2025-07-18 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board July 18, 2025 superficial. The superficial is, I read a headline or the subject matter on his appeal and I’m going to say, “No, it’s age and disability and, therefore, it’s not within the jurisdiction of the Merit Appeals Board.” But his appeal is lengthy. He drafted it himself and if the Board goes beyond the superficial and, actually, reads through it—what he’s challenging is the unfair treatment with respect to the firearms requirement, which—for which the County terminated him. So, we should be allowed to present to the Board why we feel that in the recruitment process, that the County failed to train him—give him the proper time that they said they were going to give him in terms of recruitment. And so, the manipulation of the recruitment process is well within the scope of the Board, and we should—or the Board, under 76-14, should err on the side of caution and allow our client— well, my client, to present testimony and evidence regarding that. And in the event that the complaint or the original appeal is a bit wordy, we should be allowed to amend it and narrow it down, if the Board is—gives us permission to do that—that way we can focus in on what these particular issues are. But it would be a mistake to require an individual who’s not a trained lawyer, who does not have experience in the area of human resources or the human resource rules and regulations—to require him or her to have some kind of elevated knowledge with respect to how to draft an appeal. So, I ask the Board to go beyond the superficial. It is a lengthy, original appeal but, as we pointed out in our memo, he’s clearly saying that he wasn’t given sufficient time to complete that firearms requirement, and that’s where he was—that’s the reason why he was terminated and that’s the reason why we need to present that before the Board. Because in the Civil Rights Commission circumstances, what the County is going to argue is that they hadn’t had a legitimate reason for terminating my client’s employment because he didn’t meet the firearms requirement—the firearms qualification requirement. So, what’s going to happen is—he’s locked out of appealing here, in terms of how they did it, or failed to meet their commitment with respect to training. And then, the County gets to reap the benefits of that saying, “And, oh, by the way, what we did in terms of his decision-making, wasn’t based on disability, it wasn’t based on age, it was actually based on his failure to complete or fulfill the firearms qualification”—so they get the benefit of talking out of both sides of the mouth in this case. We should be allowed to appeal what he feels was their failure to allow him to complete the firearms requirement and that’s what this appeal is about. We ask the Board to find that there is jurisdiction under 76-14. Thank you. CHR. CABANAS: Thank you, Mr. Hong. Mr. Disher. Page 11