Re: County office in turmoil with secret video and claims of bullying, hostility

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In article <t1utt6$39g2h$1...@news.freedyn.de>
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The Clark County Public Administrator’s office has been mired in
turmoil and internal dissension over the past two years, with
allegations of emotional stress, bullying and favoritism leading
to secret videotaping of the boss and a co-worker outside the
office.

A half-dozen current and former employees interviewed by the
Review-Journal are alleging the hostile work environment was
fueled by the elected administrator of the office, Robert
Telles, carrying on an “inappropriate relationship” with a
staffer that has harmed the office’s ability to deal with the
public in overseeing the estates of those who have died.

The staffer, Roberta Lee-Kennett, 45, has acted in some cases as
an office supervisor beyond her assigned duties as one of
several estate coordinators because of her favored status with
Telles, the employees said.

Because of the brewing animosity, the top supervisor under
Telles, Rita Reid, decided to run against him in this year’s
Democratic primary. And several employees took the bold step of
secretly videotaping Telles and Lee-Kennett meeting in the back
seat of her car at a parking garage to show proof of the
relationship. One employee filed a retaliation complaint with
the county against Telles on May 9, records show.

Both Lee-Kennett and Telles, 45, an attorney, strongly denied
having any kind of improper relationship but acknowledged that
they have become friends. Telles said he has relied on Lee-
Kennett’s support while making office improvements resisted by
employees from the previous administration. Both are married.

Telles blames “a handful of old-timers” for exaggerating the
extent of the relationship and falsely claiming that he has been
mistreating them. He said they have filed complaints against him
with the county in the past that were not substantiated, and he
questioned the timing of the latest accusations as he seeks a
second term in office.

“They are unhappy with the way the office has been taken out of
their control,” Telles said. “All my new employees are super-
happy and everyone’s productive and doing well. We’ve almost
doubled the productivity in the office.”

The office tension was felt during a recent visit, as employees
loyal to Telles explained there are two factions — one group of
mostly new workers hired by Telles and the other group with ties
to former Public Administrator John Cahill, who retired in
January 2019 after 12 years.

Cahill, who endorsed Telles in 2018, is now backing Reid and
voicing concerns about the well-being of the workers.

The office has eight-full time employees, three part-time
support staffers, and roughly 15 part-time investigators who
spend most of their days in the field. When someone dies and
there are no immediate family members to deal with the estate,
the office takes possession of the property and investigators
attempt to locate relatives so the property can be turned over
to them.

Emotional stress claims

Members of the warring office factions say they have suffered
emotional stress, which in some cases has impaired their
physical health.

Assistant Public Administrator Reid includes herself among those
affected by the upheaval.

Reid, who has worked at the office for 15 years, said she jumped
into the race knowing she faces an uphill primary battle with
Telles on June 14. Her office is right next to his in the
building at 515 Shadow Lane.

“I came to this decision not very easily because it affects my
life dramatically,” Reid said. “But I want to do whatever I can
to let the voters know that this is not the right man to be in
charge of any department.”

“We’re always on guard, and we’re always under stress. All of
the people in this office deserve to be treated with respect and
dignity, and the people we serve deserve to be treated with
respect and dignity.”

Holdover staffers said they secretly videotaped Telles and Lee-
Kennett after work several times slipping into the back seat of
her Nissan Rogue earlier this year in the shadows of a high-rise
mall parking garage.

The staffers said they recorded the clandestine meetings to
offer proof to county officials of the office-dividing
relationship. The Review-Journal has obtained and viewed videos
of the meetings.

“This is unacceptable, disgusting behavior for a public
servant,” estate coordinator Aleisha Goodwin said in the
confidential retaliation complaint.

“Physical contact with a subordinate in a public place and
letting that subordinate use favoritism she is getting from
these inappropriate meetings to secure power and privileges
above others in the office is affecting most of the staff in an
extremely negative manner.”

Telles responded that Lee-Kennett, who also worked under Cahill,
is simply one of the people he “could lean on” while he has
tried to change the office atmosphere. He said he caught Reid
spying on him in the past, an allegation she denied.

