Kaleta to Get $100,000 Severance : Pasadena: City attorney agrees to waive his right to sue in exchange for retirement package. He had been the target of gender bias accusations.

City Atty. Victor J. Kaleta, who was forced to take early retirement by the Pasadena City Council last week, received a retirement package worth more than $100,000 in exchange for waiving the right to sue over his departure, according to city officials.

“It was more than fair,” said Councilman Bill Crowfoot, one of the council members who agreed to the package in a two-hour closed-door meeting last Wednesday to decide terms of Kaleta’s departure.

On top of funding Kaleta’s package, the city also will have to pay for an interim city attorney and a search for a full-time replacement. Both actions are expected to cost taxpayers an extra $60,000, said city officials

Council members were expected to complete half that task Wednesday when they met to choose a temporary city attorney from one of three private Los Angeles municipal law firms. But as of press time no decision had been made.

A selection committee consisting of Councilmen William E. Thomson Jr., Crowfoot and Chris Holden on Saturday interviewed Monrovia City Atty. Michele Beal Bagneris of Richards, Watson & Gershon; Mary Redus Gayle of Burke, Williams & Sorenson, and Cristina L. Sierra of Adams, Duque & Hazeltine.

Kaleta, who had come under fire since an investigation in April alleged he discriminated against female attorneys in his office, was forced to retire last Wednesday after four of seven council members publicly expressed a lack of confidence in him. In his resignation speech last week he denied discriminating against female lawyers in his office.

An April 14 report was written by a work-conflict consultant who was hired by the city after a female staff member wrote a memo complaining about disparate treatment of women. The consultant’s investigation found female attorneys in the civil branch of the city attorney’s office were the victims of discrimination when two males were promoted during a 1992 reorganization.

Kaleta said he promoted the two men to keep them from leaving City Hall, that the council had approved his action at the time and that he met affirmative-action guidelines for hiring women and minorities.

But his fate was sealed Aug. 12 when Mayor Kathryn Nack, speaking to the National Women’s Political Caucus, joined Councilmen Isaac Richard, Holden and Crowfoot in calling for his departure.

The council voted 6 to 1 to approve Kaleta’s retirement package with Holden dissenting last Wednesday. The settlement terms allow the city attorney to leave his office this month but continue on the city’s payroll for nearly seven more months to March 8, 1995, as a consultant. He will retain the title of city attorney to that date.

Kaleta, 55, will receive a total of $103,964 based on his $110,894 salary for this year. The package includes $61,844 in salary, four weeks paid vacation worth $8,530 and 12 weeks of sick pay worth $25,390, as well as up to $8,000 of help from a job placement service.

He said the terms of his retirement are reasonable considering his 17 years of service in the city attorney’s office. “I won’t be filing a lawsuit against the city. I signed a waiver as part of the understanding,” said Kaleta in an interview Monday.