City Says It Won’t Appeal Case Of Demoted Cop

After carefully considering the potential of a long and expensive court battle, the Yakima City Council has decided not to appeal an arbitrator’s decision issued last month which modified disciplinary action taken in the fall of 2010 against Yakima Police Department (“YPD”) employee Rod Light.

Last October, City Manager Dick Zais demoted Light from captain to sergeant based on Light’s admission that he had intimate sexual relationships with two subordinate female YPD sergeants between 2006 and 2008 and based on Light’s admission that he took a draft performance evaluation of his off of a supervisor’s desk and copied it.

Last month, arbitrator David Beauvais modified the disciplinary action taken by Zais after determining that the City had not shown that Light’s relationships with the two subordinate female YPD sergeants, “…violated policy, or created a hostile work relationship.” Beauvais said because YPD policy that existed at the time didn’t specifically prohibit the type of relationship Light had with the two female sergeants, his demotion was not warranted and ordered the City to reinstate Light to the rank of captain and to provide him with lost pay and benefits resulting from his demotion last fall.

Beauvais did agree that when Light took and copied the draft performance evaluation he demonstrated “…a serious lapse in judgment, which merits some form of discipline.” Beauvais determined a 30-day suspension was appropriate discipline.

The City could have appealed Beauvais’ findings to Superior Court, but the Council has decided that the best course of action is to honor the arbitrator’s decision and allow everyone involved to move forward.

However, following Light’s admission that he had intimate sexual relationships with the two subordinate female sergeants, YPD policy was revised to specifically prohibit such behavior.

“Intimate sexual relationships between supervisors and subordinates represent absolutely unacceptable behavior,” said Mayor Micah Cawley. “Our policy now makes it completely clear that inappropriate relationships like those won’t be tolerated. Hopefully everyone involved in this unfortunate experience has learned valuable lessons that will make the workplace better,” said Cawley.