SEQUIM — A federal agency that protects employee rights has dropped a complaint against the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula that focused on Stephen Rosales, a Sequim School Board candidate and now a former club volunteer and board member who has vigorously denied the allegations.
Board President Jerry Sinn told the Peninsula Daily News that the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission had notified the club by letter that the agency had stopped processing the “charge of discrimination” by Lindsey A. Richardson.
She quit working at the club after filing the complaint April 20 and, according to Rosales, has moved away from the North Olympic Peninsula.
Richardson had alleged that Boys & Girls Clubs’ officials had not properly addressed Rosales’ “physical and verbal harassment” toward her, including, she said, sexual comments he made about other women at the club.
Sinn said the club was notified “within the last week or so” that the EEOC had “terminated the processing of the complaint.”
That means, “yes, we are not going to go forward,” EEOC spokesman Rudy Hurtado said Thursday, adding that Richardson has 90 days to file suit in federal district court if she and her attorney wished to pursue the accusations through that legal avenue.
Neither Sinn nor Hurtado would provide a copy of the EEOC letter or discuss its contents in detail — saying only that the complaint had been dropped.
Rosales, informed Thursday by a PDN reporter that the EEOC had dropped Richardson’s complaint, said he felt vindicated but “really frustrated” the club hadn’t informed him of the decision.
“I wish somebody would tell me these things,” said Rosales, 55.
“I think they owe me that, with as much as I’ve put in financially and physically and raising money for them.”
But, he added, he was also “excited” about the EEOC decision.
“They are paying someone to drive the bus now, and I was doing it for free,” he said.
“The kids miss me, the parents ask me if I’m coming back.
“Yeah, I hope to go back.”
Rosales said he had stopped volunteering at the Sequim unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs and resigned from its board of directors about six weeks ago after the complaint made him too much of a “lightning rod” of attention.
In addition to Boys & Girls Clubs, since 2009 he has been the volunteer interim executive director of the Sequim Food Bank.
Asked why Rosales had not been notified of the EEOC’s action, Sinn said the club was still working with its attorneys on trying to understand the implications of the EEOC’s decision.
“We have worked hard to work through this situation and not play it out in the press or the public,” Sinn said.
“The charge was always against the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula.”
Sinn said club Executive Director Mary Budke had discussed the complaint with Rosales.
Rosales said Budke told him late Wednesday night that she “was getting permission from the attorney to talk to me” about the complaint.
Budke was out of town Thursday and unavailable for comment.
The complaint and its aftermath have created “an unfortunate situation,” Sinn said.
“I don’t think it’s good for the club or good for the people involved or good for the community.
“As soon as we get this behind us the better we are. We’re here to serve the kids.”
Rosales, who is running against incumbent School Board member Walt Johnson, worked at the club’s front desk.
He also mowed the lawn, drove the bus for free and donated $60,000 to $70,000 to the organization.
Johnson said he had vowed to not make the complaint a campaign issue and said “there’s nothing I can comment on” regarding Richardson’s specific allegations.
It was Rosales who brought the complaint in campaign forums, Johnson said.
“Steve brought it up several times, but only to minimize it,” Johnson said, adding forum audiences never asked the candidates about it, either.
“It’s probably better off that he not bring it up at all, but he does,” he said.
“I’m pleased for him. It’s a nasty thing to have hanging over your head.”
Seattle attorney Gina Wolverton, representing the Boys & Girls Clubs, and employee-law attorney Terry Venneberg, representing Richardson, did not return calls for comment Thursday.
Richardson, who could not be reached for comment, resigned voluntarily from the club, Sinn said.
She said in her complaint that Rosales had screamed and yelled at her on numerous occasions and subjected other female employees to similar harassment.
She said after she complained to Budke about Rosales’ behavior, she was demoted to another job “with significantly less responsibility.”
“This could have cost me my marriage if my wife didn’t know me,” Rosales said..
“What I had said all along is that this was just a fabricated story.”
Rosales said he expected to eventually volunteer again at the club — and may again run for its board, whose members, he said, had supported him throughout his
recent travails.
Rosales was the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce’s 2007 Citizen of the Year.
He also received a 2011 Clallam County Community Service Award, which honors outstanding public service.
The award is sponsored by Peninsula Daily News and Soroptimist International of Port Angeles (noon club).
________
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
