Campbell cannot be reinstated by the commission but is entitled to a “name-clearing” hearing. Campbell and Villa have asked that their hearings be combined.

City officials at first wanted separate hearings, saying the reasons for Villa’s firing do not involve Campbell and that the hearings have different purposes. By the end of Monday’s meeting attorneys for both sides pledged to strike a compromise and announce it at the council’s May 14 session.

Lavonne Campbell also aimed pointed accusations at the seven-member council--calling Mayor Clarence J. Turner “arrogant and rude”--and saying council members had shirked their responsibility and betrayed longtime friendships by failing to contact the Campbells throughout the ordeal.

“I have no reason right now to trust any of you,” she said curtly. “I want you to try your best to have an open mind, and, if you can’t, then resign.”

After the meeting, Lavonne Campbell brushed off a hug from Councilwoman Evelyn R. Hart, a longtime friend of the Police Department, and lambasted Councilman John C. Cox Jr. and City Atty. Robert Burnham for not decrying what she said were “false accusations” against her husband.