LOS ANGELES – A former Santa Monica city employee is suing the municipality, alleging she was terminated in 2023 due to a backlash she suffered after voicing concerns about excessive minority city layoffs and how some city funds were being spent.
Plaintiff Araceli Esparza’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges retaliation failure to prevent retaliation. She seeks unspecified damages in the suit brought on July 30.
“Following plaintiff’s reports of what she reasonably believed to be discrimination based on race/ethnicity within the city, plaintiff was subjected to a barrage of retaliation…,” according to the suit, which alleges many high-ranking city officials “participated in, acquiesced in, approved, ratified and/or condoned the retaliatory conduct.”
A representative for the Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the suit brought July 30.
Esparza was hired in May 2012 as a purchasing services manager and was promoted to procurement manager in the Finance Division in September 2018. In the latter job, she planned, managed, and directed the city’s procurement function in the Finance Department while also supervising a staff, according to the suit.
Esparza additionally was an equity inclusion officer and served as president for American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 4819 union from January 2020 to January 2024.
In March or April 2020, Esparza spoke at a City Council meeting about what she believed was a high number of layoffs of people of color in the city, the suit states.
“Plaintiff felt it was her duty to report these statistics, not only because of her role as a procurement manager, but also because of her role as an equity inclusion officer advocate,” the suit states.
In retaliation, city officials took action preventing Esparza from being at meetings that her colleagues were encouraged to attend and purposely kept her off of committees relevant to her job, the suit states.
“These acts of retaliation, taken together as a whole, prevented plaintiff from getting exposure with city managers and city directors, ultimately affecting her promotability and her ability to move up in her career,” the suit alleges.
In addition, the human resources director sent Esparza an email falsely accusing her of lying about the number of minority layoffs during March and April 2020, the suit states.
Esparza also reported to the City Attorney’s Office in September 2021 that she was concerned the alleged award of multiple contracts to a nonprofit organization in excess of $250,000 that were not first approved by the City Council, according to the suit, which further states that the plaintiff also reported other alleged improper city transactions that worried her.
Esparza was put on administrative leave in August 2022 and says the city finance director told her it was for allegedly inserting herself into a coworker’s tuition reimbursement request that warranted the city beginning an investigation. However, Esparza contends the involuntary time off was related to her reporting the alleged illegal procurement procedures as well as her concerns regarding minority layoffs.
The city’s negative investigative findings against Esparza were sustained in May 2023 and she was fired the same month, the suit states. Esparza’s income has been negatively impacted, as has her mental well-being, the suit states.
