Albany

A state worker who has a free-speech lawsuit pending against his employer was being required to sign in at his job each day on a specially constructed kiosk attached to a tree outside of his workplace, which had the effect of segregating him from fellow employees, he said.

But earlier this week, after a reporter inquired about the unusual procedure, state workers moved the sign-in box to a garage filled with bags of used diapers and other trash, adjacent to the building where his co-workers log in for work.

“It reeked,” said Jeffrey Monsour, a developmental aide at the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities. “There is this huge foyer entrance for everybody else.”

Then, after he complained about the garage, he was told to sign in at the van that he uses for his job.

The shifting sign-in locations are the latest chapter in an ongoing saga between Monsour and the state.

Monsour starts his work day at a residential center for the disabled near his home in Lake Luzerne. From there, he drives residents to a facility near Fort Edward. Once there, he helps oversee the developmentally disabled residents who mow lawns on state property or perform other tasks before they are driven home at the end of the day.

The bizarre sign-in procedure began earlier this month, less than two months after Monsour learned that his federal lawsuit was moving ahead, with a November court date.

He said he was told by his employers that at the end of each work day he could leave his keys in a lock box. The set-up looked similar to the wooden register boxes where hikers sign in before setting off on Catskill or Adirondack trails.

In a grievance about the procedure, Monsour contends it’s “demeaning” and he’s the only employee required to use the outdoor set-up.

OPWDD spokesman Steve Sanders, in a prepared statement, said he couldn’t comment since they have ongoing litigation with Monsour.

Monsour’s clashes with OPWDD date back years and began when openly complained about what he viewed as problems in the way developmentally disabled people were cared for in state residences.

That, according to his federal civil rights lawsuit, prompted disparaging remarks that turned up in his personnel file soon after he began speaking out.

The case hinges on what Monsour says is his First Amendment right of free speech.

While there are limits to free speech as an employee, his lawyer, Robert Sadowski, contends Monsour’s remarks were made as a private citizen who was concerned about problems in a government operation.

“Contacting a newspaper is an archetypal example of speech that has a citizen analogue,” according to the federal civil complaint.

In addition to the free speech issue, the complaint also re-traces some of the concerns that Monsour brought to the press dating back several years.

In one instance, he spoke to reporters about an October 2012 incident in which a sex offender was taken with other developmentally disabled residents to a Halloween-themed “Fright Fest” at a Glens Fall-area amusement park.

Monsour believed the situation placed the resident at risk of committing a parole violation which could have resulted in his being sent back to prison.

Monsour had earlier complained that the state also wasn’t testing residences for radon gas and that some OPWDD workers had falsely certified that they could evacuate residents during fire drills.

The fire drill problems became an issue after a fire at a now-closed group home in Wells killed four disabled residents in 2009.

rkarlin@timesunion.com 518 454 5758 @RickKarlinTU