Steiner Testifies That He Had Confidence in Walsh

Former Orange County Supervisor Roger R. Stanton believed the county’s former finance director was “culpable” in the county’s disastrous 1994 bankruptcy but didn’t order her “banished to the dump,” board Chairman William G. Steiner testified in court Monday.

Steiner was called as a witness by Eileen T. Walsh, who is suing the county for sexual discrimination after she was demoted in the weeks after the bankruptcy and sent to work for the county’s trash department. Walsh contends that she was the victim of a “good old boys’ network” that used the power vacuum created by the bankruptcy to transfer her, cut her pay by $20,000 and send her to work for a department head whose sexist comments she has protested. She is asking for her job back in the county administrative office.

Steiner said he was torn by testifying because he was close to both Walsh and Health Care Agency Director Thomas Uram, who gave the order firing Walsh after he took over as interim county administrator in early 1995.

Steiner said Uram told him he was transferring Walsh “to save her job” because of deep staff cuts anticipated in county management to help counteract a total $1.6-billion loss to the county’s investment fund.

“I had a lot of confidence in her,” Steiner said of Walsh. “I know that Uram and Stanton felt she and [former County Chief Administrative Officer Ernie Schneider] were culpable in the bankruptcy.”

He also testified that Walsh wrote a letter on his behalf to former county Treasurer Robert L. “Bob” Citron questioning Citron’s investment strategies--a letter never sent after Citron persuaded Steiner that the county’s finances were fine.

Thomas L. Beckett, who succeeded Walsh as the county official in charge of finance, followed Steiner on the witness stand. He testified that he and others were told by Uram that Walsh was demoted because of federal investigations into county finances.

“Mr. Uram said there were questions that still needed to be answered, that investigations were still ongoing,” Beckett testified. “He said that it would be better while the air was being cleared that Eileen not work in that office until the questions were resolved.”

Walsh has also contended that she was demoted after angering county officials by speaking publicly about political influence on finance decisions.