Redwood City Sergeant Triumphs After Long Battle

Frank Wilkins joined the Redwood City Police Department as a patrol officer on April 25, 1988. He progressed through various positions in that department and was promoted to sergeant on February 3, 1992 (the fastest promotion to sergeant in the history of the Redwood City Police Department). During seven of the nine years Wilkins served with the Redwood City P.D., he served under the tutelage of Chief Anthony Guardino.

In approximately November 1994, Chief Guardino retired and was replaced by present Chief Carlos Bolanos. In addition to being placed in charge of the Investigations Bureau for the department, Wilkins was made acting captain in October 1995, when Captain Granucci (now chief of the San Carlos Police Department) was assigned to the F.B.I. Academy in Washington D.C. for training. It appeared at that time that qualities which were assets in his career under Chief Guardino now became liabilities.

Once praised for being able to bring up sensitive issues and voice his opinion at staff meetings, these same qualities of character were now “too assertive.”

In January 1996, when Wilkins’ tenure as acting captain ended, he returned to his position as the day shift Patrol Division watch commander. During this period, after January 1996, Wilkins was advised by three separate people that he was under increasing scrutiny from the chief, and was even told by a person in upper management to be careful of what he said in private, because persons that Wilkins had heretofore trusted were relaying his comments to the chief, who encouraged their efforts.

At a Team Building workshop for upper management, Wilkins was outspoken (the purpose of a Team Building workshop). Later he was described by the leader of the Team Building workshop as “articulate and well-spoken,” however, his evaluation, which followed the workshop, listed the same conduct as “emotional, highly critical and an inappropriate outburst.”

Just prior to October 1996, Wilkins was advised that his father’s esophageal cancer had metastasized to his brain. In response, Wilkins went to Washington state and consulted with his father’s doctor on October 7, 1996. The doctor told him that his father’s condition was deteriorating and estimated that his father had between three-to-six months to live. Wilkins decided that he would take family medical leave to help care for his father.

While initially in Washington state for four days, Wilkins spent a great deal of time with his mother, who had been plagued by pernicious anemia for years and was in the hospital, gravely ill. Wilkins returned to work on October 9, 1996 and was advised 10 days later (October 19, 1996) that his mother had passed away in her sleep. He flew his entire family (wife and eight children) to Washington for the funeral and took a week off on funeral leave, returning to work on October 30, 1996.

The pressure at work from Chief Bolanos had continued, which resulted in a complaint by Wilkins to the city manager on October 21, 1996, of “hostile working environment.” In that complaint, he cited inaccurate and unfair performance evaluations, hypocritical public versus private persona of Chief Bolanos, and increased focus on his activities, the warnings received by staff members, and the label given to him by the chief as not being a “team player.” Wilkins’ complaint was later substantiated, in part, by the E.E.O.C. investigator, but ignored by the city manager, who found no evidence of a hostile working environment.

Wilkins picked up his entire family and left for Washington state on November 9, 1996, to care for his dying father.

The daily routine of life for Wilkins after that was anything but routine. A three-month blur of hospice visits, his father’s morphine ups and downs, getting little sleep and watching his father approach his inevitable death, all took its toll. Wilkins’ father passed away on Saturday, January 18, 1997, followed by a Thursday funeral. Wilkins packed up his family and left for the Bay Area on the following Saturday, since his family medical leave had expired and he was expected back to work on February 1, 1997.

Before even getting unpacked, Wilkins was back to work. He felt disoriented and couldn’t concentrate. In the afternoon of his first day back at work (February 1, 1997) he called Captain Granucci and told him he would like a few more weeks to “decompress.” He had found out from a co-worker that city employees had donated over 400 hours of vacation time to him in his absence. Captain Granucci said he did not see any problems with this, but to put his request in writing, which he did, and then left work for the balance of the weekend.

On Tuesday evening, February 4, 1997, at approximately 5:00 p.m., he received a call from “Beverly” at Human Resources, who called to say that his leave request had been denied and that he was due back at work the next morning at 6:30 a.m. The message was that “The emergency was over when your father died.” This message was given to Wilkins’ wife, who relayed it to him when he returned home at about 6:00 p.m.

