Master of Disaster

The city of Santa Fe's disaster recovery system has been place for at least a year now. But the  backup network designed to save all of the city's data in case of an unforeseen technical problem is at the center of a legal dispute between the person who helped install it, Thomas Williams, and the city itself.

Williams, the city's former Information and Technology Division director, got canned in November 2014 on the basis that he allegedly spent a half-million dollars on the recovery system, then inadequately installed it to the point where it never became fully operational.

Matt Ross, the city's public information officer, reports Tuesday that the system is currently operational, but he wasn't sure whether Williams was the one who installed it.

Now Williams is asking the First District Court to reinstate him in the job he lost. The firing was upheld by an administrative law judge in April of this year.

He's also asking for back pay, front pay and "further interest as the court deems necessary," according to court documents filed last month.

Williams contends that the city never had the right to fire him because the decision was "arbitrary and capricious" and the city ended up omitting relevant facts in the case, among them the data recovery system was up and running, thanks to him.

But mostly the city violated one of its own ordinances in terminating Williams, namely that the city shall retain all employees whose performance issues can be corrected, his lawsuit alleges.

Santa Fe Reporter