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Less than a week ago, Perlean Griffin was in charge of enforcing minority hiring and challenging discrimination within Toledo city government.

Yesterday, just days after she was fired as executive director of affirmative action-contract compliance, Ms. Griffin labeled Mayor Carty Finkbeiner — her former boss, friend, and political ally — as a racist.

“The mayor of the city is running the 22nd floor [of Government Center] like a plantation,” she said. “We cannot have a mayor that is strong against people of color.”

Ms. Griffin made the statements in front of Government Center, where she formerly worked, during a news conference sponsored by members of the black community to address the downsizing of her office.

Listen to audio of Ms. Griffin's news conference

Listen to audio of Mayor Finkbeiner's rebuttal

Mr. Finkbeiner, during a news conference about two hours after Ms. Griffin’s, said her accusation was unfounded and “doesn’t have legs to stand on because it is false.”

‘It is untrue,’ Mayor Carty Finkbeiner says of the term used by his former political supporter.
( THE BLADE/JETTA FRASER )

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A long-time city employee, Ms. Griffin was terminated Tuesday after she refused to support the mayor’s restructuring of the affirmative action-contract compliance office.

The mayor’s plan to eliminate an $11.9 million budget deficit calls for affirmative action to move under the department of human resources and contract compliance to fold into the finance department.

“I am calling the mayor racist,” Ms. Griffin said in response to reporters’ questions on whether she believed her termination and the move to merge her office was racially motivated.

“This is a man who supposedly embraces affirmative action and embraces diversity. His behavior was fraudulent. I think the mayor owes the city an apology. I think he owes me an apology,” she said.

Later, Mr. Finkbeiner denied to reporters during his news conference in the mayor’s conference room on the 22nd floor that he was racist, and insisted the fallout over the last week was caused by a “personality conflict” between Ms. Griffin and Theresa Gabriel, the director of human resources.

“Ms. Griffin told me that directly,” he said. “I told her she would be able to run an independent operation, as she has been doing. She refused to go to work at human resources, and that was her call.”

“The simple truth of the whole issue has nothing to do with anything other than Ms. Griffin’s lack of willingness to work in the human resource department because of a personality conflict,” Mr. Finkbeiner said.

An unsuccessful city council candidate in 2001 and 2002, Ms. Griffin, who like Mr. Finkbeiner is a Democrat, headed the affirmative action office from 1998 to 2001, during the first Finkbeiner administration.

She and her husband, the Rev. Alvin Griffin, were active in the mayor’s 2005 re-election campaign.

Mr. Finkbeiner said being labeled a racist is a “serious accusation,” and his 45-year record as a coach, administrator, and elected official indicates otherwise.

“It is untrue. Shame on those that would make that accusation,” he said.

Community activist Francis Dumbuya also talked to reporters outside Government Center about the issue on behalf of WilliAnn Moore, the president of the local branch of the NAACP. Ms. Moore was unable to attend the news conference.

Mr. Dumbuya, an African-American businessman, said the local NAACP will go to Columbus next week to ask the Ohio Civil Rights Commission for an investigation into the firing of Ms. Griffin and the city’s employment practices.

“Ms. Griffin has done an effective job. She ought to retain her job,” he said. “Moving affirmative action to human resources takes away the few remaining checks and balances in city government. It is like the fox in charge of the henhouse,” he said.

The news conference also addressed discrimination charges filed this week with the state Civil Rights Commission by Dwayne Morehead and Gary Daugherty, city administrators who were affected by the downsizing.

Mr. Morehead, co-executive director of the Toledo Youth Commission, claims Mr. Finkbeiner threatened to fire him if he contacted Ms. Griffin.

Under the reorganization, Mr. Morehead will divide his employment with the city between the board of community

relations and the youth commission, a reassignment the city said will result in a $1,600 annual loss in pay, or $30.75 a week.

Mr. Finkbeiner said Mr. Morehead lacks a college degree and the reassignment will put him at equal pay with a female employee who has a bachelor’s degree. He said when the facts are brought out, Mr. Morehead’s claims will be proven wrong.

“It’s very easy for people to file lawsuits, but much more difficult to prove their case,” the mayor said.

Mr. Daugherty, whose job as a manager in environmental services is being eliminated, believes he was targeted because of his involvement in the investigation by Ms. Griffin’s office into a complaint filed by a black woman.

Ms. Griffin said she believed the probable cause ruling in the discrimination case was the real reason to implement the restructuring.

“That [retaliation] is the most dangerous situation,” she said.

Councilman Michael Ashford, who was Ms. Griffin’s 2002 rival for the District 4 council seat, said the mayor

violated the city charter in changing the structure of the affirmative action office and failing to conduct hearings on the departmental moves.

He said Mr. Finkbeiner’s 2007 budget proposal contains nearly $2 million in “pork” spending and needlessly eliminates residential services and programs.

“You have to ask yourself. What are [the mayor’s] priorities,” Mr. Ashford said.

Contact Mark Reiter at: markreiter@theblade.com or 419-724-6064.

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