SEQUIM — School Board candidate Stephen Rosales remains on restricted duty at the Sequim unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula but is buoyed by the public reaction to the sexual harassment complaint that led to his changed status.
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is continuing its investigation of an employee’s April 20 sexual harassment complaint involving the civic leader, Boys & Girls Clubs board President Jerry Sinn said last week.
Lindsey Richardson’s “charge of discrimination” over alleged sexual comments and “verbal harassment,” filed with the EEOC and the state Human Rights Commission, has had anything but negative consequences for Rosales in the public arena, he said Friday.
In fact, Rosales, 55, who vigorously denies Richardson’s allegations, said Friday the complaint has worked in his favor in his campaign to unseat incumbent Sequim School Board member Walter Johnson in the Nov. 8 general election.
“If I did not feel appreciated by the people in Sequim, I do now,” he said.
He said the appreciation is “especially” true among women he’s worked with as a community volunteer and, for part of that time, as interim Sequim Food Bank director.
“It’s amazing the parents and people who have come up to say what a joke the complaint is,” Rosales said. “People could have shunned me. Life goes on for me.
Things are really great.”
Campaign-wise, no questioners at a recent Sequim Sunrise Rotary Club forum that Johnson also attended referred to the complaint, he said.
Johnson said Friday nobody has mentioned the complaint during the campaign.
“I’m certainly not going to bring it up,” he said. “It’s totally unproven, and I don’t know anything about it. The only thing I know is what I read in the paper.”
Impact on activities
But it has had an impact on Rosales’ activities at the Sequim unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs, where he is a volunteer and major financial contributor.
Rosales is still not working at the front desk or driving the organization’s bus on a regular basis as he once did, but he remains active on the board of directors, Sinn said Thursday.
Rosales said he expects to drive the bus more once school starts.
The club has not heard from the EEOC “in quite awhile,” Sinn said, adding no other subsequent EEOC complaints have been filed against the organization.
“We will wait,” Sinn said. “The EEOC will work with the parties to resolve it at this point. It is a complaint against us, and we are following the process outlined by the EEOC.”
Sinn would not comment on the club’s investigation of the allegation, which he said has been completed.
“The real investigation is up to the EEOC,” Sinn said. “We have provided our response to them.”
Rosales said he has not been informed of the results of the club’s investigation.
Sinn would not comment on whether Richardson is still working at the club, but Rosales said he often talks with people affiliated with the organization.
“They say they haven’t seen her around there,” Rosales said. “I pray for her, I really do. I still consider her a friend.”
In her complaint, Richardson, who her lawyer, Terry Venneberg of Gig Harbor, described in an earlier interview as in her 20s, alleged Rosales subjected her to “physical and verbal harassment,” including making sexual comments about other women at the club.
She said he “screamed and yelled” at her and asked her to “hook him up” with women at the club about whom he made sexual comments.
Signed by Richardson “under penalty of perjury,” the complaint alleges the club did not properly address the alleged harassment.
Complainant ‘demoted’
After Richardson complained to the club’s executive director, she was demoted to a job “with significantly less responsibility” while Rosales was not disciplined, according to the complaint.
Rosales has donated $60,000 to $70,000 to the club, he said in an earlier interview.
A retired state of Texas employee, Rosales, his wife and their two pre-teen daughters moved to Sequim in 2005.
He has worked as a volunteer for Sequim schools and Little League and was named Citizen of the Year for 2007 by the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce.
He was one of seven individuals who received a 2011 Clallam County Service Award, which is sponsored by the Peninsula Daily News and Soroptimist International of Port Angeles (noon club).
EEOC spokesman Rudy Hurtado would not comment Thursday on the investigation.
Its results will be made public if the agency files a civil suit against the club under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act or if disclosure of the results is part of a settlement, Hurtado said.
Richardson and Venneberg could not be reached for comment.
In a June 19 Peninsula Daily News interview, Venneberg said it typically takes a year for the EEOC to resolve a case.
At that time, he said it was too early to say if Richardson would seek monetary compensation.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
