LEMON GROVELEMON GROVE — Lemon Grove City Councilmember Liana LeBaron has filed a complaint with the city alleging the city manager and the city attorney have created a hostile work environment for her and she accused both of professional misconduct.
LeBaron, elected to her first term in November 2020, is asking the city to hire an outside investigator to review her allegations against City Manager Lydia Romero and City Attorney Kristen Steinke. She delivered the two-page complaint at the end of Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
Romero has been the city manager since 2015. Steinke is a contracted worker who took over Lemon Grove’s legal needs in 2019. Both declined to comment.
LeBaron’s allegations are the latest in a string of confrontations between her and council and city staff. She repeatedly has been onished by Mayor Racquel Vasquez for failing to follow the rules and protocols governing City Council meetings. She also has been warned not to reach out directly to city employees but to direct her questions instead to the city manager. As a result of her unannounced visits to the offices of city staff, she is no longer allowed to speak with city employees unless accompanied by the city manager or assistant city manager.
In her complaint, LeBaron alleges that Romero and Steinke have falsely accused her of bullying and intimidating city staff. She said answers to questions posed to Romero about the city’s expenditures, “a problematic commercial property” and other matters have not been forthcoming, or have been “superficial.”
The filing of the complaint comes as LeBaron is facing potential legal action by the city. An investigation was initiated several months ago by the City Council alleging interference by LeBaron with a third-party vendor, according to a follow-up closed session report from Steinke in August. Matters surrounding the third-party vendor investigation are being heard in closed session.
In response to that action by the city, LeBaron in August filed paperwork with the state to create the “Liana LeBaron Legal Defense Fund,” which states that the purpose is “to defend against istrative investigation initiated by Lemon Grove City Council on Aug. 17, 2021.”
LeBaron says in her complaint that she ran for office to provide her constituents more transparency and ability. “Since taking office, I have done my best to get answers. At every turn, however, I have been thwarted by the city manager and city attorney,” she wrote.
She says she has been denied access to receipts for expenses and copies of the legal bills from the city attorney’s firm. When she was told by the city attorney not to take notes during closed sessions because they put the city at risk of legal exposure, she says she wasn’t given a proper explanation as to how that could happen.
Romero has told the City Council that she has received close to 1,000 emails from LeBaron in 10 months’ time asking for answers to different city matters.
“Based on the email volume alone, there is a clear and quantifiable pattern of disruption of city operations by Councilmember LeBaron,” City Councilmember Jerry Jones said.
The city does not have a policy of how much staff time can be devoted to individual council ’ requests. But Jones said that past “best practice” has been that City Council are allowed three hours of staff time per week.
LeBaron copied some of her emails to Romero requesting code enforcement needs or to initiate meetings with different groups to as many as 100 people.
LeBaron said in the complaint that some of the 100 people included in the email chain took it upon themselves to write to Romero and copied LeBaron with their emails when they didn’t get responses to their inquiries from the city manager.
In an email reply directly to LeBaron, Romero told her to stop bullying her. The city attorney followed up with an email advising LeBaron to cease.
LeBaron said in her complaint that the city attorney onished her for sitting in on a Zoom deposition by an employee against the city. The city attorney said her presence could be perceived as intimidation. But depositions are not public matters. Jones said she could not have received the link to the Zoom meeting from the city, so he wondered how she got it.
Earlier this month, LeBaron popped into a Zoom meeting of the Planning Commission, during which an appeal was being heard. While her presence there is not illegal, Jones said it’s not accepted practice and that it could present legal exposure to the city, if the City Council was to hear the item on appeal.
Jones said that with the complaint, LeBaron has limited the council’s ability to work with Romero and Steinke on the issues she raised.
“I don’t believe it’s legitimate because she’s an employer, she’s not an employee, and that is something we’ll need legal advice on,” Jones said. “We will have to hire an outside attorney to help us figure that out. (Assistant City Manager) Mike James is going to have be the staff lead on this. The council will have to meet to hire the attorney to give the council direction on how to handle this.”
James said he is “evaluating the merits of the complaint and what steps the city should take moving forward.”
The City Council will hold a special meeting next week to discuss the matter.
