Threats and assaults: Greater Vallejo Recreation District employees say they face dangerous conditions at work

VALLEJO – Current and former Greater Vallejo Recreation District employees say that they’ve faced persistent safety issues, including out of control parties where workers have been battered and a girl was sexually assaulted, and a separate incident where a supervisor brandished a gun.

Four workers in the district’s community centers filed small claims court cases against the district this summer, saying they experienced stress and health hazards while on the job. 

Three of them said that lax security measures contributed to them being threatened and pushed or struck by guests while working at events, and one worker said guests sexually harassed her.

Meanwhile, an employee who works in the district’s maintenance department testified in court filings that his supervisor pulled out a loaded gun during work hours and claimed he intended to kill a district employee. The district fired the supervisor, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of exhibiting a firearm, and a judge ordered him stay away from both district offices and the employee.

Two workers have since withdrawn their small claims cases. The remaining two are both center monitors, who set up, oversee, and clean up for events like birthdays, weddings, and baby showers which take place in the district’s community centers.

Both workers are seeking $12,500, the highest amount an individual can seek in small claims court. 

Jessicca Blanco, who is still employed by the district, said she’s suing the district because it has created a hostile and unsafe work environment. She also has a separate workers compensation claim pending because of a back and shoulder injury while lifting heavy chairs without proper training or equipment.

“During my employment, I experienced sexual harassment, physical assault including being struck and pushed, and injuries resulting from inadequate training,” Blanco testified in her filing. “I also became physically ill due to exposure to hazardous chemicals.”

Earlier this year, Blanco and Safari Harris, another center monitor who filed a small claims case but has since dropped it, told the Vallejo Sun they were given inadequate safeguards and training to handle potentially hazardous chemicals and blood borne pathogens. They also said district parties they oversaw often got out of hand, and that they’d been threatened and physically attacked by intoxicated guests.

Blanco said the district, which maintains 33 parks and four community centers in Vallejo and employs about 200 mostly part-time workers, instituted new trainings for handling chemicals and blood borne pathogens and provided personal protective equipment after she filed a complaint to the state’s Division of Occupational Workplace Safety. But she said that management has not made its parties safer. She blamed unsafe parties on the district’s inadequate security measures, specifically its alcohol policy. Blanco said she’s repeatedly called for alcohol not to be served at parties for children.

District General Manager Gabe Lanusse said in an email that, in the past, “having more control on alcohol being served was a major issue,” and that he and other district leaders have had “lengthy discussions on how to improve the current situation.” 

Lanusse said the district’s board revised its alcohol policy on Sept. 11. The new policy will ban alcohol from being served at events for minors, such as baptisms, bar mitzvahs, and quinceañeras. The district will also require all bartenders to be certified by the state Responsible Beverage Service. The new policy goes into effect in the new year.

Blanco said she’s glad the policy is changing, but the changes haven’t come soon enough. She said that during events this month for children, she witnessed minors drinking. 

In April, Blanco said that at a quinceañera party she worked at at Dan Foley Cultural Center, underage drinking occurred, which contributed to the sexual assault of a young girl.

According to Blanco, the party got out of hand when teenagers started jumping over a fence to sneak in. She shared a security video with the Vallejo Sun that appears to show two teenagers drinking a beverage out of a bag at the event. In an incident report for the event Blanco submitted to district management, she reported that the contract stated attendance for the event was not to exceed 200, but over 400 people showed up. 

In her incident report, Blanco states that after 10:30 p.m., as the party was winding down, a teenage girl was found “naked, unresponsive, and confirmed to have been a victim of sexual assault.” Blanco told the Vallejo Sun she was one of the people to find the girl near the center.

“Seeing that little girl naked and convulsing with her family standing around her and crying,” Blanco said, “I’m traumatized after seeing that.”

Blanco told the Vallejo Sun that she witnessed Vallejo police officers arrest a teenage boy under suspicion of the sexual assault. 

Asked about this incident, Lanusse said only that it involved a minor and referred questions to police.

