SEQUIM — The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is investigating a sexual harassment accusation involving Stephen Rosales, a chief volunteer for the Sequim unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula and a candidate in this fall’s election for the Sequim School Board.
Rosales strongly denies the allegations, made by a female employee of the Boys & Girls Clubs in a complaint to the EEOC.
“It’s not fair . . . at no time did I do anything wrong,” he told the Peninsula Daily News.
Jerry Sinn, board president of the Boys & Girls Clubs, said the allegations were being investigated. He would not comment further on them.
The “charge of discrimination,” filed April 20 with the EEOC and the Washington State Human Rights Commission, alleges Rosales subjected Lindsey A. Richardson, who still works at the club, to “physical and verbal harassment,” including making sexual comments about other women at the club.
The complaint, signed by Richardson “under penalty of perjury,” accuses the Boys & Girls Clubs of not properly addressing the alleged harassment.
After Richardson complained to the club’s executive director, her lawyer said, she was demoted to another job “with significantly less responsibility,” and Rosales was not disciplined, according to the complaint.
In addition to being an unpaid volunteer worker at the club, Rosales, 54, is a member of the club’s board of directors and a major financial contributor, having donated $60,000 to $70,000 to the organization, he said in an interview.
Rosales also serves as interim director of the Sequim Food Bank and has worked as a volunteer for the Sequim schools and Little League.
He likes to kid that he is a “volaholic” — which, he explains, is a “volunteer-a-holic.”
A retired state of Texas employee, Rosales, his wife and their two pre-teen daughters moved to Sequim in 2005.
The community activist was named Citizen of the Year for 2007 by the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce and was one of seven individuals who received the 2011 Clallam County Community Service Award, which is sponsored by Peninsula Daily News and Soroptimist International of Port Angeles (noon club).
At the April 28 service award ceremonies, 2010 award recipient Joe Borden lauded Rosales and noted that he worked 60 hours a week as a Boys & Girls Clubs volunteer.
A 2010 PDN story called Rosales “the bus-driving, fundraising, child-herding volunteer at the Boys & Girls Clubs.”
In addition to Sequim, the club has a facility in Port Angeles.
Richardson, described by her Gig Harbor-based attorney, Terry A. Venneberg, as in her 20s, said in the EEOC complaint that she had been re-hired at the club as a substitute worker in June 2010.
“Beginning in December 2010, I was assigned to work at the Front Desk of BGCOP with a volunteer and BGCOP Board Member, Stephen Rosales . . .
“Mr. Rosales made sexual remarks concerning mothers of children who participated in activities at the BGCOP, and asked me to ‘hook him up’ with several of those women.
“He screamed and yelled at me on numerous occasions.
“He has subjected other female employees to this type of harassment, and has not engaged in this type of conduct with male employees.”
Venneberg said the physical harassment consisted of “an incident where he had pushed her chair and she was in it.”
In interviews with the PDN last week, Rosales repeatedly denied the allegations.
He said he had not seen the complaint but knew of its existence.
“I’ve dealt with thousands of parents, and not a single complaint. This is causing distress to my family, my daughters are crying,” he said Thursday, adding that they are hearing about the complaint in school.
“People are telling people.
“It’s destroying me. It’s not fair. I am a good human being. I am a good human being.
“I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m tired. I haven’t slept in a week.”
Venneberg would not identify other employees referred to in the complaint, would not say if he had been contacted by women referred to in the complaint and would not make Richardson available for an interview by the PDN.
The complaint takes the Sequim unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs to task for failing to address the alleged harassment.
Richardson “told [Rosales] she did not appreciate his comments,” Venneberg said.
“She made it clear to him the comments and conduct were unwelcome.”
He said Richardson also complained about it to Boys & Girls Clubs Executive Director Mary Budke.
When contacted by the Peninsula Daily News, Budke would not comment about the complaint and referred the PDN to Sinn.
“[After I had complained to Budke about Rosales] I was given the choice of transferring out of the Sequim facility, or having my job changed to one with significantly less responsibility,” Richardson said in her complaint.
“Mr. Rosales was not disciplined in any manner, and was left in his position at the Front Desk.
“By failing to take appropriate remedial action in response to my complaint of sexual harassment, thereby subjecting me to different terms and conditions of employment, the Boys & Girls Club[s] of the Olympic Peninsula engaged in discrimination against me based on sex, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended.”
Richardson is still working at the Sequim unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs, but not at the front desk, Venneberg said.
Sinn said Rosales “is performing his duties as a director of the board” but that Rosales no longer works at the front desk.
When asked about his absence from the front desk, Rosales said it was voluntary — “I’m running for political office, and I did not want anyone thinking I was using a nonprofit for running for political office.”
An EEOC investigator interviewed Richardson “several weeks ago,” Venneberg said.
He did not know the status of the investigation or if other Boys & Girls Clubs volunteers and employees had been interviewed.
It typically takes a year for the EEOC to resolve a case, Venneberg said.
EEOC spokesman Rudy Hurtado said a federal charge of discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act sometimes grows out of agency investigations.
Settlements through mediation are more common, Hurtado said.
The EEOC’s goal is to make complainants “whole” through monetary compensation, job adjustments or other remedies acceptable to both parties, Hurtado added.
Venneberg said it was too early in the case to say Richardson wants monetary compensation.
“She would like her old job back, sure,” he said.
Richardson is being paid the same in her new job as when she was working at the front desk, but she has significantly less responsibility, Venneberg said.
Rosales said it was not unusual for him to be unfairly accused by some in the community.
He said he has been accused of having “an agenda” by being involved with the Boys & Girls Clubs in order to run for the Sequim School Board.
He is running in the fall election against incumbent Walter Johnson.
Noting that School Board members don’t take pay for the their work, “it will just be more [unpaid volunteer] work for me,” Rosales said.
When he took over as interim Sequim Food Bank director following the resignation of Nina Fatherson in late 2009, “baseless accusations” were leveled at him then, too, he said.
In an Oct. 31, 2009, letter posted on the food bank’s door, Fatherson said Rosales “has made mine and my volunteers’ jobs almost impossible and certainly unbearable.
“To that end, 12 of my longtime volunteers have resigned, and now, [my husband] Bill and I feel we must, too.”
She also told the PDN on Nov. 1, 2009, that Rosales had “sought to take over the food bank” and was “disrespectful to employees.”
The food bank today is “better than it’s ever been,” Rosales said last week.
“I was accused that I was going to close it down,” he said.
“I’m tired of people accusing me of things.”
_______
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
