Lynwood Council Terminates Contract with Director of Human Resources

On Tuesday, May 7, 2013, the Lynwood City Council voted unanimously in favor of terminating its employment contract with Alfredo J. Lopez III, the city’s Director of Human Resources and Risk Management.

“It was decided to separate employment with the city’s human resources director without cause in terms of his contract,” said Fred Galante, Lynwood’s City Attorney. “Due to the City Manager’s decision and by joint action of the City Council.”

Not many details were provided by officials as to the reason behind the making of this contractual decision. However, Councilmember Maria T. Santillan-Beas said the following to Patch.

“When they are at will employees you don’t really need a reason,” said Santillan-Beas. “We want to take the city’s direction on another route.”

Prior to this decision, López spoke publicly to the City Council during the regular City Council meeting.

“There is an item on the agenda this evening to discuss my position and status,” said López. “There has been some activity recently by myself and our team to respond to some public record requests.”

The records requests were related to legal fees associated with the human resources department, as well as copies of the director’s personal city credit card from the past 6 and half years.

“Staff responded to those public records request but at the last meeting two weeks ago there was documentation being passed out that kind of felt like political hit pieces,” said López. “I anticipate a little bit of that tonight.”

Joaquin Macinas, a longtime resident of Lynwood, told the council during meeting that he had the public request records that were mentioned.

Accusing López of abusing his credit card privileges over the years, citing for the most part various meal purchases at nearby restaurants, such as La Huasteca and Pizza Hut, as examples of his allegation.

“For example, in one month the Human Resources Director went four times to La Huasteca,” alleged Macinas to the council. “This is ridiculous.”

During his public speech, López dismissed the accusations by hinting towards another reason for the review of his position.

“What I wanted to get on the record, if you will, was that about 60 days ago the council authorized 50, 000 dollars to conduct general personnel investigation services,” said López. “Given that I am in the midst of the investigation, it kind of feels like the public record requests, the nexus to my position, the comments that have been raised are in retaliation with my involvement for that particular investigation.”

López further told the council that they could not remove or punish him for his role within the inquiries.

“Even at will employees cannot be disciplined or terminated for their involvement in investigations, " said Lopez. “More over, cannot be retaliated for the council direction in an investigation.”

The above comments and accusations were said to have no influence on the final decision of the councilmembers or city manager, according to Santillan-Beas.

“[The decision] has nothing to do with the statements that were made tonight,” said Santillan-Beas. “The City Manager felt that he needed a change.”

Patch was not able to obtain a comment from Roger Haley, Lynwood’s City Manager, or from López about his feelings after hearing the council’s final decision.

A request was also made through Deborah Jackson, Director of Public Relations for the City of Lynwood, via phone to both for further comment, but none were made prior to the publication of this article. 

Patch will update this article if more information is received. 

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