The Vallejo City Council will hear a staff report on the city’s proposed whistleblower policy at its Tuesday meeting.
The report is a follow-up after a draft whistleblower policy was presented to the council at its May 13 meeting by Stephanie Sifuentes, the city’s human resources director.
At that time, “We need to go back to the drawing board,” said Councilmember Tonia Lediju. “The policy needs to be much more robust.” The proposed policy was presented to the council as an item for discussion and feedback, with no vote required.
A number of lawsuits have been filed against Vallejo by whistleblowers claiming retaliation. Three individuals — including the husband of Mayor Andrea Sorce — sued in 2021 after being fired in alleged retaliation for reporting rampant misconduct in the former city manager’s office. The settlement cost the city millions.
More recently, in February, Christina Lee, a former public information officer for Vallejo, filed a lawsuit alleging that after reporting what she described as “violations of local, state, and federal laws, rules, codes, statutes, regulations,” she was harassed and bullied out of her job.
An ethics code is the first and best defense against corruption in a small town, and adequate whistleblower protections are critical components of such a code, according to “Fighting Small Town Corruption: How to Obtain Accountability, Oversight, and Transparency,” published by the Columbia Law School Center for Public Integrity in 2016.
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