Both Telles and Lee-Kennett acknowledged driving separately to
the parking structure at the Las Vegas North Premium Outlets
mall several times earlier this year and entering the back seat
of her car. They said they just talked about the problems in the
office and only hugged each other.

‘Inappropriate relationship’ denied

“I think it’s horrible that they recorded this, and they’re
trying to destroy my life and my marriage, when I’m actually
infinitely in love with my wife,” Telles said. “I was just
trying to get things off my chest with somebody who understands,
and now it’s being framed as though I’m cheating on my wife.”

Lee-Kennett added, “I have not had an inappropriate relationship
with him. I would not be friends with a man who thinks he’s
going to have an inappropriate relationship with me.”

When asked why the duo didn’t go to lunch, or somewhere else
less secretive, to privately discuss work, Lee-Kennett said they
can’t do that without someone in the office “making assumptions”
about them.

She said she suggested going into the back seat of the car
because she wanted to make sure Telles would listen to her
concerns face to face. Telles said the meeting location, which
is across the street from the Clark County Government Center on
South Grand Central Parkway, probably was chosen out of
“paranoia” because of the discord in the office.

Goodwin declined to comment about the claims of bullying and
favoritism. But in her 19-page complaint filed with the Clark
County Office of Diversity, she provided details of Telles’
relationship with Lee-Kennett, the videotaping and his alleged
micromanagement of the full-time workers.

“The county has failed to protect employees from a mentally and
emotionally abusive situation that has continued now for two
years-plus, and the mental and physical health ramifications
have been felt by most of the full-time employees in this
department of only eight full-time employees,” Goodwin wrote.

Goodwin, who’s been with the office about five years, also
alleges in the complaint that Telles is discriminating against
her because she is Mormon and has retaliated against her since
she filed a discrimination complaint with the county in 2020.
Telles denies those allegations.

According to her new complaint, staffers first saw Telles and
Lee-Kennett getting close to each other in 2020 during the COVID-
19 pandemic. He moved into a cubicle next to hers. Then they
began taking walks and having lunch together. Lee-Kennett also
was observed having numerous closed-door meetings with Telles,
where they were heard giggling. No other employees were allowed
inside his office, which only has windows with a view outside
the building, the complaint says.

“Lee-Kennett has since acted with assumed authority, power and
privileges since the two began their personal relationship,”
Goodwin wrote in her complaint. “Their behavior has very
negatively affected most (of the) others in our department.”

A county spokesman declined to comment on the complaint, saying
it was a personnel matter, and Deputy County Manager Jeff Wells,
who oversees the public administrator’s office, was not made
available for an interview. Because Telles is an elected
official, the county has no authority to discipline him, but it
does monitor how employees are treated.

Health of employees questioned

Former boss Cahill said he is worried about the impact the
alleged bullying is having on employee health and their dealings
with the public.

“These employees talk daily with people who have lost a loved
one in their families,” he said. “It’s an emotional, stressful
job, and to add a hostile working atmosphere to it is
unacceptable.”

Cahill was also critical of the county’s failure to stop the
alleged abuse.

“They’re being harassed and the county doesn’t seem to care,” he
said. “And I just think that’s nonsense. These employees are
still county employees who have the rights of county employees.
They’re not his private employees.”

Some holdover staffers interviewed by the Review-Journal cried
while sharing details of their troubled work environment. Some
asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation.

According to the workers: Telles has a temper and demeans
holdover employees. He assigns them unnecessary work, has set
unrealistic performance goals, won’t respond to questions they
have about their changing duties and tries to dig up dirt on
them. He also prohibits them from using cellphones at work and
discourages them from socializing and gossiping in the office.

Anyone who questions his authority is chastised, the workers
said.

The employees contend they are constantly worried that they
won’t properly follow his sometimes-confusing directives and
could be reprimanded, or verbally abused. One worker said she
eats a bag lunch every day in her car because she doesn’t want
to be seen socializing with staffers who aren’t among Telles’
favorites.

Janelle Lea, a part-time investigator, said the office
environment is one of the worst she has ever seen. Lea has her
own live event company and has spent years putting on
entertainment events on the Strip.

“He literally works to create division in the office,” she said.
“He’s so vindictive and so horrible.

