DEARBORN — Last month during the city of Dearborn’s Civil Service Commission meeting held on April 19, a vote was made to eliminate Valarie Murphy Goodrich from her Human Resources Director position with the city. Now Goodrich is claiming that she is exploring legal options in what she described as an unexpected public ambush.

Goodrich

Goodrich had held her position as the HR director since 1994 and claims that the commission had no basis or merit to fire her. The vote was made in a 3-0 decision, with Commission Chair Margret Schaefer along with commissioners James C. Peltz and W. Robert Schneiders voting in favor to remove Goodrich. 

Another commissioner, Mohamad I. Chehab, who was attending his first meeting had decided to abstain, while longtime commissioner Michael Berry had been absent and wasn’t able to vote. 

In a press release sent out on the same day by the city, the HR director position was described as serving “at the pleasure of the Civil Service Commission,” but now Goodrich, who has hired an attorney to review her circumstances, says that her due process rights were violated.

“It’s pretty clear under the law and Dearborn charter that she is a special service employee and is entitled to due process. Several people she’s worked with have reached out to her to express their outrage and condolences. She was taken completely by surprise in an open public meeting,” said Scott Erskine, Goodrich’s lawyer.

Erskine went on to further describe the incident as a public ambush spearheaded by Margret Schaefer who he says prefers to use this method regularly. It would not be the first time that Schaefer had tried to terminate Goodrich either. In 2010 Schaefer also called for her removal but the proposal did not have enough support to be successful.

Goodrich is claiming that no warning was given for her removal this time and instead the subject was brought forward during the meeting after claims were made that she failed to implement certain suggestions made by consulting firm Plante Moran. 

According to the press release sent out by the city, “A key recommendation was for the city to ‘re-engineer’ all core HR processes across the organization as a means to gain needed efficiency and standardize service delivery to all departments.” During the meeting Schaefer had stated one of the concerns of the commission was the lack of progress in the implementation of the reforms proposed by Plante Moran, directing her comments toward Goodrich before her position had been terminated. 

The commission claims that Goodrich’s position was “at will,” meaning they could terminate her whenever they felt possible, even if it is without a proper warning or reasoning. However because her position is listed in the City Charter, that’s where the dispute comes in. According to the charter an employee is entitled to some form of a written notice that they are being considered for removal and specifying the reasoning for it as well. 

The charter also states that an employee must be given an opportunity to defend themselves against any of the allegations made, which Goodrich did not have the chance to do during the meeting. 

When reaching out to Schaefer, she had declined to comment, however the city attorney did want to comment on the subject.

“This was not an action taken by the city but an action taken by the board. Only the board would have the authority to make this decision and it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to her because her termination had come up before starting in August 2010,” stated Kimberly Craig.

Regardless of these claims, Erskine says that it’s not out of the question for his client to file a lawsuit against the city. 

“At this point she is exploring her legal options but no decisions have been made. If a decision is made to file a lawsuit, the city of Dearborn could very well be an option,” he added.

Erskine had pointed out that many people speculate the decision to eliminate Goodrich could have been influenced because of her previous support of the Civil Service System, a system which oversees internal employee affairs in the city such as hiring/firing, promotions and cost of salaries. The proposal to abort the system had failed when it was put on the ballot last November, despite being favored by the majority of the commission excluding Goodrich.