Fired worker sues college district over personnel file
A former grant administrator is suing the Yuba Community College District, alleging it refused to release her personnel file after she was fired.
A June 19 hearing is set in Yuba County Superior Court on the petition filed by Indria Gillespie, who alleged she lost her job at Woodland Community College last August after she complained about a “financial discrepancy” in her grant.
Gillespie sought her personnel records through a Public Records Act request last December. According to her legal filing, the district never produced the documents.
The college “has intentionally engaged in efforts to unlawfully obstruct or delay the inspection or copying of the public records requested by (Gillespie),” her petition said.
College spokeswoman Miriam Root said in an email the district doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
Gillespie’s attorney, Michael White, said in an email it is “not my policy to discus open cases on the record with reporters.”
Gillespie alleged she was fired last Aug. 31 in an “abrupt employment termination (that) was unexpected since she had received no formal negative performance evaluation or notices during her approximate 2 ⁄ years of employment with (the district),” her petition said.
According to Gillespie, she was fired “immediately after she had engaged in the protected activity of reporting an approximate $2,268 financial discrepancy in her grant funding to both the Cal- ifornia Community College Chancellor’s Office – the purveyor of the grant – and to her employer (Yuba Community College District).”
Gillespie “has a strong personal and professional interest in determining why (the district) so abruptly terminated her employment because to date, it has refused and/or failed to provide her with any information concerning why her employment was terminated,” the petition said.
The firing puts Gillespie “in the untenable position of having to both inform prospective employers that her employment with (the district) was abruptly severed and that she has not been informed by (the district) as to why,” her petition said. Marysville office, 1530 Ellis Lake Drive Business hours: Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.