Letter puts new twist on firing of Pinellas Park official

First the deputy city manager was fired. Then she filed a lawsuit. Now, in what appears to be a final episode in the saga, she has recived a recommendation letter.

By ANNE LINDBERG

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 9, 2000

PINELLAS PARK -- In a letter of reference dated last month, City Manager Jerry Mudd says that his former deputy, Peggy McGarrity, "managed the financial affairs of the city in an exemplary manner."

Two years ago, he had fired her.

In between those bookends came a lawsuit, a settlement and thousands of pages of documents about the climate in which the city administration functioned.

The city and McGarrity settled that suit last month. McGarrity had claimed sexual discrimination, basically asserting that she was treated more harshly because she is a woman.

She received $42,500 and the letter of recommendation. The paper trail made public by that settlement gives an insider's look at city government, but it doesn't explain how an employee can both be fired and given a positive letter of reference.

Don't look to Mudd for amplification. Part of the settlement involves an agreement that city officials will not criticize McGarrity and that she will not say bad things about them. Mudd interprets that broadly, refusing even to comment on the situation itself.

"At this point the record can probably best speak for itself," he said Friday. "I believe the letter that I signed speaks for itself."

Mudd also brushed off the apparent inconsistency of firing an employee who allegedly said horrible things about council members and other employees and threatened to cause him problems.

"I feel the two were consistent," he said.

While Mudd might feel that the two are consistent and that the record shows an employee who deserved to be fired, McGarrity's side sees both the financial settlement and the letter of reference differently.

"She looks at the entire thing as a vindication," said Craig Berman, one of McGarrity's attorneys.

McGarrity declined to speak except through her attorneys. She has always denied the charges.

"She feels that she followed the rules and the rules of the court and the parties amicably resolved it and it's over now," Berman said. "This was never about money to begin with."

If someone looks carefully at the files, Berman said, it becomes clear that McGarrity did not say any of the things attributed to her. The allegations, he said, never turned up in her personnel file. And he notes that the memos and other items in the court file were written weeks and months after the alleged statements.

Berman said McGarrity concedes she did try speaking with Mudd's wife, Ethel, after McGarrity was suspended without pay. She did that, he said, because McGarrity wanted Mrs. Mudd to let her husband know he was hearing false things from other people.

The apparent disconnection between a firing and a letter of reference does not bother council member Ed Taylor, who sees the letter as what it took to settle the matter.

"At some point, somebody has to give a little and somebody has to get a little," Taylor said. "If that's a part (of this) then so be it."

If anyone or anything is to be blamed for the disconnect between the facts laid out in the lawsuit file and the letter, then it's the legal system, he said. That's why he has no problem with Mudd's actions and representations.

"People plea bargain out of child molestation and rape cases, which I find abhorrent," said Taylor, who looks at this just like a plea. It's "distasteful," he said, "but we see it every day."

Council member Chuck Williams agreed with Taylor's assessment.

"I really wanted to be done with the whole thing and if it took a recommendation to be done with the whole thing, so be it," Williams said.

The situation, he said, does not cause him to mistrust Mudd.

"I've seen it done by too many people," Williams said of the recommendation and settlement.

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