In Snohomish County office, numerous complaints alleged sexual harassment

Craig Ladiser's professional career ended in disgrace.

On a Redmond golf course in June, fueled by Jack Daniels and tequila, the former Snohomish County planning and development-services director exposed himself to a young woman who worked for the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties.

Ladiser, known as an innovative leader who had streamlined the county's permitting process, was fired from his $149,000-a-year job Aug. 20 after an independent investigation ordered by County Executive Aaron Reardon.

Colleagues in the planning community were stunned.

"Craig was the consummate professional," said Linda Paralez, who worked with Ladiser in King and Snohomish counties. "Whatever happened on the golf course was an aberration."

But an examination of public records shows a history of complaints about the treatment of women in Ladiser's office. Seven complaints were filed by planning-department employees between 2007 and 2009 with the county, state or federal government. They describe a "good ol' boys" culture where women and minorities were sexually harassed, passed over for promotion and retaliated against for raising concerns about their treatment.

The most serious allegation, a claim against the county that seeks $500,000 in damages, names Ladiser's deputy director for 2006-09, Greg Morgan. The claim, filed in October 2008 by Deborah McPherson, a former human-resources manager in the department, accuses the county of failing to remedy a hostile and discriminatory work environment.

While the claim provides no details, McPherson also filed a complaint at the same time with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

A chronology submitted with that complaint details alleged workplace harassment. It says that Morgan boasted about his use of a sexual-performance drug, repeatedly touched women inappropriately and forwarded e-mails with pictures of naked women from his work computer.

The complaint says that after McPherson brought her concerns first to Morgan and then to Ladiser, her office was moved to another floor, her staff reassigned and her job eliminated. When she turned for help to county Human Resources Director Bridget Clawson, McPherson says, she was told that Ladiser would investigate.

"There was no investigation," McPherson said at her lawyer's office.

After a 22-year career with the county in human resources, McPherson now works for almost half the salary at the county's Boundary Review Board.

Mark Knudsen, the county's Equal Employment Officer charged with protecting employees against discrimination and harassment, said the county didn't pursue McPherson's allegations because she had filed an EEOC complaint.

"She chose a different avenue to pursue her concerns," Knudsen said.

Of five complaints filed directly with the county, Knudsen said, all were investigated and none substantiated. He added that five is not a large number of complaints in a department of more than 200 employees.

Three of the employees involved say they were never told the outcome of their complaints. They were interviewed by Knudsen, received a written transcript of the interview and then heard nothing.

The complaints included: A male employee who said that Morgan had kissed the employee's wife while she waited outside the office; another who said that Ladiser paid an inappropriate amount of attention to young women in the department; and a secretary who complained that a colleague had defaced a poster of Hillary Rodham Clinton and that she was shunned by department managers for reporting the incident. Another woman said she was passed over for supervisory positions in favor of male managers' friends.

A fifth employee, who complained that Ladiser made an offensive comment about Asian women, said Knudsen encouraged her to talk to the director and that Ladiser had apologized.

Neither Ladiser nor Morgan now works for the county. After his August firing, Ladiser, 59, told the media that he was an alcoholic and would seek treatment. He did not respond to requests for an interview.

Morgan, 61, was laid off in May. He declined to comment, citing McPherson's pending claim. But in a November 2008 interview with Knudsen concerning one of the complaints, Morgan said the county budget crisis was forcing the department to lay off almost half its staff of 260, prompting a number of complaints about fairness.

The acting director of the planning department, Larry Adamson, a 25-year county employee, said women in the office are "treated with respect and without discrimination."

Controversial return

The return of Craig Ladiser to Snohomish County in 2004 was in itself a resurrection of his career. He had been fired in 1994 by then-Executive Bob Drewel as community-development director, where he was responsible for the county's permitting division. Media reports at the time quoted Drewel's deputy, Joni Earl, as saying the issue was one of "leadership style."

Ladiser spent the next 10 years at Seattle's Department of Planning and Development as director of operations for permits and plans. Shortly after Reardon took office in January 2004, he hired Ladiser back and praised his experience.

Some employees who had worked with Ladiser during his first stint in Snohomish County had misgivings, said Pam Miller, a former manager in the department. She said that Ladiser was known as a hard-partying manager who counted a male supervisor as a close friend. County records show that four months after his return, Ladiser promoted the friend to manager.

After Ladiser hired Morgan — a friend with no planning experience — in November 2006, staffers began to complain about a sexist and unprofessional workplace, McPherson's EEOC complaint says.

Morgan offered to hook up male colleagues with their own supply of a sexual-performance drug, it says. He regularly commented on the attractiveness of women in the office and once pantomimed squeezing one colleague's breasts, according to the complaint.

McPherson also filed a public-records request for Morgan's county e-mail. The Seattle Times obtained copies of the e-mails. Some include pictures of naked women that Morgan received and forwarded during work hours with comments such as "Oh behave! Yah Baby!!!"

The county investigator, Knudsen, said that the county did not pursue allegations about Morgan's computer use because he was no longer a county employee.

While McPherson blames Morgan for the worst of the sexual harassment in the office, she said the attitude was pervasive and that the director, Ladiser, did nothing to stop it.

"Craig allowed it all to happen," she said.

Complaint settled

The county has settled one complaint brought in recent years. In August 2008, a planning-department biologist, James Tracy, told the state Human Rights Commission that a colleague made derogatory remarks about minorities and homosexuals and that his supervisor refused to address the issue.

The county agreed to provide two hours of training in April to the planning-department staff on Washington workplace-discrimination law, according to the commission's records.

Lynn Thompson: 206-464-8305 or lthompson@seattletimes.com

Information in this article, originally published January 5, 2010, was corrected February 19, 2010. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that two male supervisors were friends with Ladiser prior to his return. Only one was a personal friend before Ladiser's return to Snohomish County.