Frank Gonzalez, a former landscape superintendent for Agoura Hills, has filed a civil suit against the city alleging labor code violations and wrongful termination following a dispute over some private work he performed at the city manager’s home.

Gonzalez agreed to oversee a 10-day landscaping job at Greg Ramirez’s Thousand Oaks home in March 2009. Gonzalez said he agreed to complete the work in the evenings and on weekends. But problems arose when Gonzales was allegedly ordered to continue the private landscaping job on regularly scheduled workdays.

Of the 11 days of work at the Ramirez home, 4½ days were charged to the city. Gonzalez was placed on probation for falsifying his timecard during the week he worked for Ramirez. Gonzalez claims that he was forced to work at the Ramirez home during the regular week since Ramirez was his direct supervisor and he hadn’t been asked—nor would he have agreed—to use vacation time to perform the private job at Ramirez’s home.

When he was later asked to change his timecard to indicate that the time spent working at the city manager’s home was vacation time, Gonzalez refused.

Gonzalez claims that after he refused to change his timesheet, the work environment at the city became hostile. A complaint, filed by attorney Erik Alberts states that Gonzales was “chided time and again by the city engineer (Ramiro Adeva) because of alleged deficiencies in maintenance in certain city areas.”

Gonzalez also alleges in his complaint that he was warned by Adeva that Ramirez and Assistant City Manager Nathan Hamburger were trying to build a case against him that would force him to quit or have him fi red.

Gonzalez filed a complaint against Ramirez with City Attorney Craig Steele on Jan. 11, 2010. In the meantime, Gonzales was passed over for promotion.

Steele hired independent attorney Barbara Dalton to investigate the hostile work environment charge.

“About three months later, without interviewing . . . knowledgeable witnesses and without drafting a report, Ms. Dalton found no hostile work environment existed,” the complaint states.

According to Steele, Gonzalez’s complaints were “investigated thoroughly” by Dalton, a third-party investigator. He said she found all allegations to be “baseless.”

In late April, Gonzalez contacted the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing to state his case and file a complaint. Steele said the department investigated the complaints, found no basis for action and closed the fi le.

“Mr. Gonzalez voluntarily resigned from the city,” Steele said. “He then filed for unemployment benefits, which were denied. He appealed the denial of benefits to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, raising virtually all of the same claims again. The appeals board denied his appeal on May 24, 2011, finding specifically that he voluntarily quit without good cause.”

But Gonzalez believes he had plenty of cause to quit, mainly because of health issues that were brought on by the stress he felt at work.

He wants his attorney to present to the court what he believes were many acts of impropriety by city employees, including Steele.

Gonzalez said he was placed in several no-wing situations. The city’s insurance carrier denied medical tests, which were a requirement for unemployment benefits, which were denied.

Other irregularities in the investigation existed, according to Gonzalez. He said Ramirez was present during interviews with city employees during Dalton’s investigation, and no copies of the internal investigation were sent to the unemployment board or the DFEH.

“The city said it was confi- dential (and) they didn’t feel that they had to provide it,” Gonzalez said. “The hearing officer never received a copy of the report nor was he aware of its contents and therefore did know how important its contents were for my defense.”

Gonzalez said that without the medical tests and information from Dalton’s investigation, the unemployment board did not have the information it needed to approve his unemployment benefits.

Gonzalez said he depended upon the city procedures to protect his rights and used the procedures as outlined in the employee handbook to express his concerns about a hostile work environment.

“Not only was my complaint investigated in a biased manner in order to protect the city manager, further acts of retaliation, denial of my due process rights and harassment continued against me, which led to further stress, anxiety and increased heart palpitations,” Gonzalez said.

Steele said Gonzalez’s complaints are baseless and he expects to prevail in court.

“The allegations made by a former city employee are false. . . .” he said. “The city will defend itself vigorously if any lawsuit is filed.”