Peoria employee files discrimination complaints against city

By Philip Haldiman
Mail | X: @PhilipHaldiman

A city of Peoria employee has enlisted a lawyer and put in complaints with the Arizona Attorney General’s office and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging the city has committed gender and age discrimination against her.

Judy Lampert, 71, has worked as an administrative assistant in the city manager, council and mayor’s office in her six years with the city.

Lampert says she was stripped of her duties last year when she was unexpectedly moved to the first floor to work the front desk at city hall with no valid explanation.

Her move came when many upper level staffers were leaving the city in the wake of Mayor Jason Beck’s election in November 2022 and subsequent swearing in January 2023.

From February to May 2023, at least three different employees, all over 40 years of age and each being female, were abruptly removed from their jobs in the city manager’s office. One female, former Deputy City Manager Katie Gregory, was terminated, and at least two other females, including Lampert, were removed from their positions from the executive third floor.

Lampert says she once felt like she was part of a team doing important work, but now feels ostracized and punished, and believes that if she were not a woman of her age, she would not have been relegated to the first floor.

Lampert says now she is fighting not only for herself but also for other people her age who have experienced ageism and sexism.

“I want people to know that you can do something. You don’t just have to sit back and take it. You can speak up,” she said. “I’m not one to be pitied, especially when I have done nothing wrong. So I want people to know what the city has done and that it’s not right.”

On the other hand, the city says Lampert’s claims are “meritless,” and that she has been “treated fairly at all times.”

A statement sent to Peoria Independent says that when newly hired City Manager Henry Darwin first saw Lampert, he was “impressed by her friendly, helpful nature and thought she would better serve the city by welcoming our residents at the front desk,” the statement continues. “The city is disappointed that Ms. Lampert believes this move to be punitive in any way. In fact, she received a pay raise since assuming her new duties at the front desk.”

Peoria Is An Equal Employment Opportunity Agency

Officials with the state’s attorney general’s and EEOC office’s said discrimination complaints received by their offices are confidential and they are unable to comment on this story.

The city of Peoria is an equal employment opportunity agency, which means it has policy committed to equal opportunity, non-discrimination and zero tolerance for retaliation.

Peoria policy states that the city will provide equal employment and promotional opportunities to all “employees based upon their abilities, achievements and experience without regard to race, color, religion, age, national origin, gender, sex, sexual orientation, genetic information, disability status, veteran status, marital status, ancestry or any other category protected by law.”

Although Arizona is a right to work state, Lampert, who is employed as an administrative assistant II, is classified as a non-exempt employee, which in this case means, to be terminated, the city must follow a progressive discipline process that must include things such as verbal warnings, written reprimands, job improvement plan, poor performance reviews, among others, according to city policy.

Lampert says the city was hoping she would quit on her own because, she says, the city has no cause to fire her.

While her pay and benefits have not decreased, Lampert alleges she is a victim of “constructive discharge,” a situation prohibited by Arizona law in which an employer creates objectively difficult or unpleasant working conditions to the extent that a reasonable employee would feel compelled to quit.

Lampert says she is being “quietly fired” by being put in a job she wants to quit.

“I was moved to the front desk where I was stripped of everything. Taking away my job duties is discrimination,” she said. “I was at the top of my game in terms of my job when they moved me. Now they are trying to push me out the door.”

Timeline

On March 30, 2023, Lampert said the chief of staff to Mayor Jason Beck came to her and told her a new employee was going to be starting on April 3 as the mayor’s assistant, and that he would be shadowing her. Lampert said the new employee consistently asked her about her duties, and it quickly became evident that he would be taking over her job.

About a week later, Darwin came to her and said he wanted her at the front desk downstairs to greet visitors. She began working downstairs April 17, 2023, with no explanation other than she was “so nice,” she said.

There was not a “door greeter position” prior to moving Lampert to that position, only a security guard at the front door who had welcomed people. Lampert said now there are two people who greet customers.

When she was moved, Lampert said she was so distraught that she had to take the rest of the day off and the two work days that followed. The stress of the situation caused her to lose her appetite and sleep. She broke out in a rash. Fellow co-workers from the third floor were surprised when they first saw her at the front desk and wondered what happened, she said.

“When I showed up to the front desk on the first floor, I had never felt so humiliated, sad, lost, embarrassed, demeaned, degraded, and city hall employees were shocked as they entered the building. I had to pretend that I was OK while my insides just wanted to cry,” she said.

Lampert filed a claim with the attorney general’s office Oct. 24, 2023, and said the city was sent the claim notification within 10 days. She was then contacted by an AG office mediator that the city wanted a mediation which occurred at the end of last November. That hearing is privately sealed.

She says she did not file a complaint with the city because she didn’t feel she had any chance of resolution.

Former Peoria employee Tammy Shreeve, who has more than 30 years experience in local and state government, said she has witnessed what Lampert has gone through.

