June 28, 2002

Barbara Hegdal
Asst. Executive Officer
CalPERS Executive Office

Dear Ms. Hegdal,

I believe I am nearing the end of my rope.

Since my first letters in January of this year to Governor Davis, I have written approximately a dozen more letters to various State employees in various State agencies, to whom my original letters were forwarded, starting with you on March 26th.

At that time, I was very encouraged. I thought I had finally floated to the top of the bureaucratic log jam and was finally getting acknowledgment of the bureaucratic wrong that had been done to me after 13 years of State service. I had publicly exposed a highly placed public official, Mr. Peter Arth of the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC), who vindictively and illegally deprived me of my correct retirement pension ordered by the U.S. Federal Court. Mr. Arth delegated the court order to lower level personnel in his agency and instructed them to treat my court ordered promotion in the same manner as a standard agency promotion, which it was not.

This introduced (after my trial and after my retirement) an irrelevant MSA (merit salary adjustment) procedure that had no place in my trial and no place in my court ordered promotion. Due to the difficulties encountered in dealing with lower level bureaucratic functionaries, however, it became almost impossible for me to change the procedure Mr. Arth had initiated after my trial and after my retirement. Even though I refused to sign my promotion contract or agree to the salary terms, Mr. Arth instructed the CPUC Personnel Department to promote me anyway and set my retirement pay at the lowest level of the court ordered PURA V promotion. The junior level PURA V pay was identical to the senior level PURA III pay.

I had been receiving the senior level PURA III pay for several years prior to my trial and the court order to promote me two levels above my current pay position. The ulterior motive and illogicalness of his instruction to the lower level personnel department did not faze Mr. Arth due to his desire to obtain revenge against me for defeating him in court.

Mr. Arth is a vile, vindictive administrator who inflicted this injustice on me to avenge my exposure of him as an incompetent administrator. He does not merit the position of Chief Counsel to the CPUC. He has wasted tens of millions of dollars of State and CPUC funds by his inept handling of promotional discrimination charges against the CPUC. In my case, alone, he has cost the State at least seven million dollars by his inept mishandling of my trial. I and my co-plaintiff were awarded damages of approximately ½ of a million dollars. My lawyers were awarded court costs of approximately 2 million dollars. Two external law firms hired by the State received payments approximating one million dollars. An external consulting firm forcibly hired by the CPUC to correct their internal promotion and hiring procedures cost an additional one million dollars. A class action suit inspired by me for 44 other professional CPUC employees was settled out of court for approximately 2 ½ million dollars. In addition there were several other individual suits, inspired by my success, which were settled out of court. Also, there is no adequate accounting for the time wasted by CPUC upper management in combating my case. The only victory they achieved was Mr. Arth’s vindictive and illegal restriction of my correct State retirement pension. Mr. Arth sent a congratulatory internal office memorandum to his staff gloating over this relatively minor victory, equivalent to approximately 50 thousand dollars, while totally ignoring his incompetent wasting of approximately 7 million dollars in State funds.

The cost of my trial and victory against a corrupt State Agency (the CPUC) is still costing the CPUC money. The corrections promised during my trial have not materialized. Staff morale at the CPUC regarding promotion and hiring practices is still very low, in some cases, abysmal. For example, check out a current staff newsletter at the CPUC, ten years after my retirement: www.toadface.com . Click on What now?!

For a more in depth discussion of my experiences at the CPUC please check out my public webpage: www.olemiss.edu/~mcrommie. Click on the Appendices and on Appendix M (CPUC).

In summary, Ms. Hegdal, despite my enthusiasm generated by your response to me on February 26, 2002, subsequent responses from various other bureaucratic levels have reinforced my view of the bureaucratic process as a quagmire for positive forceful action. Thank you again for your attempts to help. My petition is now, once more, at the lowest bureaucratic level where the capacity or discretional authority to help does not exist.

Sincerely yours,

Maurice F. Crommie