“Everybody looks like they’re in a CYA situation all the time.
People are depressed, they’re physically ill. One staffer told
me, ‘I’d rather have a colonoscopy every day than come here and
deal with him.’”

Janie Osuzik, who worked as an executive assistant for four
public administrators for over 30 years, said she retired in
April because she got frustrated with the hostile environment.

“You always had to be on guard, and it made the office
uncomfortable because you knew there were certain people who
would run to (Telles) on everything, even with lies, and he
would accept it as true,” she said. “He would storm into my
office and accuse me of things and never take the time to
investigate anything.”

She said she once got so stressed that she had to take leave to
deal with migraines.

“Those of us who were not in his favor felt that we weren’t
appreciated, even after all of those years of working in the
office,” she said. “It was a miserable place to work.”

Reid said she has dealt with headaches, stomachaches, and
depression under what she called constant browbeating by Telles.

“When you beat people up, there’s only so much energy and
services they can provide,” she said. “You spend so much time
combating these challenges and accusations and reprimands, it
knocks you in the gut. It’s like ‘here we go again, another
lie,’ and you have to try to protect yourself.”

Reid is also convinced that the relationship between Telles and
Lee-Kennett is responsible for the office conflict and has
contributed to Telles’ efforts to strip her of much of her
administrative duties.

“His relationship with her is harmful to the operations of the
office,” Reid said. “She has become more and more powerful and
noticeable. If she didn’t like something, boom, she’d be
marching into his office and there would be some change.”

Telles disputes the claims of hostility from Reid and the other
veteran employees.

“These allegations that I’ve chained people to the wall, or
something, are bogus,” he said. “They make it sound as though
everybody is miserable in this office. I’ve done my best to try
to be as nice and friendly this whole time.

“For whatever reason they just seem to want things to go back to
the way they were, serving the interests of a few. Before I got
there, this office was in a horrible, horrible state.”

Among the changes Telles said he has made are closing estate
cases faster and cutting back on large amounts of tax-funded
overtime employees were getting under Cahill.

He provided a document that showed one veteran employee received
more than $140,000 in overtime between 2017 and 2018. That was
on top of the employee’s combined $150,000 regular salary for
those years. The employee’s overtime dropped to roughly $13,500
in 2020 under Telles, according to the document.

Lee-Kennett, who sits in a cubicle similar to other estate
coordinators and employees, said the disgruntled staffers are
responsible for creating the drama.

“Rob is walking on eggshells because of all of them. We all
are,” she said. “There’s no accountability on their part.”

Nichole Lofton, an estate coordinator for the past year, said
the old guard acts like “a little gang and has tried to isolate
her. Lofton said she has suffered from migraines from stress.

“They told me from the beginning to pick a side,” she said,
adding that Telles does everything he can to help her succeed
while the other group wants her to fail.

Ariana Payne, another Telles loyalist who works as a full-time
office assistant, said she has seen the increased production of
the office. “The office is running a lot smoother,” she said.
“We’re closing a lot of cases.”

But she said she’s also seen a “definite divide. There’s talk of
them versus us and it shouldn’t be that way. We have a duty to
do.”

Aleisha Goodwin provides details in her retaliation complaint of
what employees claim they saw when they observed Telles and Lee-
Kennett at the Premium Outlets parking structure between
February and March.

“We were then able to take photos and video from afar,” Goodwin
writes. “We also were able to secure several instances where
they meet up in a parking garage, driving separately in their
individual vehicles and staying from 1½ to 2½ hours on each
visit.”

In one video, the footage shows Telles and Lee-Kennett in the
back seat of her Nissan Rogue. The video appears to show two
heads through the tinted back window joining together before the
couple leaves the back seat. Telles leaves first, walking away
without looking back. Lee-Kennett exits the car seconds later
and gets in the front seat. Neither person acknowledges the
other outside the car.

“We’re being put through all of this because he’s having a
private thing,” one employee said. “I don’t think he should be
allowed to run a county department. He’s mismanaged so many
things. This is a horrible abuse of public trust.”

Contact Jeff German at jge...@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-
4564. Follow @JGermanRJ on Twitter.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/investigations/county-office-in-
turmoil-with-secret-video-and-claims-of-bullying-hostility-
2577147/