City of Ceres Human Resources Director Delilah Vasquez violated the rights of city employee Ann Montgomery who voiced criticisms of her direct supervisor, a union representative charged on Monday.
Joshua E. Lepper, a field representative of Laborers International Union of North America Local #1130 which represents Montgomery and about 68 other city employees, alleged that the city twice retaliated against Montgomery for routinely expressing concerns about the work performance of Christopher Hoem, the director of Community Development Department. The union filed an unfair labor practice grievance against the city, citing a violation of the Public Employee Relations Board law.
“It’s a hugely abnormal thing to do,” said Lepper of the filing. “We’ve never filed an unfair labor practice against the city of Ceres ever in the history of the 16 years I’ve been there but because of the situation with Ann Montgomery, her being disciplined for what amounted to protected union activity – the right of us to complain about working conditions in this case – we refuted that discipline.”
The union was contacted by Montgomery after she was called into Vasquez’s office and told that there was a complaint filed against her – he says in retaliation – and wouldn’t disclose the name of her accuser.
“(Vasquez) and I had these talks and I told her you can’t do this. You can’t file a complaint on somebody and then not tell us who the complaint was done by. If the city doesn’t tell us who the complainant is then we are not afford our due process rights to confront our accuser, call witnesses accordingly and to defend ourselves.
“They were trying to retaliate against her for complaining about stuff that was rightful, not even realizing she doesn’t come from a place of kicking up dust for no reason. She comes from a place of really caring and trying to help that department since Tom (Westbrook) left.”
Westbrook served as city manager and director of Community Development until Hoem was hired in August 2021. Westbrook left the city that same month.
"For her to be told she was badmouthing her supervisor, as if she didn’t have the right do so, there was a lack of grasp of the law by the HR director.”Joshua E. Lepper, a field representative of Laborers International Union of North America Local #1130
Lepper said Montgomery is well respected in the community and cited her Christian character and values, “so for her to be told she was badmouthing her supervisor, as if she didn’t have the right do so, there was a lack of grasp of the law by the HR director.”
Lepper noted that employees have the right to speak out against supervisors on her breaks and lunches and “during work time if the impact of that supervisor is affecting the whole group and if the rest of the group agrees that it’s a problem … provided they don’t impede the work of the other workers.”
The city was unwilling to rectify the situation and remove the disciplines from Montgomery’s employee file so the union filed the complaint.
After hiring an outside attorney, the city settled instead of the case advancing. As a result of the settlement, said Lepper, the city was required to expunge the discipline reports from Montgomery’s employee records and was forced to issue a 30-day posting to all employees represented by the union that it will:
• Not interfere with bargaining unit employees’ rights under the Myers Milias Brown Act to engage in protected activity;
• Not retaliate against members for exercising or engaging in protected rights under the same act.
The department has seen an exodus of employees since Hoem was hired. Senior Planner James Michaels left in November 2023 for Lathrop after serving 15 years. Jordan Jones left for a different department. Planning consultant Marjorie Blom has left. The last one to leave was Economic Development Manager Tamra Spade, who was about a month from leaving her probationary period when she was terminated on Sept. 14. Spade suspects that her criticisms of Hoem led to her termination. Spade called Hoem incompetent and said his department a “toxic environment.”
Lepper said there are numerous examples of incompetency, including the issuance of a building permit without going through the plan check process.
Hoem is an at-will employee.
Lepper said the action comes months before he starts negotiating a new contract for his union members and expects a difficult time “because of the difficulty in getting simple things done. We do three other bargaining units where I don’t have a single issue … like Ceres.
“We felt it proper to file that because there were a number of other things in the past year that have occurred that are causing difficulties between employees in the city, working conditions and no the relations with the union,” said Lepper. “And we have negotiations for our next contract that begin the early part of next year so we wanted to make sure to address this prior to opening negotiations in an effort to try to be candid, in an effort to create some mutual respect between both parties. I think that’s been something lacking on the city’s part.”
He is calling for the city to conduct a compensation study prior to negotiations as a basis to determine what employees should be “fairly paid.”
“We have police dispatchers coming to the podium talking about not being able to support their family,” said Lepper.
