Toberman Neighborhood Center, Executive Director Darlene Kiyan tendered her resignation three business days after a Jan. 7 press conference in which civic leaders and civil rights activists blasted the hiring of a controversial former police chief from Beverly Hills.
Civil rights activist, Najee Ali, called for the cutting of Toberman’s Gang Reduction and Youth Development program if former Beverly Hills police chief, Sandra Spagnoli, didn’t resign.
In a farewell message sent on Jan. 12, Kiyan said she was leaving the century old nonprofit for a position at a larger agency. Her last day was Jan. 14. Spagnoli turned in her resignation around the time as Kiyan’s announcement.
In her farewell message, Kiyan discussed the values with which her parents reared her while working multiple jobs and noted how losing a family to gang violence influenced her work with young people.
Kiyan also highlighted Toberman’s success despite the pandemic, saying:
“Over the last 4 years we have worked to increase the programs and respond to the pandemic so that not only would families survive but thrive.”
Kiyan said she announced her resignation to Toberman’s board of directors last month.
The departing executive director made no mention of Spagnoli, nor the fallout once the community became aware of the hiring.
In an interview with Random Lengths News, Toberman executive director Darlene Kiyan confirmed that Spagnoli had been hired and that Jan. 5 was Spagnoli’s third day on the job. Kiyan also explained that Spagnoli was to oversee Toberman’s gang intervention program.
After the press conference, there was a Jan. 10 meeting between Toberman and community members concerned about Spagnoli.
According to sources who attended the meeting, Toberman representatives said they would hire more African American gang intervention workers in response to the critique made by Volunteers of America’s lead Gang Reduction and Youth Development case manager, LaNaisha Edwards, at the Jan. 7 press conference. Toberman officials did not confirmed this information after repeated phone calls on the matter.
Civic leaders at the Jan. 7 press conference questioned the decision to hire Spagnoli in the first place given the cloud of allegations she was under, and more importantly, questioned why it was thought having a former police chief run a gang intervention program would be effective.
Spagnoli retired in May 2020 following more than two dozen claims of discrimination, retaliation and harassment filed against herself and the city of Beverly Hills. The city settled the cases rather than fight them in court.
In a 2018 interview with the LA Times, Spagnoli denied allegations of improper relationships with subordinates but stopped short of denying the allegations about the racist remarks.
At the Jan. 7 press conference, lead case manager at the Volunteers of America GRYD program, LaNaisha Edwards, called out Toberman’s tone deafness in Spagnoli’s hiring and the gang intervention program’s general neglect of communities outside of San Pedro.
“We keep asking why we don’t have African American representation in gang intervention workers to work with youth in our community,” Edwards said. “And we still don’t have it. Now we have an issue with your hiring somebody with all of the racial tension we’ve been having over these years to work with our youth.”
Questions arose because of the lack of an official announcement for such a controversial hire. In an interview with Random Lengths, Toberman executive director Darlene Kiyan confirmed that Spagnoli had been hired and that Jan. 5 was just her third day on the job. Kiyan also explained that Spagnoli will be overseeing the gang intervention program at Toberman.
When asked about the title given to Spagnoli, Kiyan said that while the name is new, the position is not. But didn’t offer an explanation for how the new title related to the work of gang intervention or gang prevention. She said the last person to hold the position was Audrey Jackson. Kiyan did not provide further explanation and Random Length’s research did not turn up a connection between the individual and Toberman before press time.
Spagnoli was the first female police chief in Beverly Hills history. She served on the board of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and had previously led the San Leandro and Benicia police departments in Northern California.
Spagnoli joined the Beverly Hills police department during a moment when the previous chief, David Snowden retired following questions that he was drawing a second salary from a private-sector job.
The troubles of the once trailblazing chief began in 2018 when the city of Beverly Hills was forced to defend a couple dozen lawsuits, accusing Spagnoli of making racist comments, retaliating against officers, and showing favoritism toward subordinates with whom she had sexual liaisons. The city hired a crisis public relations specialist to deal with the fallout as the lawsuits piled up.
Among the lawsuits that were settled was a claim made by a former police captain, Mark Rosen, who was the highest-ranking Jewish member of the department who had accused Spagnoli of denying him promotional opportunities based on his religion and making anti-Semitic remarks. The city settled the suit for $2.3 million.
According to contemporaneous reporting on her retirement, Spagnoli had once referred to the yarmulkes worn by observant Jews as “funny little hats” and asked if she had to “dress Mexican” when invited to dinner at a Latino employee’s home and reacted with revulsion when informed that an employee was gay.
A Woodland Hills attorney, Brad Gage, represented most of the officers who brought claims of discrimination, retaliation and harassment by Spagnoli against the city.
One complaint references prior allegations of Spagnoli of having sex with a subordinate in exchange during her tenure in San Leandro to establish a pattern for a similar accusation while she was at Beverly Hills Police Department.
In 2019, a jury awarded more than $1 million in damages to a group of lieutenants who had accused Spagnoli of workplace harassment and retaliation for giving depositions that were favorable to Rosen’s lawsuit. The amount was later lowered to $850,000 by a judge, but Gage reportedly said he also recovered more than $3 million in attorney’s fees and court costs in that case.
In all, the lawsuits Gage’s clients brought against Spagnoli cost the city about $8 million.
In a 2018 interview with The Times, Spagnoli denied the allegations of improper sexual relationships but stopped short of denying the allegations about racist remarks. Less than 24 hours after the interview, the city settled Rosen’s lawsuit.
Spagnoli oversaw gang intervention, gang prevention, diversion program, re-entry program as well as drug prevention programs with teeth,”Kiyan said on Jan. 5.
Kiyan defended Spagnoli, saying that the references of all the candidates considered were checked and that the hiring was under the prerogative of the operation side of Toberman rather than Toberman’s board of directors.
Kiyan took a more defensive posture in defending Toberman’s new hire.
“Rumors start and rumors go forward because people don’t understand,” Kiyan said to Random Lengths . “One of the things I was told when I was hired at Toberman is that Toberman is a place for people to get a second chance.”
While a city choosing to settle a lawsuit is not necessarily a indication of guilt or innocence of allegations, Beverly Hills Police Department has been fending off allegations that their taskforces dubbed Operation Safe Streets and the Rodeo Drive Taskforce were practicing racial profiling.
This past September, the city of Beverly Hills was sued by a black couple alleging that
“Over the last 4 years we have worked to increase the programs and respond to the pandemic so that not only would families survive but thrive.”
their arrest was part of a campaign to arrest black people for trivial reasons and at disproportionate rates. The couple has retained the services of Gage and civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump in their suit against the city.
Kiyan said she had done extensive investigations and talked to a lot of people with first-hand knowledge of Spagnoli’s troubles and said she was confident that the allegations were not founded.
Kiyan likened Spagnoli’s hiring to the hiring of former gang members working in gang intervention and prevention.
“I’m hoping you won’t continue these rumors and making a negative of somebody that has really great experience and should be given a chance,” Kiyan said. “I’m really disappointed that this has happened when we have people who are former gang members who were given a chance to be successful.”
Now Toberman’s board is tasked with finding a new executive director.
Update:
Toberman Neighborhood Center just announced that Lorenzo Hernandez has been named acting Executive Director of Toberman Neighborhood Center, effective January 10, 2022.
According to a released statement, Toberman’s board of directors formed a search committee to find a new permanent Executive Director. The position description is posted on www.toberman.org/careers.