Cypress city manager accused of ‘unlawful acts’ by former department head

An evening meant to honor Cypress City Manager Peter Grant’s work over the past decade began with a laudatory presentation by Cypress Councilwoman Bonnie Peat then later turned.

She praised Grant during Monday’s City Council meeting for making Cypress a safer city while adding parks, housing and attracting new businesses. Above all, Peat credited him for Cypress being in solid fiscal shape.

“This is what it’s all about,” she said. “We have increased our financial strength over the past 10 years. We used our money wisely. We grew our reserves [by] $50 million [in the same timespan].”

Council members posed for a photo with Grant in front of the dais after Peat’s presentation ended.

And then came a bombshell accusation.

Former Public Works Director Doug Dancs, who TimesOC has learned resigned on Dec. 31 with an $183,000 separation agreement, addressed the council after the presentation and called for Grant’s termination.

“After my departure, I waited patiently,” Dancs said. “I never expected to return here.”

Dancs touted his 23 years of experience as a department head under seven city managers and 28 council members.

“As for the city manager recognition, in my opinion, the City Council should fire the city manager for cause,” he said. “This opinion stems from alleged unlawful acts of misconduct during my tenure.”

Cypress City Atty. Fred Galante interrupted Dancs before he could continue.

“This is completely inappropriate,” Galante said. “These comments should not be made in a public setting.”

Galante referenced the separation agreement in urging caution. Dancs argued that the agreement did not prevent him from discussing unlawful acts in the workplace.

Cypress Mayor David Burke gave Dancs the floor, but he demurred.

“I’m not going to continue based upon the city attorney’s comment back to me,” Dancs said before leaving the council’s chambers. “If he’s saying anything that I ever learned was confidential then I will stop.”

Doug Dancs, Cypress’ former director of public works, accused his former boss of “unlawful conduct” during Monday night’s City Council meeting.

(James Carbone)

The brief exchange left the members of the panel flummoxed.

Burke weighed calling an emergency closed session, given the accusation. Councilman Leo Medrano, who was newly elected in November, didn’t feel adequately briefed on the surrounding legal issues to give an informed public statement.

“The conservative side of me wants to go ahead and say ‘let’s hold off on making any comments until we better understand what’s going on,’” he said. “But at the same time, I want to be able to be in a city where people can express themselves. However, there are agreements that people are entered into that existed way before I was involved.”

The discussion ended soon after Medrano’s statement.

Dancs could not be reached by TimesOC for comment after the meeting.

His accusation also took former Cypress Councilwoman Frances Marquez by surprise as she sat in the audience.

Marquez had criticized Grant’s tenure earlier in the meeting and claimed he retaliated against her for complaining about alleged harassment to the city’s human resources division. She named him as a defendant alongside past and present Cypress council members in a lawsuit alleging “unconstitutional retaliation.”

“Now that Dancs has come forward, it’s clear that there’s a pattern of behavior,” Marquez told TimesOC. “I was not the only one.”

Marquez, who served on the City Council until December, claimed to be unaware of any separation agreement regarding Dancs’ employment.

Cypress City Council

(James Carbone)

In response to a TimesOC request, Cypress disclosed Dancs separation agreement as a public record.

Interviewed by phone, Galante said that he is not authorized to disclose what preceded Dancs’ separation agreement, which was signed in late October by Dancs and current Councilman Scott Minikus when the latter served as Cypress mayor.

Its terms include a confidentiality and non-disparagement clause.

Disparaging remarks are defined as “false information” that show a “reckless disregard to its truth or falsity.”

But the agreement doesn’t prevent Dancs from “discussing or disclosing information about unlawful acts in the workplace, such as harassment or discrimination or any other conduct” he has reason to believe is unlawful.

“The agreement does not allow him to raise past complaints that predated the agreement,” Galante told TimesOC.

It remains to be seen whether Cypress takes any legal action against Dancs or if council members call for a closed or special meeting in the future to discuss matters surrounding his accusation.

In the meantime, Marquez is calling for an outside investigation into Grant with a report that will be transparent to all about its findings.

“The residents of Cypress have the right to know the outcome of an investigation,” she said. “They deserve to know the truth about our city’s highest ranking employee.”