Wilkins then called Captain Granucci, who repeated the same information, basically “that the emergency was over when (your) father died.” Wilkins then called Chief Bolanos for assistance and was told, in essence, that the chief believed that the only reason Wilkins was seeking to take two weeks off was because when he came to work on Saturday, February 1, 1997, he had found out about the donated vacation and wanted to take advantage of it. In response to this treatment, Wilkins wrote a letter to City Manager Ed Everett on February 5, 1997.

Thereafter, Wilkins was granted the two-week leave requested, but on Tuesday evening, February 18, 1997, at 5:00 p.m., he was contacted by Captain Vermeer, who told him he need not come to work the next morning. The reason was that the department was now “concerned” that Wilkins had been under so much stress that he needed to be evaluated by a psychologist for his fitness for duty, and he was ordered to show up at the City Library to be tested the following Friday (February 12, 1997).

The psychological evaluator was Charles Galbo, Ph.D., from San Diego, California (apparently there wasn’t a psychologist between the Bay Area and San Diego available), who subjected Wilkins to two hours of testing and a 2 ½ hour interview. Galbo announced that he had previously done “work for Carlos” (Chief Carlos Bolanos), when Chief Bolanos was a captain in Salinas, California. Dr. Galbo is now deceased. Needless to say, Dr. Galbo did not find Wilkins fit for duty.

Wilkins was then subjected to yet another series of psychological tests and evaluations. Two weeks after the Galbo evaluation, on consecutive Saturdays, Wilkins was ordered to see doctors Louis and Diana Everstine. It is undisputed that there was contact between the members of the Redwood City Police Department command staff and these doctors prior to their evaluation of Wilkins, and the command staff shared with the Everstines’ information from Dr. Galbo’s evaluation.

Because of Wilkins’ lengthy absence from the department, the president of the Redwood City Police Officers Association, and its Board of Directors conducted a survey of all of its members (approximately 60 sworn officers), with some of the questions on the survey coming directly from the purported results from Drs. Galbo and Everstines report.

On April 24, 1997, Officer Erin Hogan, president of the Redwood City Police Officers Association, sent a letter to Chief Bolanos, along with the results of the survey, finding in favor of Sergeant Wilkins and contradicting any assertion that he was not fit for duty as their supervisor.

Despite the efforts of the association, Wilkins was sent a certified, return receipt requested letter on June 3, 1997, saying that he had been “separated from service.” Apparently, the letter was posted on the bulletin board of the police department on the same date it was written (two days before Wilkins received it), and a fellow employee of the department called and told him what it said. Apparently, the whole department knew about his “separation from service” before he received the letter.

On July 4, 1997, Sergeant Wilkins was “separated from service.” The city attorney’s position was that since Wilkins was not being disciplined, but merely “separated from service,” he had no right to any Skelly-type hearing nor any appellate review. Over Wilkins’ and his counsel’s objections, the city submitted a Request for Disability Retirement to PERS on behalf of Wilkins, to which his attorney responded by advising PERS that Wilkins denied that he was disabled and insisted that he was fit for duty.

After winning a Writ of Mandate in the San Mateo County Superior Court, the city agreed to allow Wilkins a hearing under the Administrative Procedure Act on the issue of whether or not he was or was not “substantially disabled.” The hearing took place before Administrative Law Judge Ruth Astle over a five-day period during the months of October and November 1998.

Wilkins’ expert witness, Robert Flint, Ph.D., of Concord, California, testified that even the city’s own test results on the MMPI-II, for both doctors Galbo and Everstine, supported Wilkins’ theory that he was fit for duty. Further, Dr. Flint testified that Dr. Diana Everstine, who testified for the city, had sent all of the prior MMPI-II’s (Galbo’s, her own and Flint’s) to a company called Behavior Data, Inc., for scoring.

Dr. Flint discovered that Behavior Data, Inc. was (1) owned solely by the doctors Everstine; (2) used a normative sample that was outdated (1969), and not recognized by the test originators in Minnesota; and (3) this normative sample produced unscientific results.

The administrative law judge ruled in a written opinion that Wilkins was “not substantially disabled from performing his usual duties as a sergeant for the Redwood City Police Department,” the magic language. In order to resolve the matter without Wilkins returning to work at the department, the city paid Wilkins all back pay and benefits from June 4, 1997, through February 28, 1999, and an amount well in excess of $100,000.00 over and above the back pay and benefits.