ATTORNEY MICHAEL W. STAMP: Letter to the Mayor & City Council Regarding Confidential Personnel Matter – Jane Miller

ABSTRACT: On May 20, 2008, attorney Michael W. Stamp wrote a letter to the Mayor and City Council of Carmel-by-the-Sea regarding “Confidential Personnel Matter – Jane Miller.” The letter is reproduced in its entirety, a total of 3 typed pages. In response to Michael Stamp’s letter of May 20, 2008, Leanne Graham, Assistant to City Attorney Donald G. Freeman, wrote in a May 22, 2008 letter that Donald Freeman “will prepare a response to your May 20, 2008 letter.” Attorney Michael Stamp never received a response from City Attorney Don Freeman.

LAW OFFICES OF
MICHAEL W. STAMP
479 Pacific Street, Suite 1
Monterey, California 93940

Facsimile (8310 373-0242
Telephone (831) 373-1214


May 20, 2008

Confidential
Mayor and City Council
City of Carmel-by-the-Sea
City Hall
Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA 93921

RE: Confidential Personnel Matter – Jane Miller

Dear Mayor and City Council:

I represent Jane Miller in regard to her employment with the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea. Ms. Miller is the City’s Human Resources Manager. She has nearly 24 years of service to the public. She has worked for the City since 1999, when she was appointed by City Administrator Jere Kersnar as the City’s Personnel Specialist. Her performance evaluations have been extremely positive over the years, and her devotion to public service has been exemplary. There can be no doubt about Ms. Miller’s qualifications, skill, and expertise.

After years of compliments and praise, City Administrator Richard Guillen has turned on Ms. Miller, and seeks to drive her from her career. Mr. Guillen’s behavior and comments towards Ms. Miller have isolated, embarrassed, and stigmatized Ms. Miller in the workplace. After a sustained period of increasingly offensive conduct and statements, Mr. Guillen now proposes to eliminate Ms. Miller’s position with the City.

The actions by Mr. Guillen constitute retaliation, gender-based discrimination and harassment, as well as age-based discrimination. In light of Mr. Guillen’s history with other employees and with Ms. Miller, along with his willingness to go outside the law and City policies to get what he wants, Ms. Miller has no option except to advise you directly of the illegal nature of this action and to institute enforcement procedures with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. Although Ms. Miller and other employees have been directed by Mr. Guillen that employees are not allowed to contact the Mayor and City Council about City business, we are disregarding that instruction as an illegal employment practice.

For the past several years, the Mayor and City Council have supported Mr. Guillen without meaningful inquiry into his practices and without effective oversight. His inappropriate relationships with female subordinates, his actions in classifying and regarding favored employees, his extravagance with public funds, his favoritism within the work place, his inappropriate actions and statements, and his unchecked power over the lives, salaries, and personal lives of City employees have been overlooked or unexamined by the Mayor and Council. Those actions have resulted in a hostile work place and adverse and illegal employment actions that have directly and permanently injured Ms. Miller.

We ask that the City take the following steps. First, Ms. Miller immediately should be placed on non-disciplinary, paid administrative leave with full benefits. Second, Mr. Guillen immediately should be removed from his role as supervisor of City employees. Third, the city immediately should take action to preserve any emails and instant messenger records of Mr. Guillen for the period since January 1, 2004 to the present, including his emails to, from or about Ms. Miller and the other women under his supervision or control during that time period, including those who have left City service and those who are planning on leaving City service. He should be directed to preserve emails from his personal accounts as well, including those relating to Ms. Miller. Fourth, the Mayor and City Council immediately should unequivocally reject the proposed elimination of the Human Resources Manager position.

In addition, the City should take immediate steps to preserve all records, electronic and paper, regarding salary increases, salary adjustments, retroactive salary adjustments, qualifications of employees (including Directors), hiring, classifications, and other personnel actions relating to favorable treatment for any employees. This includes the job descriptions, salary calculations, and retroactive pay authorized by the City Administrator, and the documents relating to the employees who have left City service over the past few years.

In addition, we ask that the City take immediate steps to preserve the calendars and appointment records for Mr. Guillen, and for all female employees supervised by Mr. Guillen at any time. We also ask that the City retrieve from Mr. Guillen all phone records for his City-paid cellular phone, including the records that he arranged to have sent directly to his home instead of to the City. If Mr. Guillen has destroyed those records, (which are public records), the City should immediately retrieve them from Nextel, Verizon, or any other telephone carrier that holds records showing those expenditures and calls. Separately, the hard drive for any computer used by Mr. Guillen for City business should be secured by the City.

We also ask that the Mayor and City Council carefully and critically analyze the financial impact to the City of eliminating the Human Resources Manager position held by Ms. Miller. This includes collecting and assessing specific bake-up details about the costs, the exact specification of all assumptions about how the vital human resources and risk management services would be provided, and the analysis by the City Attorney and/or by the City’s outside personnel attorneys about the wisdom and feasibility of eliminating this vital position, particularly in light of the actual circumstances with the City’s personnel actions. Other remedial steps will be necessary; the list of actions described in this letter is only a partial list of the actions which need to be taken.

If you have any questions about this letter or about this matter, please call me.

Very truly yours,



Michael W. Stamp