Ex-Clerk Revisits Office in Fight to Get Job Back : City Hall: Participants in the Civil Service proceeding re-enact possible scenarios of sexual harassment. Allegations led to the firing of Elias Martinez.

Ousted City Clerk Elias (Lee) Martinez got his office back in Los Angeles City Hall--for about five minutes Monday morning--as part of a re-enactment played out during his legal fight to overturn his dismissal for sexual harassment.

At issue was whether Martinez could have ogled female employees as he sat behind the large wooden desk in his private office.

To learn the answer, everyone involved in the Civil Service proceeding took a brief trip to the third floor to investigate the layout of the clerk’s office.

During the visit, Martinez plopped into his old chair--temporarily displacing his successor, Acting City Clerk Nancy Russell--as the hearing examiner moved to the front counter, where several women say Martinez leered at them as they reached for filing cabinets.

The hearing officer, Nancy Roberts Londsdale, ruled that it was possible for someone sitting at Martinez’s desk to see a person standing at the front counter, although the distance was great and the view was partially blocked in some cases.

Neither side in the case considered the ruling particularly helpful or damaging. Besides ogling, Martinez has been accused of touching one former clerk on three occasions and of making suggestive comments to others. He vehemently denies the charges.

Martinez called the visit an emotional experience that reminded him how much he loved his old job. Martinez said he had not been back to the office since he cleaned out his desk in June upon learning that the City Council had upheld his firing by former Mayor Tom Bradley.

“I never got up in the morning and said I didn’t want to go to work,” he said in an interview. “Many people hate their jobs. I was never one of those. . . . You can ask my wife. She said I was married to City Hall.”

Martinez’s appeal, which begins its fifth day today, is behind schedule. The city has called five witnesses so far and is expected to wind up its case later this week. The hearing then will reconvene in mid-August because of scheduling conflicts.

The delay especially concerns Martinez, whose $116,000-a-year salary has ceased as his legal bills continue to mount.

“I don’t have any income,” Martinez said. “I’ve already spent $20,000 and every day the meter is running.”

Even if the charges of sexual harassment are shown to be true, the city attorney’s office has to convince Londsdale that dismissal was the appropriate penalty.

“I have to know why the decision to terminate was made,” Londsdale said during the hearing on Monday. “I really can’t just hear a lot of allegations and be left in the dark as to why the city of Los Angeles found this to be a termination offense.”

Londsdale suggested that the city call Bradley to the stand to explain his reasoning. But Deputy City Atty. Molly Roff-Sheridan, who is presenting the city’s case, said that she intends to rely on documents prepared by Bradley to justify the firing.

Roff-Sheridan called dismissal a reasonable sanction considering that Martinez was a department head whose signature appeared on some city documents dealing with sexual harassment.

“I think if all the facts as presented are accurate, there is a broad range of discipline that is appropriate,” she said. “Firing is one option. I don’t think you have to fire him, but it’s not unreasonable.”