PORT ANGELES — Attorneys presented competing views of former Port Angeles Finance Director Yvonne Ziomkowski to a Clallam County Superior Court jury Wednesday.
Port Angeles lawyer Karen Unger, representing Ziomkowski, said her client was a victim of gender discrimination who was fired in 2012 for doing what other department heads did when she cashed out large chunks of accumulated vacation leave under a vague city policy.
Seattle lawyer Shannon Ragonesi, representing the city, said Ziomkowski, feared and disliked by City Hall staff, knew exactly what she was doing when she authorized her own payouts without approval and filed a frivolous discrimination claim only after she was terminated in 2012, never complaining of discrimination while employed by the city.
Their opening statements were presented in a civil jury trial Wednesday.
Ziomkowski, 59 when she filed the May 14, 2013, lawsuit, is seeking unspecified damages for claims against the city.
Those claims had included wrongful discharge, age discrimination and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
They were dismissed Sept. 26, 2014, by then-Judge George L. Wood.
That left Ragonesi and Unger to present their versions of Ziomkowski’s gender discrimination-hostile workplace lawsuit Wednesday before Judge Erik Rohrer and an eight-woman, six-man jury, including two alternates.
Continue case
Unger, who will continue presenting her case beginning at 9 a.m. today, said she expects to call former city Human Resources Manager Bob Coons to the stand this morning.
Ziomkowski also is on the witness list.
Most of Ziomkowski’s 551 in hours that she was determined to be ineligible for occurred in 2009-11, beginning shortly after Kent Myers became city manager. He left in 2012.
Ziomkowski has paid back the more than $28,000 that was her share of $37,595 cash-outs given to employees. The cash-outs exceeded city policy that allowed no more than 80 hours of vacation-pay transfers annually to retirement accounts.
“In 2009, things got really bad,” Unger said, referring to Myers’ arrival in her opening statement.
“That’s when her treatment and the way she was allowed to be treated was exacerbated.”
Unger said the issue centered around vacation cash-out policies and a pre-retirement catchup program, which allows employees to exceed retirement-account deferral limits.
She said one employee cashed out more than $100,000 in vacation pay.
“Sometimes the rules were bent to accommodate someone,” Unger said.
Yet it was Ziomkowski who was accused by Police Chief Terry Gallagher, Coons and Myers, all of whom have left city employment, “of doing something illegal,” Unger said.
Subtle discrimination
The discrimination against her was not akin to someone snapping her bra or whistling at her but was more subtle, Unger said.
Male managers, including then-Public Works and Utilities Director Glenn Cutler, “had to take orders from a woman,” namely Ziomkowski, who challenged them on budget requests, Unger said.
All the city department heads were male, she said.
“That’s not a good recipe for success,” she added.
She said the state Auditor’s Office, brought in to examine the cash-out policy, said city cash-out policies were sorely lacking.
“They determined there was not a good process or procedure or manner in which this should be done,” Unger said.
“They essentially said nobody did anything in bad faith.”
Yet Gallagher and Coons, having decided Ziomkowski had done something wrong, urged then-county Prosecuting Attorney Deborah Kelly to get the State Patrol to investigate the matter, Unger said.
The agency decided Ziomkowski had committed first-degree theft and several other offenses, none of which she was charged with.
“She was fired from the city for doing what everyone else is doing: for being who she is,” Unger said.
“There’s no other explanation as to why she was singled out other than because she was a woman.”
Responsibilities of office
Ragonesi, who followed Unger before the jury, said that as finance director, “the buck stops” with Ziomkowski, adding that Ziomkowski did not shoulder the responsibilities of her office.
Within months of Myers’ arrival, Ziomkowski began cashing out large parts of her leave without gaining his approval, Ragonesi said. The line for Myers’ authorizing signature “disappeared” on the form without explanation, Ragonesi added.
“To this day, we do not know who did that and how it happened,” Ragonesi said, adding that the State Patrol and state Auditor’s Office could not figure it out either.
“She was essentially writing her own checks.”
Ragonesi warned the jury that Ziomkowski “will blame others” for her actions and responds defensively to criticism.
Ragonesi also said other managers who exceeded the cash-out policy did so after they were approved by the city manager or Ziomkowski for amounts far less than cashed out by Ziomkowski and, in some cases, were paid back by managers once the overages were discovered.
Ragonesi said the professional disagreements like those that Ziomkowski had with other managers do not rise to the level of discrimination.
In addition, comments such as Myers referring to “blondie” when talking about a council member or Coons referring to the then-city clerk as “a glorified secretary” do not indicate offensive, pervasive conditions that meet “the burden” of proving the existence of a hostile work environment.
Ragonesi said the jury had already heard from Unger that the behavior Ziomkowski found offensive was subtle.
“Already [Ziomkowski] has failed to meet that burden,” Ragonesi said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
