STOCKTON – The wife of Stockton City Manager Bob Deis has been formally dragged into her husband’s workplace battles after receiving a subpoena that orders her to show up and answer questions from the police union’s attorneys.
This marks the latest turn in an acrimonious relationship between the Stockton Police Officers’ Association and Deis over cuts to officers’ pay and benefits to balance the city’s budget.
Bob and Linda Deis were at home having dinner Aug. 28 after a weekend away when somebody knocked on their door and handed Linda Deis the five-page subpoena. It instructs her to appear Sept. 20 at the Sacramento office of the police union’s lawyers.
She’s to bring with her any and all documents – notes, letters, journal entries, photos or videos – supporting the city’s claim that the police union has harassed her husband and damaged their personal property after the union purchased a home next door in June.
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Officer Steve Leonesio, president of the Stockton police union, blamed Deis for introducing his wife into the fray. It’s Deis who said she saw the alleged harassment and therefore subjected her to questioning, Leonesio said.
“It’s only fair. If she’s a witness to harassment, she should be a witness we can cross-examine,” he said. “In our society, you can’t just make accusations … and take it on face value. You have to look into it.”
Deis said his wife’s subpoena – and how it was served – is further evidence of harassment by some union members he called “thugs and punks.” Minutes after his wife received it, a police cruiser slowly drove by their home, Deis said.
“They want to see turnover in my position, because I’m between them and the city treasury,” he said, adding that the union wants to hold sway over his office and interim Police Chief Blair Ulring. “This community needs to wake up and see that.”
The subpoena follows lawsuits and increasingly tense relations. Officers filed their suit against the city in July, arguing that City Hall didn’t respect their bargaining rights by declaring a fiscal emergency.
The city filed a cross complaint, accusing police of failing to bargain in good faith, and it asks a judge to back up the city’s right to take emergency measures in tough budget times.
The countersuit also seeks to end the intimidation tactics targeting Deis by buying the home next to his personal residence. Deis has accused the union of being bad neighbors – such as when a crew working on the union’s house damaged a tree in Deis’ yard with a backhoe.
Deis all but accused the union of placing on his Toyota Prius a vulgar sticker depicting a boy urinating on a pair of dice.
Deis compared the behavior of some members of the police union to unsavory characters he encountered in a previous job where he dealt with a business linked to organized crime. Deis declined to give particulars of when or where that happened.
And now, Deis said, his wife receiving the subpoena will unfairly subject her to an interrogation by the union’s attorneys. Deis said he believes the city’s attorneys will challenge the subpoena in an attempt to block her deposition.
“These people have no shame,” Deis said. “My wife did not interview with the city for the job.”
Leonesio said if it turns out that officers in his association have harassed Deis, he’ll hold them accountable. But Leonesio said he seriously doubts the city manager and his wife can support their claims.
In addition to Linda Deis, Leonesio said that the police union also subpoenaed Stockton private investigator Robert Archuleta, who is working on behalf of the city regarding this lawsuit.
Archuleta would neither confirm nor deny that he is working on behalf of Deis or the city. Archuleta said he has not personally received the subpoena.
Mayor Ann Johnston said the subpoena of Deis’ wife is a distraction from solving the city’s problems, such as managing its dwindling resources while keeping officers at work on the streets. Johnston was critical of the police union.
“This is just one more form of intimidation that the police association is using on the Deis family,” she said, adding that settling the police union’s contract will settle this rift. “Make that go away. This will go away as well.”
