Carson City Clerk Jim Dear has created such a hostile work environment at City Hall with racist comments, angry outbursts and employee spying that city operations are now crippled, according to an investigative report obtained by the Los Angeles News Group.

Three months into the fiscal year, the city’s $70 million budget still has not been adopted and policy-making has largely stalled as the City Council tries to reign in Dear’s increasingly disturbing behavior, says the independent probe conducted by Riverside attorney Maria Aarvig.

Aarvig’s 52-page report, based on interviews with 13 current and former city employees, paints a portrait of an elected official whose inappropriate behavior grew worse after he gave up his political clout as mayor to run for the relatively obscure post of city clerk.

Dear served as mayor for 11 years before capturing the $113,000-a-year clerk’s post in March. The mayor of Carson makes only about $25,000.

The report found that city staff members have, for years, enabled Dear’s bad behavior because they feared retaliation, particularly losing their jobs, if they spoke out.

When he served as mayor, employees said, Dear was so power-hungry and demanding that he would become enraged when he didn’t get his way. But now that he has lost most of his political clout, Dear’s abusive behavior has increased as he nevertheless tries to assert his will at City Hall, the report says.

Dear has called staff members derogatory names, pressured top managers to hire his girlfriend and give lucrative contracts to his friends, stoked racial divisions, and interrupted work to ask for favors and gossip about his political enemies, according to the report.

“Day-to-day operation in the city is adversely affected by a preoccupation with concern over Mr. Dear’s reaction to adverse events,” the report states. “Members of the staff are uneasy because they cannot predict what will trigger an outburst. Fear was expressed by multiple employees in multiple offices of City Hall. The fear expressed is assessed as genuine.”

Policy violations

The investigation found that Dear repeatedly violated city policy, federal and state employment law and an internal code of ethics that he helped write. But, because the clerk was elected by voters, he can only be removed from his seat by the state attorney general or through a voter-initiated recall campaign, which is in the works.

The City Council voted last month to begin censure proceedings against Dear when initial results of the internal investigation became public. A censure hearing, which could lead to an official condemnation of Dear’s behavior, is set for Oct. 20.

Dear is actively fighting the recall campaign, and has hired a lawyer to defend him against the censure proceedings, which he likened to a “witch hunt.” Dear accuses the City Council and staff of drumming up false charges against him for political reasons.

How the investigation came about

But the investigation, commissioned by interim City Manager Ken Farfsing, was done without City Council involvement, and its focus was on identifying whether Dear’s actions were making the city vulnerable to workplace harassment lawsuits.

Farfsing was hired in July following a turbulent two years in which the City Council hired and fired three city managers. He was tasked with stabilizing operations after a series of politically motivated firings and forced retirements resulted in the loss of the city’s most senior managers.

A month later, after he learned employees were planning escape routes from City Hall in case Dear were to “snap or go postal,” he hired Aarvig to investigate claims of workplace harassment.

“When the City Council hired me, they asked me to balance the city budget, find a new finance director, and work on the NFL project” to build a football stadium for the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders, Farfsing said. “I didn’t expect that, within a month, I’d be calling for an investigation of the city clerk. I’m duty-bound, by law, to do a thorough investigation of these complaints of a hostile work environment. And that’s what we did.

“The investigation proved there is a hostile work environment, but also came back with (Dear’s) racism,” Farfsing said. “I was shocked by the report. Jim put the code of ethics together and he’s violated at least six of the provisions.”

Accusations of racism

The investigation found that Dear marginalizes black employees and often makes racially derogatory remarks about black residents and staff, associating them with his political rivals on the City Council.

Dear told developers of the city’s mall, SouthBay Pavilion, that ongoing public safety problems there were due to “the blacks,” according to Lisa Berglund, an administrative analyst, who said he routinely demeaned nonwhite staff members as “evil” and “not smart,” and mocked the hair of his black colleagues.

The city has long been divided politically along racial lines and, according to employee statements, Dear aggravates that with negative gossip about black employees and council members.

A longtime clerk’s office employee, who did not make her name public in the report, said Dear excludes her from team projects seemingly because she is black. She and other employees reported hearing Dear tell one of his friends, Miriam Vasquez, a vocal City Council critic “the black people are taking over” and “we can’t let them.”

Vasquez, in turn, told employees that Dear told her the city’s Fourth of July celebration was becoming “a black event” and that “black people (are) taking over.”

Former City Manager Nelson Hernandez, who was fired in February after just nine months on the job, said Dear told him he didn’t want any nightclubs in Carson because “too many black people from Compton will come there.”

He encouraged Hernandez to fire a black employee if a white employee was fired, regardless of work performance, and talked down to black staff members, the former manager said.

Dear also pressured Hernandez to give a lucrative, “crooked contract” to his friend and insisted he hire his girlfriend, Monette Gavino, to be an assistant to council members.

“Mr. Dear threatened to fire Mr. Hernandez for the first time for refusing to recommend approval of a $700,000-a-year (labor union) contract,” Aarvig wrote in her summary of Hernandez’s interview.

Hernandez refused, saying the cost was exorbitant and could have been done for only $12,000. But Dear was livid that he wasn’t doing what he wanted, Hernandez said. Dear then threatened again to fire Hernandez.

“Dear manipulated staff, who were fearful of losing their jobs,” the report states. “Dear would go to (an) employee’s desk in the office and grill them, and try to direct people to do certain things.”

What happens when Dear gets angry

When he doesn’t get his way, employees say, he becomes enraged.

“He would get red in the face and then he would pound on the table with his clenched fist, the veins in his neck would distend and he would lean forward,” the report states.

Berglund described Dear as having “crazy eyes” when he is angry, and other employees said he gets a “twitch” that has become increasingly worse in recent months.

In April, Dear became enraged at Assistant City Manager Cecil Rhambo because he wouldn’t remove an item from the City Council agenda that Dear disliked, said Gloria Dacus, a senior clerk.

“Dear stormed into the office in a very disruptive and unprofessional manner and angrily demanded information about who put a certain item on the agenda,” Dacus told the investigator. “Mr. Dear told Mr. Rhambo to come to the office so he could tell him face-to-face what he thought of him.”

Several employees said they then heard Dear call Rhambo, a former assistant sheriff, “Mr. Corrupt Sheriff,” “ass—-,” and “young boy.” One of the employees was so upset by the confrontation that she went to the bathroom and vomited.

Employees recounted his angry fixation on Mayor Albert Robles, who split politically from Dear shortly before he was appointed to the mayor’s seat in April. Dear often gossips with staff members about Robles, putting them in an uncomfortable position, according to the report.

Dear “approached (an employee’s) desk and immediately started yelling at her about how he did not appreciate the actions of Mayor Robles,” the report states. “He wanted her to speak to him about it. He was angry and was saying bad things about the mayor, saying that he was ‘evil’ and did not appreciate that Mr. Dear helped him ‘get here.’

“His face turned red, his neck was twitching and he was ‘just very angry,’ ” the employee said. “He persisted in his berating and she eventually told him that he was making her feel very uncomfortable.”

Debbie Green, an executive assistant to the city manager, said she hasn’t felt safe around Dear for two years, the report states.

“He can be very friendly, and then at other times he looks at her … he looks unstable,” the report states. “He reminds her of the type of person who would just snap. In her words, she describes Mr. Dear as ‘someone that’s calm for the most part but, boy, you tick them off and they had a bad day or something else went wrong and they can just go postal.’ ”