In October 2021, San Diego’s Colleen Windsor sued her former employer, the Orange County Fire Authority, alleging discrimination, retaliation and a hostile work environment.
A former KFMB-TV and radio anchor who became the fire agency’s director of communications, Windsor alleged a “pattern and practice of continued and systematic harassment.”
Once she almost found a fire station bathroom closed to her.
“The individual Defendants, and others, made clear job-wide their feeling that Windsor, a woman, should not have sought to use, or been allowed to use, ‘their’ restrooms,” the suit said.
Last July, the fire agency quietly opened its wallet to flush Windsor’s lawsuit away.
A settlement agreement obtained by Times of San Diego via the California Public Records Act says Windsor and her legal team were paid $580,000, including $58,000 for “taxable wages.”
The bulk went to a client trust account of her attorneys at Shewry & Saldaña of downtown San Diego.
Besides the Irvine-based Orange County Fire Authority, Windsor, 60, also dismissed her suit against 11 individuals with the agency.
Those defendants didn’t include Fire Chief Brian Fennessy, who came to Orange County in April 2018 after serving 2 1/2 years as chief of the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.
But Fennessy was quoted in the Orange County Superior Court suit as saying: “This wouldn’t be happening to you if you weren’t a woman.”
Windsor spent 19 months at the OCFA as its chief spokeswoman after similar jobs with the San Diego Association of Governments, or SANDAG, and SDG&E.
Since August 2021, she’s been director of marketing and communications at the North County Transit District.
She and her lead attorney, Christopher Saldaña, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Neither did the OCFA or its attorneys, who were asked whether any of the 11 defendants in the case were disciplined and whether the agency has changed any of its policies or training on sex harassment. The agency serves 23 cities and all unincorporated areas.
The seven-page settlement agreement has no nondisclosure agreement but contains a provision for “mutual non-disparagement.”
“PLAINTIFF and OCFA mutually agree to forbear from making, causing to be made, publishing, ratifying or endorsing any and all untruthful, malicious, disparaging or defamatory statements, allegations, comments or communications, regardless of form (whether written, oral, electronic or otherwise) and regarding each other. PLAINTIFF and OCFA mutually agree not to authorize or permit any such statements, allegations, comments or communications to be made by others on their behalf,” the settlement deal says.
After working at San Diego’s KFMB from 1994 to 2001, she became press secretary to San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy from 2001 to 2005, says her LinkedIn profile.
Saldaña sought dismissal of the case Aug. 29, 2023. Judge was David Hoffer.
In December 2021, Windsor told City News Service that harassment started a few months into her job.
“I kept thinking it will get better,” she said. “I kept thinking it will get better. I told people. I told H.R. I talked to people in executive management and nothing changed.
“It actually got worse and worse and worse and it was impacting me personally. I started having panic attacks. It’s embarrassing to talk about.”
She said that when a firefighter told her how much she was hated and how the attacks would never stop, “I knew I had to make a decision, and as much as I loved my team and loved what I was doing desperately, I was suffering mentally, physically, and I realized life is way more important than this role.”
OCFA isn’t clear of harassment accusations, however.
Two months ago, Windsor attorney Saldaña filed suit against the agency on behalf of Perla Rodriguez, a former information technology technician.
In a 17-page complaint against OCFA and two of her male bosses, Rodriguez alleges a work environment that was “hostile, intimidating, offensive, oppressive or abusive.”
“OCFA has a well-documented history of chauvinism and misogyny and has recently been the subject of several suits alleging, as here, gender discrimination,” the suit says.
Rodriguez gave two weeks’ notice of her resignation on Jan. 24, 2023, but “Defendants prematurely shut down her access to her work programs on Jan. 26, 2023.”
During her time at OCFA, Rodriguez says she witnessed two former female coworkers, [Suzanne] Clayton and Pam Jones, “suffer the same harassment and discrimination
she experienced at the hands of the Defendants.”
Jones went on stress leave in 2021 as a result of the OCFA conduct and “retired early due to the toxic environment.” Clayton retired from OCFA early, in April 2022, “due to constant discrimination and unequal treatment,” the suit says.
Windsor’s case isn’t mentioned.