2 demoted in Ashley Pond case
07/31/03
NOELLE CROMBIE
State officials said Wednesday they would reinstate a child welfare supervisor who handled abuse allegations involving an Oregon City girl who later was killed.
Darlene Walsh, who was fired last year for her role in the Ashley Pond case, is being demoted under an agreement she reached with the agency, according to her attorney and the state Department of Human Services.
The department also announced Wednesday the demotion of Colin Fitzpatrick, a child welfare worker, for his handling of a report that Ashley had been abused.
The announcements brought to a close eight months of wrangling about the roles the two workers played in the state's mishandling of allegations that Ashley, 12, was abused by Ward Weaver, a neighbor and the father of one of her friends.
Weaver, 40, has been charged in Ashley's death and the death of Miranda Gaddis, 13. The remains of the missing classmates at Gardiner Middle School were discovered last summer in Weaver's back yard. His trial is scheduled for next summer.
Jean Thorne, director of the Department of Human Services, said the state is not in a position to pursue the pair's termination, given a judge's recommendation that Walsh be reinstated.
"I think from my perspective what was important was to have disciplinary action," she said, pointing to the demotion of both employees.
Walsh will return to work Friday as a social service specialist in the agency's Gresham office, a job that requires her to consult and provide technical assistance to child welfare workers.
David Snyder, Walsh's lawyer, said his client has been a committed employee for 12 years.
"She is pleased to be going back to work, and we are pleased the state had decided to compromise and put her back to work," he said.
Thorne said she is comfortable returning Walsh to a child welfare position because of her "valuable expertise," but she said it is important that Fitzpatrick not be returned to a child welfare post.
In the summer of 2001, Ashley told family and friends that Weaver had molested her. Three people -- one of Ashley's teachers, a Clackamas County prosecutor and the former girlfriend of Ashley's father -- reported the girl's accusations to the agency.
Agency officials concluded that Fitzpatrick did not adequately screen calls about Ashley and that in two cases he did not return calls.
Last fall, after then-Gov. John Kitzhaber said the state had failed to protect Ashley, top state officials conceded that the employees took far too long to process the first report about Weaver's alleged abuse of Ashley and that the agency never confirmed the report reached the proper law enforcement agencies.
The agency's inquiry resulted in Walsh and Fitzpatrick's termination in December.
Last month, an administrative law judge with the Employee Relations Board recommended that Walsh be reinstated to a lower position.
Judge B. Carlton Grew accused the department of unfairly targeting Walsh. But he also blamed Walsh for failing to notify a supervisor about a misfiled report pertaining to Ashley's case, a decision that Grew said was "not in the public interest or in the interest of the department."
As part of the agreement the state reached with Walsh, she will receive back pay, including unused vacation time and sick time. She will be paid $9,214 in damages for her agreement to drop a lawsuit against the state, and the state will pay as much as $13,086 in attorney fees, said Patricia Feeny, an agency spokeswoman.
In her new post, Walsh will receive an annual salary of $51,180. Her previous position paid $56,940.
It was the judge's recommendation in the Walsh case that prompted the agency to demote instead of fire Fitzpatrick, said Lydia Lissman, the agency's human resources administrator.
Fitzpatrick in February was reinstated because of a technicality, but he then went on leave under the Family Medical Leave Act, said officials in the Department of Human Services. When that ended in May, he was placed on paid administrative leave.
On Friday, he's scheduled to return to work. He has been assigned to the Portland Metro Food Stamp Processing Center, according to department officials.
The position comes with an annual salary of $36,720. His salary in his previous post was $40,440.
Fitzpatrick is represented by a union and has 30 days to appeal the agency's decision. He did not return two calls for comment. Noelle Crombie: 503-294-5927; noellecrombie@news.oregonian.com
2003 OregonLive.com. All Rights Reserved.