Shreeve said she too has filed a discrimination complaint with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office against the city.

She said Lampert’s skill, knowledge, and experience provide value to the city and in a community with a significant amount of active older residents who want to work or financially need to work, they should not be placed in positions undermining their work skills and experience.

Shreeve added that adverse employment actions not only impact human dignity but also can impact job satisfaction, self-worth and future wage earnings.

There is a concern that masking adverse employment actions by having an employee keep their current salary while removing their job position responsibilities can potentially diminish the future earning power of the employee, she said.

“I find it curious that rather than placing Judy in a position with comparable administrative assistant II position responsibilities, she was abruptly stripped of job duties, removed from the executive city manager/council office floor, and made to be the city hall door greeter where she welcomes visitors and asks them to sign a visitor’s log,” Shreeve said. “What is an older worker going to say in a job interview when their current job functions and responsibilities have been removed at no fault of their own?”

City Response

The city sent a position statement to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office dated Dec. 9, 2023, stating they investigated the claim. However, Lampert said the city never interviewed her as part of their investigation.

The city’s position statement said Lampert failed to present any actual evidence of any discriminatory action.

“Nonetheless, the city thoroughly investigated the allegations and found that Ms. Lampert was treated fairly at all times. The city therefore respectfully requests the Arizona Civil Rights Division to issue a ‘no cause’ determination and dismiss the charge,” according to the position statement.

The city states that Lampert’s position neither changed, nor did she lose any compensation, and the only change she experienced was the physical location of her workspace from the third floor to the first floor of city hall.

“Ms. Lampert’s position was relocated to a more sensible workspace at the discretion of the City of Peoria City Manager, Henry Darwin,” according to the position statement.

Further, the city says that Lampert maintained the administrative assistant II assignment she was initially hired for in April 2017.

The city states there were three other staff members who were relocated to other workspaces within the city of Peoria during the same timeframe as her. The city stated that one of them was a “younger male”

“Ms. Lampert has failed to prove that she was treated less favorably than other similarly situated employees at any time,” the document states.

Making A Home In Peoria

In March 2011, Lampert moved from Missouri and bought a home in Peoria.

In 2017, after five meetings with the city, she was hired for the administrative assistant II position on the third floor on a part-time basis.

She said she has loved working for the city of Peoria. Along the way she has collected positive performance reviews, as well as endeared herself to customers, coworkers and council members on city hall’s executive third floor.

According to human resources documents, her duties included complex customer service, data entry and correspondence, compiling and preparing reports and research, indexing records, and performing general accounting functions. Much of this work was involved with sensitive and confidential matters, considering the high level employees and elected officials she worked with.

Lampert said these high level duties she once was responsible for don’t compare to the minimal duties of “door greeting” she does now. She confirmed she retains the administrative assistant II position, but disputes the city’s claim that the “terms and conditions” of her employment have not changed.

In 2022, Lampert transitioned from part-time to full-time “seamlessly,” as her annual review stated, only a year before she was dispatched to the ground floor.

Lampert received a rating of “highly effective,” and her supervisor praised her for providing a high level of customer service, turning customer complaints into positive experiences, and consistently taking “messy projects and complex problems” and turning them into solutions.

The annual review said Lampert continues “to keep the city manager’s office and mayor and council office running smoothly and on task, and continues to complete her duties with accuracy, organization and timeliness.”

The report went on to say about Lampert: “You have a way of handling callers to the mayor/council office that often disarms unhappy people and turns them around. You accomplish this with humor, compassion and a doggedness for research to solve their problems.”

Philip Haldiman can be reached at phaldiman@iniusa.org, or on Twitter @philiphaldiman. We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.

Philip Haldiman
Senior News Editor | Peoria

phaldiman@iniusa.org

Meet Philip
Haldiman is an award-winning journalist who most recently took first place for investigative reporting in 2023 from Arizona Newspapers Association. He joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2015, covering Sun City West his first year. Since 2016, he has covered the city of Peoria. Prior to coming to INI, he was a reporter with The Arizona Republic for seven years, covering numerous cities throughout the Valley. Before that, he was a freelance writer.

Community: Haldiman spearheads the Peoria Independent Hometown Heroes Awards program, honoring local individuals and businesses that give back to the community. He has hosted local candidate forums over the years and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. Haldiman also served as a member of the Journalism Program Community Advisory Board at Glendale Community College. Outside journalism, Haldiman served as a member of the city of Peoria Complete Count Committee for the Census, 2019-2020. Lastly, he has served as a member of his HOA governing board since 2021.

Education: Arizona State University with a BA in Journalism and Mass Communications and a BA in Theater. 

Random Fact: Haldiman is a fourth-generation Arizonan as well as wrote and produced an autobiographical comic book about his time spent in Hollywood and his life as a cult film star.

Hobbies: He enjoys hiking Arizona’s mountainous landscapes and is currently working on a play for the stage.