PORT ANGELES — Former Port Angeles city Finance Director Yvonne Ziomkowski tearfully asserted she was unfairly screamed at, singled out and finally fired during lengthy testimony Wednesday in her sex discrimination case against the city.
Testimony in her civil suit continues in Clallam County Superior Court at 9 a.m. today at the county courthouse, 223 E. Fourth St.
Ziomkowski, who was 59 when she was terminated for violating the city’s general-leave cash-out policy, testified that then-City Manager Kent Myers and then-Public Works and Utilities Director Glenn Cutler were part of a male-dominated culture at City Hall that shut out women and made life unbearable for her.
Ziomkowski had worked for the city for 24 years, beginning as an accountant in December 1988.
She said Myers fired her in March 2012 from her $112,000-a-year job after constantly belittling her, while Cutler regularly went over her head to seek spending-related approval from Myers.
“The male managers or department heads really weren’t very accepting of women, telling them, you know, what to do,” Ziomkowski said.
“There was different comments about my accent and how I speak,” said Ziomkowski, a native of Poland who speaks in a heavy accent.
“I had to say, ‘OK, I do speak with an accent.’ ”
She said that soon after Myers was hired in 2009, he began stopping by her office to yell at her or would write her emails in capital letters to emphasize his displeasure.
“I tried to not pay attention to those screamings,” she said.
“On top of that, he was hugging me, he was hugging me, too,” she said, making an embracing gesture to the eight-man, six-woman jury, including two alternates.
“[Myers] stopped giving me the time of day,” she said.
“I couldn’t do anything right, I couldn’t say anything right.”
Ziomkowski said Cutler flat-out ignored her.
“I didn’t know about many projects that were proposed until I was sometimes sitting at the council meeting,” she said.
She added that he once told her, “You look like a working girl,” after she showed him some photos of her.
“He made a lot of sexist comments,” she said.
Ziomkowski said she tried to not let it bother her.
In her lawsuit, Ziomkowski also said she was ridiculed, intimidated and insulted by other department heads, including former Police Chief Terry Gallagher and former Human Resources Director Bob Coons and was excluded from department head meetings.
After she was fired, Ziomkowski, who is seeking unspecified damages, started losing her hair and has been unable to get a full night of sleep, she told the jury.
“I can’t make my mind to thinking about this,” she said.
“I was just so devastated, so humiliated, it was absolute devastation,” she said, crying.
Ziomkowski was determined to be ineligible for 551 hours in her cash-outs. The hours were in 2009-11, beginning shortly after Myers became city manager. He left in 2012.
Ziomkowski has paid back her share of $37,595 in cash-outs given to employees, which the State Patrol determined was $29,674, according to a 2012 first-degree-theft investigation that did not result in charges against her.
The cash-outs exceeded city policy that allowed no more than 80 hours of vacation-pay transfers annually to retirement accounts.
Ziomkowski claimed in her lawsuit that other managers — all male — had exceeded the cash-out policy and not suffered a similar fate.
The state Auditor’s Office, in its own review, found that Ziomkowski and then-Fire Chief Dan McKeen, who is the current city manager, received a combined $36,595 in cash-out payments that exceeded city policy.
The agency determined the policies included inadequate controls that increased the risk of misappropriations of public funds and that there was no intention by Ziomkowski or McKeen to commit criminal acts.
“Depending on the interpretation of the city’s cash-out policies, an additional $40,901 paid in leave cash-outs to city directors may have been incorrect,” according to the Auditor’s Office report.
In the city’s answer to the complaint, Seattle lawyer Shannon Ragonesi said the cash-outs other than Ziomkowski’s that exceeded city policy were authorized or were smaller than hers.
That included McKeen’s, which was approved by then-City Manager Mike Quinn, who predated Myers.
She also said the discrimination alleged by Ziomkowski did not meet the legal standard for sex discrimination and was closer to workplace disputes than evidence of discrimination.
According to the State Patrol report, “Ziomkowski took advantage of a system, for which she controlled, that lacked oversight and internal controls to benefit her.”
She also took advantage, the agency said, of Myers’ and new payroll specialist Anne Casad’s lack of knowledge of city policy and procedures and directed Casad to transfer the cash-out funds to her retirement account without city manager approval.
Approval was required, but the line on the cash-out forms that had contained a space for the city manager’s authorization was removed, according to court documents.
Ziomkowski said Wednesday she was not responsible for removing the line.
“I knew there was a problem without the city manager’s signature,” she said.
“I noticed it was gone, but I knew [human resources] was responsible for those forms.”
Port Angeles attorney Karen Unger, who is defending Ziomkowski, asked her: “Where does the buck stop as far as these forms, you or payroll?”
“They went through me or should have gone through me, but they stopped at payroll,” Ziomkowski responded.
Ziomkowski, who oversees the payroll department, filed her lawsuit after she was fired.
Unger asked her why she did not complain of a hostile work environment when she was employed by the city.
Ziomkowski said she wanted to take care of it herself.
“I tried to be friendly,” Ziomkowski said.
“I was really giving them a good job.
“I did not want additional [criticism such as], ‘Here’s the little girl going to the daddy, complaining again.’ ”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
