Ex-Personnel Chief Offers Rebuttal in Walsh Suit Over Demotion

Orange County’s former personnel director offered a different picture Monday of the demotion of former Finance Director Eileen Walsh, who sued the county for sexual discrimination after she was bounced from her job in the weeks after the county’s 1994 bankruptcy.

Russ Patton was called to the stand by county attorneys to rebut Walsh’s claim that she lost her executive job and was reassigned to the trash department because she ran afoul of a “good old boys’ network.”

She contends that her employment agreement required her to be sent back to her previous job in the Health Care Agency or to another job at the same pay grade.

Patton, who was personnel director before he retired, testified that Health Care Agency Director Thomas Uram, who took over as the county’s acting chief administrative officer in the immediate aftermath of the bankruptcy, believed Walsh was “somewhat tainted” by the financial fiasco.

Patton said that he spoke with Walsh twice after she’d been placed on administrative leave by Uram, who is also a defendant in the lawsuit, and that Walsh acquiesced to her reassignment to the Integrated Waste Management Department.

He said she asked to be reassigned to Superior Court or the Community Services Agency but didn’t want to return to work for Uram. “She felt it would be awkward working with Mr. Uram because he’d placed her on administrative leave and [because] he didn’t have confidence in her work,” Patton said.

Earlier in the trial, Walsh testified that Uram sent her to work for Murry Cable, the director of Integrated Waste Management, as punishment, knowing that Walsh was uncomfortable with Cable’s sexual banter and demeaning comments about women.

Other witnesses testified that Cable and Uram sometimes shared inappropriate jokes during Monday meetings in the county administrative office, and that Cable once paid a stripper to perform at an office birthday party.

Patton testified Monday that he observed no such inappropriate behavior at the Monday meetings. He also said Walsh never complained to him about sexual harassment or discrimination.

Earlier in his testimony, Patton identified a February 1995 memo to then-Supervisor Roger Stanton from his chief of staff, Robert L. Richardson, informing Stanton that Walsh had been demoted to the trash department and “she has no recourse.”

Walsh’s lawsuit charges she lost her job in part because Stanton was furious that she’d spoken to a Los Angeles Times reporter about how financial advisors who had been generous with campaign contributions were chosen for county work.

Former County Administrative Officer Ernie Schneider testified that Stanton demanded that he fire Walsh for speaking to the reporter but he refused. Schneider was later fired by the county.

In other testimony Monday, former county Executive Officer William Popejoy testified about the turmoil in county government after the bankruptcy. Popejoy, who succeeded Uram, was responsible for scores of layoffs in the county administrative office. But Popejoy said he wouldn’t have demoted or fired Walsh.