A Sonoma County judge on Wednesday temporarily sealed portions of a lawsuit filed by a former Santa Rosa police captain who was fired last year but is seeking reinstatement.
After reviewing legal briefs by both sides in her chambers on Wednesday afternoon, Judge Elaine Rushing ordered two documents the city of Santa Rosa wants sealed to be removed from public access pending a Nov. 10 hearing.
The sealed documents contain the testimony of 31 people, including 15 current police department employees, about their perceptions of discrimination, retaliation and other dysfunction within the police department.
However, the practical effects of the ruling were unclear. The documents, which were filed on Sept. 30 as part of former police Capt. Jamie Mitchel's amended lawsuit, have been available for public inspection since then.
The documents now sealed are approximately 2,000 pages of transcripts from an 11-day arbitration hearing Mitchel sought after he was fired and the panel's 2-1 written decision upholding his termination.
Former police Chief Ed Flint, Mitchel, current Chief Tom Schwedhelm and the employees who had filed complaints all testified under oath at the hearings, held in several sessions before three arbitrators between October 2008 and January of this year.
Two members of the panel, one selected by the city and one neutral - both women - said Mitchel's conduct warranted termination. A third, selected by Mitchel - a man - sided with him in saying his conduct wasn't improper.
Mitchel was fired in May 2008 after four city employees filed gender discrimination, harassment and retaliation complaints against Flint. Two of the complaints also named Mitchel, who was one of Flint's seconds in command. Flint was forced out in July 2008.
Mitchel has maintained his innocence.
Two additional employees have since officially complained to the city, according to City Attorney Caroline Fowler.
According to court documents, one of those is Sgt. Lisa Banayat, the department's media spokeswoman. An 18-year veteran, she is the highest-ranking female officer the department has ever had.
The city settled the complaints with a total payout of $120,000. Fowler refused to disclose how much went to each recipient, citing "confidential personnel issues."
The city has spent more than $830,000 to fire Mitchel, force Flint out, settle the complaints and sponsor team-building efforts to try to eliminate divisiveness in the department.
In its motion seeking to seal the arbitration transcripts and ruling, the city argued that the papers "contain confidential personnel information of civilian employees and police officers in the department that must be sealed form public inspection."
"Our position is the records Mitchel filed with his latest case are confidential and that he violated those provisions by filing the documents and is violating the privacy rights of other employees," Fowler said.
In his original lawsuit, filed in May 2008, Mitchel argued that Fowler and other city employees broke the law by violating his privacy rights in releasing the contents of the city's investigation to the complainants and their lawyer.
"It is ironic that Mitchel has tried to have me criminally prosecuted and sued the city for alleged violations of his privacy rights and then files these documents disclosing information and violating the privacy rights of other employees," Fowler said.
In October last year, a federal court judge dismissed Mitchel's suit, saying he needed to exhaust other legal avenues first, including arbitration. The judge ruled his privacy rights weren't violated, but that he could still argue that he was retaliated against for speaking out and that his due process rights were violated with his termination.
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