U-City Mayor Calls City Manager Settlement A Bad Deal

UNIVERSITY CITY, MO — The City Council voted last week to approve a $150,000 settlement with former city manager Lehman Walker, who was fired in March for allegedly making racist and sexually-harassing comments to city employees. A 2015 suit against Walker claimed he created a hostile work environment for black people and women. Walker is also black.

Walker denied the claims through his lawyer, calling them lies.

Mayor Shelley Welsch commented on the settlement in a personal newsletter. "I have been told that one member of the majority that fired Mr. Walker has been portraying this settlement as a great win for University City," she said. "It is not."

That majority included Council members Steve McMahon, Terry Crow, Paulette Carr and Bwayne Smotherson. Welsch, along with council members Michael Gilckert and Rod Jennings, opposed firing Walker.

"Within an hour of Steve McMahon taking office in November 2016, he and three other members of the council voted to suspend Mr. Walker," Welsch said. She argued these members should have met with Walker instead and released him from his contract if they felt they couldn't work with him. "They did not do that," she added.

Rather than paying Walker the severance outlined in his contract, about $114,000, the city voted to go to litigation, the mayor said. "We paid Mr. Walker about $35,000 for three months, when he was not working at City Hall," Welsch explained.

Including the $150,000 settlement and more than $100,000 in legal fees, the city paid upward of $300,000 to resolve the dispute. Welsch said the majority of that money was purely the result of "personal pique," and that her colleagues allowed their feelings to get in the way of good management. "This has not been a good situation for the City of University City," she said. "Our City has suffered."

Walker has suffered too, Welsh added: "The lies being said about Walker, and they are lies with no basis in fact, are a sad commentary on the state of political discourse in University City. In this world of alternative facts, promulgated by members of the council and some people in the community, we have seen University City become too much like Washington, D.C."

The mayor thanked Walker for his years of service and credited credited him with bringing the city back from the fiscal cliff in 2010, restoring the city's AA+ bond rating, lowering taxes, hiring more police officers, upgrading the fire department, and expanding the city's Youth Employment Program, among other accomplishments. "I wish him all the best in the years to come. I hope we are able to find someone of his caliber to follow in his stead."

Councilwoman Paulette Carr pushed back against the mayor. "Ms. Welsch has long leveled personal attacks at colleagues with whom she disagrees in her newsletters," she said. "Her statements contained in her personal and private newsletters (not to be confused with a city newsletter) are strictly her opinions, and not fact."

Carr explained that in addition to the settlement, the agreement with Walker included the dismissal of a lawsuit against three members of the city council in their personal capacities.

According to the resolution passed Oct. 23, Walker threatened to sue Carr, Crow and McMahon for defamation and demanded $500,000 in exchange for his resignation on Nov. 17, 2016. It was after this legal threat that the council suspended Walker with pay.

Walker sued the city and the council members for wrongful termination, defamation, race discrimination and retaliation in May, 2017. "The City and the four council members have denied the allegations," the resolution states.

The parties participated in a daylong mediation in September that culminated in the current agreement to release the city and all council members from the claims against them, and pay Walker $114,000 plus $36,000 in attorney's fees.

Photo by J. Ryne Danielson