Pasadena Harassment Cases Raise Questions

Although Pasadena’s top brass calls them isolated cases, documents show that two women who recently filed sexual harassment claims against the city are not alone in their allegations of abuse and that complaints to supervisors apparently went unheeded for years.

The documents, say women’s rights advocates and even some city officials, raise questions about how the city handles such cases.

Gerda Steele, former executive director for the city’s Commission on the Status of Women, said, “The culture of the city is that women aren’t listened to, and women aren’t taken seriously. . . . The climate is one where women as a group don’t feel comfortable filing complaints.”

“Sexual harassment by some employees is tolerated in City Hall,” said Penny York, a former member of the Rose Bowl Operating Co. that oversees the stadium, and gender equity coordinator at Citrus Community College.

After the city’s Commission on the Status of Women expressed alarm about the claims and asked for a list of other harassment cases, City Manager Phil Hawkey late this summer ordered a review of anti-harassment training citywide, officials said.

City Councilman Paul Little said he is unhappy with the way the two recent cases were handled internally, and said that in some cases, male officials “haven’t changed with the times.”

In a three-and-a-half page written statement, Assistant City Manager Edmund Sotelo denies that the city tolerates harassment: “These are two isolated instances among a work force of 1,800 employees. . . . One instance is too many for this organization to tolerate, and we are addressing each one individually.”

The first case involves Dave Jacobs, general manager of the Rose Bowl, who was sued earlier this year by his executive secretary, Jane Orr.

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Internal documents obtained last week show that Jacobs was notified by Sotelo in December 1995 that he was to be suspended for 36 hours for sexually harassing his employees. That suspension could not be implemented until Jacobs had an opportunity to challenge the intended discipline.

That was not held until last Thursday and any suspension will not be decided until later this month, officials say.

City officials blame the delay on motions by Jacobs’ lawyer, Richard Shinee, who says his client is innocent. “Mr. Jacobs denies he sexually harassed anyone,” Shinee said.

Shinee says two women who worked with Jacobs will testify that he did not harass employees. They will face off against two female Rose Bowl employees who in depositions obtained by The Times joined Jane Orr in complaining about Jacobs’ actions. One said she complained to Sotelo, but he apparently did nothing. Sotelo wouldn’t respond to questions about the accusation.

In the deposition, the women say that Jacobs had a fondness for telling off-color and racial jokes in the office, as well as hugging female staffers. One woman, Elizabeth Joy Kuehfuss, said in her deposition that she was embarrassed by Jacobs’ hugs, and that he nicknamed her “Red” because of her constant blushing.

Kuehfuss and the other woman, Bridget Schinnerer, said in their depositions that Jacobs paid most attention to Orr--once nibbling her neck, putting her in a headlock to make her sit on his lap and calling her a “porno queen” in front of co-workers and a stranger.

Schinnerer said in the deposition that she received two phone calls in 1993 from Sotelo inquiring about Jacobs, and she told him that there were “problems.” She met with him later that year in his City Hall office and complained of “harassment” of herself and others, including Orr.

“[H]e shook his head and he said he--something about Mr. Jacobs couldn’t afford another sexual harassment suit,” Schinnerer said in the deposition.

In his written statement--the city’s only public response to the sexual harassment allegations--Sotelo does not comment on the conversation. Schinnerer said in her deposition that she concluded that Sotelo and Jacobs were friends and did not speak of harassment again.

By the time Sotelo told Jacobs last year that he was to be suspended, Orr had been transferred from the Rose Bowl and was readying her suit.

Across town, another woman allegedly was being harassed by another high-ranking city official.

For the eight years that she worked as a legal secretary for Pasadena’s Department of Water and Power, Kathleen Thompson alleges in a claim filed against the city, Assistant General Manager of Operations Henry Lee pursued her. Thompson, 54, alleges that her repeated complaints were ignored, and that she did not file a formal claim because she feared retaliation.

In April, she says, Lee called her into his office, grabbed her leg and said he wanted to have sex with her. Weeks later, she filed a complaint with the city’s Department of Affirmative Action and Diversity, which began an investigation.

According to a memo summarizing that investigation, Thompson’s supervisor, Assistant City Atty. Scott D. Rasmussen, acknowledged that she had complained to him of sexual harassment by Lee for years, but asked him to not tell anyone because she feared retaliation. Rasmussen would not comment.

Other women in the department also complained to investigators that they had been inappropriately touched by Lee, according to the investigation memo.

Lee could not be reached for comment. But according to the memo, he admitted patting Thompson on the buttocks and telling her “that she turned me on.” He said he meant no harm by this, according to city documents.

Lance Charles, director of the city’s affirmative action and diversity office, recommended in May that Lee be suspended without pay for six months and demoted for harassing Thompson. But when no action was taken, Thompson filed her claim, which legally must precede a lawsuit.

The claim also named Rufus Hightower, the director of Pasadena’s Department of Water and Power, alleging that he had ignored the harassment. Weeks after the claim was filed, Hightower presided over an internal hearing about the case and suspended Lee for one month, not the recommended six, city officials confirm. He also announced that Lee would be demoted two positions, but soon changed his mind and only demoted Lee one level.

Sotelo in his statement says Hightower changed Lee’s demotion because city policy only calls for him to be dropped one rank, and adds that Lee will not supervise anyone in his new position.

As for why Hightower, the man named in the claim, chaired Lee’s hearing, Sotelo said no one was aware at the time of the July 23 hearing that he was named in Thompson’s claim.

Thompson’s claim was filed with the city on July 2.