Vallejo police refused to confirm the incident had occurred or release any information about it, stating that doing so would violate the law because the incident involved minors. 

Vallejo Deputy City Attorney Sukhnandan Nijjar said in an email that “as both the victim and the arrestee are minors” releasing any information about the incident “would be a violation of the law.” 

However, the Vallejo Police Department has, in the recent past, released information about alleged crimes both when minors were victims and suspects of crimes.

The other plaintiff in a small claims case, Jenna Workman, said she quit the district earlier this year because its parties consistently got out of hand. At one party last year, she said she was “berated by a group of intoxicated men, called names, and pushed” as she tried to shut the bar down at the end of an event. 

It was the worst incident of many at district parties that made her feel unsafe, and she called it “an extreme example of typical things.”

“This isn’t just about one employee having a bad event,” Workman said. “it’s a system problem.”

According to Workman, bartenders often got drunk themselves and used little discretion when serving drinks. She said she and other workers have made suggestions to improve the alcohol policy, but nothing changed during her tenure.

“Any Joe Shmoe can bartend, and any complaints we have made as a staff, no one above us did anything to change things,” Workman said. “We have suggested wristbands for people that are old enough to drink. That never happened.”

The district’s old alcohol policy stated the district could shut down an event if guests violate its policy against underaged drinking. Blanco said that she wanted to shut down the party at Dan Foley Cultural Center when teenagers were drinking, but was unable to because she received no support from supervisors.

“We’re not supposed to be giving chances when they violate the contract,” Blanco said. “If the party would have been shut down earlier, that poor girl wouldn’t have been sexually assaulted.”

Alcohol appears to also have contributed to the incident involving the supervisor, Javier Topete Peña, who threatened a subordinate with a gun. 

In his testimony, one of Peña’s subordinates said that in March, Peña drove up and parked next to him while he was at a worksite, and was drinking from a bottle of tequila while his young daughter was sitting next to him. The worker said Peña pulled out a gun, put a clip in it and handed the gun to his daughter. 

The worker testified that Peña told him he suspected a co-worker was cheating on his wife and that he intended to kill that co-worker if he found out that was true.

“I’m going to find out what is going on with my wife,” the worker said he recalled Peña saying. “I am going to handle this shit! If I find out my wife is cheating on me, I will take him down.”

The worker said that when another worker showed up to the job site, Peña drove off suddenly “burning rubber out of the parking lot.”

It wasn’t the first time Peña has been accused of dangerous driving while on the job this year. A complaint obtained through a public records request shows that in January, a citizen reported that Peña almost hit her husband and son while he was driving fast.

Lanusse said that, in the past, the district has required drivers to do trainings in response to complaints about dangerous driving. Due to confidentiality requirements, Lanusse said the district cannot comment on if a specific employee has been disciplined.

In his testimony, the worker said that after the incident with the gun, Peña exhibited “paranoid behavior” by “expressing unfounded beliefs that he was being followed” and that people Peña did not name were “trying to take his daughter out of the country.” 

He said Peña demanded his aid and showed up at his home, calling him multiple times to ask him to meet him in order to help him, which the worker refused to do. The worker said that, another time, Peña drove by his office while blasting music and waving at him, and that Ring camera footage shows that Peña visited his house a second time.

The incidents left the worker scared.

“I do not feel safe at all,” the worker wrote in his testimony. “Peña knows my work routine and knows the exact time I go to different sites. I am having a really hard time concentrating at work, constantly on edge and wary of my surroundings. Peña has demonstrated irrational and dangerous behavior that has caused me to fear for my safety and the safety of my family.”

After firing Peña, the district asked a judge for a restraining order to prevent Peña from going near district worksites and the worker. 

Blanco and Workman’s small claims suits are set to be heard together on Dec. 1. Blanco said she wants the suits to pressure the district to make improvements. 

“I just want change, especially for my center monitor co-workers,” Blanco said. “They’ve been asking for change, and everything gets unanswered. I’m hoping with these lawsuits, [the district] will change.”