in 2022<\/a>, cruising to victory with 74% of the vote over challenger Greg Hodosevich.<\/p>\nBut nearly two years earlier, county attorneys were already fighting Heredia\u2019s sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit. In July 2022, the county settled with Heredia, who worked as a specialist in the tax collector\u2019s financial division, for $105,000.<\/p>\n
Supervisors Jim Desmond and Terra Lawson-Remer \u2014 who were on the Board of Supervisors when the panel was briefed about Heredia\u2019s case in a closed session \u2014 did not return requests for comment.<\/p>\n
According to Heredia\u2019s lawsuit, McAllister made incessant, unwanted visits to her cubicle for weeks in late 2019, at times looking her up and down, trying to walk her to her car and remarking on how lonely he was.<\/p>\n
By her account, McAllister on one occasion told her \u201che had never seen someone with such a welcoming smile.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heredia said that her boss\u2019 singling her out for visits and conversations became something of an inside joke among others in the division of the tax collector\u2019s office where she worked. McAllister\u2019s infatuation led coworkers to tease her, and some would text her tip-offs when they spotted him coming to their area of the building.<\/p>\n
Others remarked that the elected official had rarely visited their office before Heredia worked there.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit alleged that to fend off McAllister\u2019s attention, one male assistant manager told Heredia to start wearing turtlenecks and to tell McAllister she had a boyfriend \u2014 though in a deposition that manager denied saying this.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit further alleges that same assistant manager discouraged Heredia from reporting McAllister\u2019s behavior to human resources and later encouraged her to quit her job, even after she confided that the constant visits were causing her extreme anxiety and panic attacks and making it difficult to do her job.<\/p>\n
A county HR staffer testified that during a meeting in December 2019, Heredia sobbed while describing how McAllister made her uncomfortable. The staffer did not ask for specifics, and the meeting did not prompt an investigation into Heredia\u2019s complaints \u2014 even though McAllister was told about them.<\/p>\n
In her statement, Heredia described the county\u2019s handling of her complaints about McAllister as leaving her \u201cwithout a voice, ignored by the very system that is supposed to protect victims.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe emotional toll of being silenced, unsupported and dismissed is something I still carry to this day,\u201d Heredia said. \u201cI now keep to myself, avoid drawing attention and live with the constant fear that standing up for myself again will label me as a liability. No one should have to feel that way, especially not in their workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Heredia filed a state employment-discrimination claim in January 2020, the county opened an investigation into McAllister. That probe ultimately cleared him of any wrongdoing, the county HR staffer who handled it later said in a deposition.<\/p>\n
With her anxiety growing worse and the county yet to grant her request for a transfer to her employer\u2019s Chula Vista office, Heredia took a sick day on Jan. 23, 2020, and never returned to work.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting help from you has been as terrible as the harassment itself,\u201d she wrote in an email to county HR before quitting.<\/p>\n
She sued one year later.<\/p>\n
Familiar allegations<\/p>\n
Key facts in Heredia\u2019s case somewhat mirror what another former female employee alleged in a 2007 lawsuit.<\/p>\n
That former employee, Suzanne Torres, alleged that McAllister hired her for a top job in his office as a way to pursue her romantically.<\/p>\n
Between 2005 and 2006, McAllister developed \u201can unusual personal interest\u201d in Torres, who had left a financial adviser job in Beverly Hills to join the treasurer-tax collector\u2019s office as deputy treasurer-tax collector.<\/p>\n
According to her lawsuit, to Torres\u2019 surprise, her job duties mainly consisted of accompanying McAllister to events and having to serve as his \u201cconfidant and companion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Torres alleged, McAllister phoned her late at night, discussed his marriage and sex life with her and struck up constant, unwanted conversations with her in the office.<\/p>\n
She eventually complained about her job to a consultant hired by the office, who compared her duties to being McAllister\u2019s wife and encouraged her to quit, her lawsuit said.<\/p>\n
But according to Torres,\u00a0after she complained about her job duties to McAllister, the consultant told her either to resign or to be fired.<\/p>\n
Torres and McAllister reached a settlement in December 2007, according to court records. Attorney David Strauss, who represented her at the time, declined to elaborate on the settlement\u2019s terms, citing confidentiality.<\/p>\n
The county was not involved in the settlement between Torres and McAllister and did not pay her any money, said county spokesperson Sarah Sweeney.<\/p>\n
The entire lawsuit was dismissed on the same day.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s next<\/p>\n
With McAllister departing the county, the process has begun for supervisors to name an acting treasurer to serve until next year\u2019s election.<\/p>\n
Per board policy, interested candidates have to submit an application for the position and give an in-person pitch to supervisors. Supervisors can then name an appointee with a three-vote majority.<\/p>\n
The board is set to weigh in on a plan for the appointment process on Aug. 26.<\/p>\n
Until that happens, Assistant Treasurer-Tax Collector Myrna Zambrano will take on the day-to-day responsibilities of McAllister\u2019s job, Sweeney said.<\/p>\n
With his retirement, McAllister is the second county official to abruptly leave government since Democrats retook control of the Board of Supervisors last month.<\/p>\n
Two days before his announcement, County Counsel Claudia Silva resigned following a snap performance review with supervisors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Voters elected Dan McAllister to six consecutive terms as San Diego County\u2019s treasurer and tax collector before his…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":136918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,728,8629,50,80,3549,7264,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,9235],"class_list":{"0":"post-136917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-local-politics","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-sandiego","18":"tag-top-stories-sdut","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa","25":"tag-watchdog"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115010131990591196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}