Paul Bass Photos
Baker (left), Briscoe.
A 911 call-center dispatcher charged the city with violating her rights when it named her ex-husband — with whom she has had a nasty prolonged custody battle — as her boss.
The dispatcher, Tasha Baker, filed the complaint with the state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO).
She charges in the complaint that she was harassed, discriminated against, and “denied a reasonable accommodation” based on a mental disability — “a severe anxiety disorder which is made worse due to my having to work with my ex-husband.”
Baker’s ex-husband is Michael Briscoe. Mayor Toni Harp named Briscoe, a firefighter, the head of the city’s 911 emergency call center, known as Public Service Answering Point (PSAP), in April 2014.
Baker had been working in the center since September 2011. Her current partner also works in the center.
Baker said she and Briscoe have been engaged in an ongoing “very ugly child custody battle,” since she suffered post-partum depression after the birth of their second son and the marriage dissolved. She and Briscoe divorced in 2007. The two have made court appeals over the custody fight; Baker said she has not been allowed to see her sons since 2008.
City officials contest Baker’s charge that Briscoe’s appointment “violated city policy.”
Baker and her partner asked city officials to transfer Briscoe to a different position after his appointment. Baker’s “complaints fell on deaf ears and she was advised that she would have to learn how to ‘play nice’ and would have to ‘pull up your big girl pants and deal with the situation’ if she wanted to continue in her employment with” the city, an amendment version of her CHRO complaint states.
Both Baker and her partner emailed objections to Mayor Toni Harp after Briscoe’s appointment back in April 2014.
In her email, Baker called Briscoe’s appointment “a severe conflict of interest, causing major contention thus bringing on unnecessary problems.”
“It is really too late to take back his appointment,” Mayor Harp wrote back on April 14. “It was too late when you first sent the email….
“I agree that you, both, are in a precarious position that was not of my making, nor was I aware of. Mr. Briscoe didn’t even ask for the position, he was interested in changing some policies in the Fire Department. I considered him for the job because he is a very talented and underutilized employee. I didn’t know about his case against the City, his divorce, his custody issues or for that matter his union’s perspective, all of which I have been thrown into the middle of….
“I need you all to do your jobs professionally. Since Mr. Briscoe is not your line supervisor, there should be little opportunity for trouble.”
(Click here, here and here for stories about questions that have been raised about the 911 center’s operations under Briscoe’s leadership.)
Briscoe declined comment for this story.
Not Easy To “Let It Go”
In an interview Thursday, Baker (pictured) said she had at first heeded direction to continue working in the office after Briscoe arrived on the job. She needed the job, she said: “$23 an hour with no college education — it was the best job I’ve ever had.”
“People told me I should let it go. But every day I open my eyes I can’t see my boys — it’s every day. It was torture. When I would walk off that elevator and hear his voice.”
Briscoe did not attempt to speak to her on the job, except one time when he passed by her cubicle, Baker said. “He tapped the partition [and said], ‘Hi, how you doing?’ I just looked at him. I rolled my eyes and went back to answering phone calls. I rolled my eyes so hard, I almost got a headache.”
But silently working in the same space while a wrenching child custody battle raged on with her boss constituted a hostile environment, Baker argued. She said she developed “severe anxiety. I ended up on four different medications to control my anxiety. I cried in the shower” before coming to work.
By March, she said, she couldn’t take it anymore. With a doctor’s letter stating she had post-traumatic stress syndrome, she went on paid medical leave; that continued until August, when the insurance company stopped approving payments.
Baker said she approached the city about receiving a transfer to another government job, to no avail.
City human resources chief Stephen Librandi said Baker has not formally requested a transfer. He did meet with her to discuss her request that Briscoe be transferred to a different position, he said.
“The city policy is you’re not going to directly supervise a relative,” Librandi said. “An ex-wife is not a relative.”
City Chief Administrative Officer Mike Carter confirmed Friday that interpretation of city policy, saying he had checked with the corporation counsel’s office on it in this case. He also said that he made sure that Baker did not report directly to Briscoe. She reported to her deputy, George Peet, and any potential disciplinary matters were to be then brought to Carter, not Briscoe. That indeed happened before Baker went out on leave, when Peet discussed absences with Baker, and Carter, not Briscoe, was brought into the loop, Carter said.
“Solution” Sought
Baker’s attorney, Michelle Gramlich, said the city policy interpretation doesn’t hold up as a response to the CHRO complaint.
“I think that that argument doesn’t address whether they need to accommodate her under the ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act], regardless of what their policy is regarding employing family members,” Gramlich said. “Once she approached them about exacerbating a medical condition, they did nothing. It’s an unfortunate situation, and we’re trying to find a solution.”
In the interview, Baker said she has struggled financially and is now interviewing for jobs that pay well less than half what the 911 job pays. She is raising two daughters; she said she at this point does not want a city job. She wants a financial reconciliation.
“The right thing to do would be to retire me. Taking this job away from me, you took away my career. I could have retired form there. I earned my job. I was working there before [Harp] became mayor and before she made him my boss.”
Briscoe's job performance is irrrlevant to the question of whether Ms. Baker was mistreated and the bottom line is that she wasn't. The city is not obligated to consider an employees personal dislike of a potential supervisor,