YOUNGSTOWN — Taron Cunningham, fired in March as Community Development Agency director, is suing the city to get his job back.

It will be at least February before a decision is made on the request.

Cunningham wants to be reinstated with back pay or at minimum having a judge order the city’s Civil Service Commission, which upheld his firing, to conduct another hearing.

Cunningham, hired Nov. 27, 2017, with an annual salary of $74,997.52, was suspended twice in 2018 — for one day on May 22, 2018, and for three days, starting Oct. 8, 2018, both for insubordination.

In letters to Cunningham, T. Sharon Woodberry, then the director of the city’s Community Planning and Economic Development Department and his supervisor, wrote that his “actions continue to be a blatant disregard of verbal and written warnings issued to you.”

She then wrote a four-page Jan. 8, 2019, letter to Law Director Jeff Limbian outlining numerous issues between July 26, 2018, and Jan. 7, 2019, with Cunningham and seeking an opinion on his firing. Cunningham received the letter three days later.

Cunningham’s “inability to adhere to policy and rules that govern the workplace, incompetence, poor communication skills, misrepresentation of facts in his course of his work, general insubordination, temperamental and retaliatory behavior, and failure to sufficiently provide guidance to employees directly under his supervision are problematic for this department,” Woodberry wrote.

She added that Cunningham “does not have an understanding of the job. Taron’s position as director of Community Development is of critical importance and necessitates that he directly manages and supervises activities that are subject to strict compliance that when managed irresponsibly jeopardizes millions of dollars of federal funding granted to the city. Mr. Cunningham is a liability to this department and I cannot rely on the accuracy of information provided by Taron nor the work he performs.”

(Unrelated to Cunningham’s firing, Mayor Jamael Tito Brown demoted Woodberry Sept. 16 to economic development director and hired Nikki Posterli as the department’s new director as well as his chief of staff.)

Brown appointed Beverly Hosey, the city’s compliance director, as interim CDA director Nov. 4. The appointment is for up to 120 days with the commission preparing a test for a permanent replacement during that time.

FIRED

Limbian had a Jan. 16 predisciplinary hearing for Cunningham with the law director providing him a letter five days prior that’s almost identical to the one Woodberry wrote. The letter added that Cunningham was placed on paid administrative leave pending a decision on his termination.

Brown fired him March 8 in a two-paragraph letter that didn’t state the reasons for terminating Cunningham’s employment.

Cunningham filed a March 15 appeal with the Civil Service Commission, which heard it May 9 and upheld the firing. Another appeal from an attorney for Cunningham was heard July 1 by the commission, which again voted to uphold the firing. The commission also filed a final order on Cunningham’s firing on July 22.

S. David Worhatch, Cunningham’s attorney, wrote in an appeal to the Mahoning County Common Pleas Court that the commission’s decision “is unconstitutional, and/or is not supported by reliable, probative and substantial evidence, and/or is unreasonable, and/or is not in accordance with law and therefore should be reversed, vacated or modified.”

In an interview, Worhatch said: “The mayor had no good grounds for getting rid of my client and violated civil service rules for failing to include the reasons why he was removed. Consequently, my client went into the (May 9) hearing without knowing why he was removed. How do you go to a hearing in front of the Civil Service Commission having no idea why the mayor removed you when it’s your job to defend yourself?”

But Jeffrey Molitnero, the city’s senior assistant law director, wrote that Cunningham “may not take a second bite at arguing his appeal simply because he hired” Worhatch.

He added: “The commission represented that it fully understood the issues.”

The case has sat in the court system for months with it originally assigned by lot to Judge Anthony Donofrio, a former city deputy law director who once served as the Civil Service Commission’s legal counsel, and his magistrate, Nicole M. Alexander, a former Youngstown senior assistant law director who wrote a Dec. 7, 2018, report while working for the city into Cunningham’s alleged wrongdoing. After Worhatch filed the motions to recuse Donofrio and Alexander, the judge agreed to have the case reassigned.

The case was assigned Oct. 9 to Judge Anthony M. D’Apolito and Magistrate James A. Melone.

Melone set various dates for motions from both sides with him scheduling a non-oral Feb. 24, 2020, hearing to determine the merits of the case.

dskolnick@tribtoday.com