Former top San Diego bureaucrat Eric Dargan’s discrimination lawsuit against the city has pushed the mayor’s team to say something Mayor Todd Gloria didn’t clarify when he announced he was axing the chief operating officer position in February: Dargan was fired.
At a Feb. 18 press conference, Gloria said the series of reductions he announced to help address a massive city budget deficit were “budgetarily driven.”
Then came Dargan’s March 27 lawsuit alleging Gloria reneged on a pledge to pay him three months’ severance following his February dismissal.
“While eliminating the COO position provides budgetary savings, Mr. Dargan was, in fact, terminated for cause,” Gloria Chief of Staff Paola Avila wrote in a Monday statement. “This will be made clear in the city’s response to Mr. Dargan’s complaint.”
Dargan, who is Black, argues the mayor never shared negative feedback on his work.
Dargan’s attorney Michael Conger claims the former city COO never even received a formal performance review during his more than two years at City Hall – let alone a negative one.
“We believe the city is fabricating facts to justify its discrimination,” Conger told Voice of San Diego, noting a 2019 city audit that showed pay disparities affecting Black city employees.
Avila declined to respond to Conger’s specific claims.
Conger said he’s now considering amending Dargan’s lawsuit against the city to add a defamation claim against “those defaming (Dargan) with untrue statements.”
Dargan’s forced departure from City Hall followed criticism from several councilmembers and the leader of the city’s largest union that no one was taking charge of the response to the city’s more than $250 million budget deficit, and rumors that Dargan fell asleep at key meetings.
Conger deemed those rumors and Dargan’s abrupt firing discriminatory.
“How do you respond a rumor that you haven’t heard yourself?” Conger said. “All I have to say to the city is bring it on.”
Conger, a veteran attorney who has challenged the city in court many times, argues the city sought to manufacture reasons for Dargan’s firing after his departure. He claims the city created two documents, including one dated March 10, listing concerns about Dargan’s performance after he left the city.
Among those “frivolous” concerns, according to Conger: reserving tee times four times the past couple years at the city’s Torrey Pines Golf Course as he claimed other city officials do and accidentally using his work email for personal matters on two occasions.
Conger said one document also described Dargan as “generally aloof and not engaged on a host of issues.”
“If they really had performance problems, why in the world weren’t those provided to him long before Feb. 18?” Conger said.
Conger’s complaint alleges that Dargan was treated differently than others who might have held the COO position due to his race.
In the lawsuit filed on Dargan’s behalf last week, Conger highlighted Gloria’s failure to keep a promise included in a 2022 employment offer that both men signed amounted to discrimination.
Conger provided a copy of the letter to Voice which states that the mayor “may elect in writing, and in his sole discretion” to give Dargan three months’ notice of his plans to terminate him.
“In such a case, the city will retain you in an employment relationship with the city in a capacity to be mutually agreed upon for the entire three-month period,” the letter states. “During the three-month period of employment, you will receive the same salary and benefits provided in this letter.”
That clause wouldn’t apply, the letter noted, if Dargan chose to leave the city or his employment was terminated for cause.
Conger said Gloria’s promise persuaded Dargan to leave his job leading Houston’s public works department and to relocate his family. He now believes Gloria never intended to keep that promise.
“The city, namely Mayor Gloria, unlawfully discriminated against Dargan based on his race by, among other things, lying to him regarding the three months’ severance in order to induce Dargan to leave his job in Houston, Texas, and by terminating Dargan without cause,” Conger wrote in the lawsuit filed last Thursday.
Conger told Voice that Gloria did, however, offer Dargan $50,000 upon his dismissal, less than the roughly $120,000 that the former bureaucrat believed he was owed. Conger believes Gloria offered the lesser amount to avoid the need for City Council approval.
Conger said Dargan didn’t accept the $50,000, which would have kept him from legally challenging the alleged about-face.
Dargan also didn’t get three months’ notice of his impending departure. Conger said he received related paperwork the day of Gloria’s public announcement.
Gloria appeared before TV cameras on Feb. 18 to announce Dargan’s departure and other cuts.
He claimed that those moves were solely aimed at addressing the city budget crisis. Gloria also explained that he was eliminating Dargan’s position altogether, meaning that the mayor would now be responsible for overseeing day-to-day city business that the COO has long handled under the city’s strong mayor form of government.
When pressed on whether concerns recently aired about Dargan’s performance had led to his decision, Gloria first declined to weigh in on personnel matters and then said this: “Eric Dargan is a good man. I’ve enjoyed serving with him and this is just a decision we have to make. It’s budgetarily informed.”
Three other then-filled positions were more quietly eliminated that day.
Carlos B.P. McCray, a COO’s office program coordinator that Conger said Dargan hired to identify root causes of homelessness and to collaborate with the community on solutions, lost his job.
Jay Goldstone, a onetime city COO who had led the city’s by-then canceled Civic Center redevelopment effort, was also terminated.
Gloria also nixed the executive director in the city’s now-former Office of Child and Youth Success. Andrea O’Hara now works in the purchasing and contracting department.
