SAN ANDREAS - The attorney for former Calaveras County Community Development Director Stephanie Moreno implied that county officials were guilty of sex discrimination against her in a letter he wrote as he negotiated the $89,300 settlement payment that Moreno later received.

Attorney Mark S. Adams of Stockton said Monday that his negotiation strategy appears to have worked, as the payment Moreno received was "significantly higher" than what county officials initially offered.

Moreno resigned in July after a little more than two years of overseeing the county's Building and Planning departments. A number of builders and developers had complained that Moreno's efforts to improve enforcement had failed, instead creating delays and inconsistency in everything from building plan checks to the processing of major developments.

Although a Board of Supervisors majority long supported Moreno, county officials this summer asked her to resign. Moreno hired Adams to negotiate for her. In a July 17 letter to Assistant Calaveras County Counsel David Sirius, Adams wrote "I believe that I can prove a sex discrimination claim against the county in this matter."

"Some of the male building community was hostile to her," Adams said Monday. "That was the kind of thing we thought we might be able to pursue had we been forced into litigation."

Adams pointed to rumors and smears aimed at Moreno that were posted anonymously on Web sites. He said if he had been forced to sue, he would have argued that the county government discriminated against Moreno by succumbing to "too much political pressure from the male-dominated building community."

Moreno referred all questions to her attorney on Monday, but last month, before her departure, she was very brief when asked whether her status as a woman had increased the resistance she encountered.

"It's possible," Moreno said. "I didn't focus on those things."

Building industry representatives who criticized Moreno publicly focused on complaints about how she ran the departments and rejected the notion that their ire was sparked by her sex.

"Balderdash," said Mike Borean, a home designer and vice president of the Calaveras Builders Association. Borean also expressed irritation that Adams' threat had yielded Moreno a settlement of almost $90,000. "I think it was a fake threat that the board capitulated on."

Calaveras County Supervisor Merita Callaway, the only woman on the board and a former construction supervisor for Pacific Gas and Electric Co., admitted that women in the business face frequent challenges from male colleagues. But she said it was Moreno's management style, not her sex, that prompted the board to ask Moreno to leave.

"I can understand it having been there," Callaway said of the challenges women face in the construction industry, "but I can honestly say, I don't think that was the issue" in Moreno's case.

Contact reporter Dana M. Nichols at (209) 754-9534 or dnichols@recordnet.com.

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