Former Atwater employee files lawsuit against city

Atwater’s former code enforcement officer, who was twice fired from the city, filed a lawsuit last month alleging breach of contract, retaliation, a hostile work environment and defamation.

Mike Teater, 54, filed the lawsuit June 30 in Merced County Superior Court seeking unspecified damages. The lawsuit names the city of Atwater as a co-defendant with City Manager and Police Chief Frank Pietro and the Atwater Police Department’s administrative supervisor, Tyna Lamison.

Teater was first fired from his job in May 2011 amid sexual harassment claims. Kelly Sorensen, a city employee, filed a complaint against Teater the same day he launched a website that graded city officials. Her husband, Eric Sorenson, was given a poor grade, according to Sun-Star archives.

Teater was reinstated two years later, but fired again two days before Christmas last year. He said he was not given an explanation for the more recent termination.

“I will look forward to the jury trial because I know the jury will believe all the facts that we have,” Teater told the Sun-Star. “We (will) be able to disprove what the city has accused me of.”

Stacy Henderson, Atwater’s deputy city attorney, said the City Attorney’s Office had no comment on the filing of the lawsuit. Atwater City Attorney Tom Terpstra said in December that Teater’s termination two days before Christmas was “warranted and justifiable.”

The breach of contract claim in the lawsuit stems from an oral agreement Pietro made with Teater after rehiring him, according to the complaint. Pietro, the suit says, committed to give Teater $10,000 from discretionary city manager funds to help offset expenses that had piled up while Teater was unemployed the first time, but Teater says Pietro did not deliver.

Teater’s claim also accuses Lamison of cursing at him and calling him names, as well as refusing to supply him with day-to-day materials he needed to do his job. The city hired an outside investigator, S.K. Nelson & Co., which found Teater’s harassment claims to be unsubstantiated, according to documents obtained by the Sun-Star.

The complaint also says Pietro defamed Teater by telling another official that Teater would not pay back loans he was looking to take out through an employee assistance fund.

Teater was also the subject of an Internal Affairs investigation, the Sun-Star learned. The investigation was launched in April after Atwater police Sgt. Dick Wisdom filed a citizen’s complaint against Teater, claiming he was not reporting accurate hours worked on his timecard.

Teater has said the city had an “unwritten policy” that allowed certain employees to leave early to compensate for overtime hours, without recording the extra hours on their timecards.

Teater maintains that city officials have been out to get him ever since he was rehired in May 2013. He said the list of run-ins with city officials is an example of that.

He was also acquitted last month by a jury of a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed firearm.

The charge stemmed from a December incident at an Atwater mobile home park co-managed by Teater. An Atwater police officer was called by Teater to the Camilla Trailer Park to deal with two trespassers on the property. After the trespassers left the area, the officer noticed a handgun inside Teater’s jacket pocket.

Teater said he was within his rights to carry a weapon because the trailer park is his place of employment. Teater said he believes the charge was “politically motivated,” and he intends to file a separate lawsuit regarding that.

“I’m dead serious that the city is not going to get away with this,” he said.

This story was originally published July 12, 2015 at 1:34 PM with the headline "Former Atwater employee files lawsuit against city."