Sandpoint Park Workers Resign To Protest Boss Six Had Filed Grievances Claiming Harassment, Racism And Assault

A plan to get their boss fired has backfired on employees of the Sandpoint Parks Department.

Six employees resigned and turned in their keys to City Clerk Helen Newton Thursday morning, shortly before a scheduled meeting with Parks Director Maurice Dunn.

The employees feared the mandatory meeting with Dunn was part of a scheme to create a “paper trail” against the mutinous employees and get them fired, according to family members.

“The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many,” said Eileen Bauer, the mother of one of the parks workers. “They (city officials) didn’t care about these six people. They wanted to get rid of them, because they blew the whistle.”

Now, until new hires are made, Dunn has himself, one full-time employee and two seasonal workers to maintain 66 acres of park space, plus Sandpoint Community Hall and Memorial Field.

“Maurice is in charge and is confident the parks will be taken care of,” said Mayor Paul Graves.

The employees filed grievances against Dunn in the spring alleging sexual harassment, racism and assault. He’s accused of pulling knives on employees, calling them offensive names, and degrading women workers with sex-specific derogatory names and insults.

Dunn has not returned phone calls to comment on the allegations.

When Dunn was reprimanded in July, but retained his job, the employees filed a $3 million tort claim against the city.

Now they call Dunn “the threemillion-dollar man” because they can’t seem to get rid of him. Instead, employees have received threatening letters from the city’s attorneys because they’ve refused to speak to Dunn. One letter accused employees of insubordination, Bauer said.

City officials have remained largely silent during the controversy.

On Thursday, however, they expressed their frustration with the situation in a press release.

“The city believes it was unfair and unprofessional for certain Parks Department employees to make the kinds of allegations that appeared in the media when each employee and their counsel knew that the city would be unable to respond due to privacy issues,” the release stated.

City employees have not been able to comment to the press prior to Thursday because of city policy, and have let their spouses and other family members speak for them. But Thursday, they still declined to make more than a perfunctory statement on the advice of their attorney, Todd Reed.

“I turned in my resignation due to stress, hostile environment, etcetera,” said Rob Duncanson, who has filed a police report accusing Dunn of pulling a knife on him.

Dunn is known to fiddle with a pocket knife, according to city sources, but three parks employees have accused him of physically threatening them with it.

The Idaho State Police currently is investigating those accusations. The detective assigned to the case is expected to forward a report to Bonner County Prosecutor Phil Robinson.

Vic Phillips claimed that Dunn put a knife to his throat after Dunn found an adult diaper in the cab of his pickup truck. Phillips denied putting it there.

On Thursday, after turning in his resignation, Phillips went golfing, said his wife, Danielle Phillips.

“They’ve done their job. They’ve worked hard,” she said. “They were not willing to let the city fire them.”

After a review of the grievances by a three-member personnel review board, one of whose members was chosen by the employees, Dunn was suspended from his job without pay for two weeks.

He also was directed to attend management and sensitivity training. The city also hired a mediator to facilitate meetings with Dunn and the employees.

But since Dunn returned to work, the employees have refused to speak to him and have spurned the mediation sessions.

“The mediation process was intended to help facilitate a productive and positive working relationship between the employees and Mr. Dunn,” the city stated in its release. “Unfortunately, the employees refused to participate in this reasonable process… “The Review Board is disappointed that the employees did not honor their commitment to abide by the Board’s resolution of their grievances.”

Employees’ family members deny that the employees committed themselves to abide by the decision of the review board. They say they feel betrayed by the city, because the employees have had to work with Dunn even though the ISP investigation and a separate investigation by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are still pending.

Reed has said that he did sign a document agreeing to the review process on behalf of the employees, but that did not undermine the employees’ right to sue.

Bauer said the decision to resign was a difficult one for her daughter, Kim Dana, who has worked for the city about eight years.

But Dana and the others decided they had had enough.

“They just left before any more stress,” Bauer said. “It’s made them sick. They’re living on Tums.”