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Complaints against YNG director settled for $40,000
By Ed Runyan
VIENNA
The Western Reserve Port Authority approved a $40,000 settlement with a former port authority administrative assistant who complained of being sexually harassed and otherwise mistreated by the authority’s aviation director, Dan Dickten.
When contacted Friday, the authority’s chairman, Ron Klingle, said he could not comment on the nature of the allegations against Dickten or whether the board determined the allegations against him were or weren’t true, citing a confidentiality agreement that is part of the settlement contract.
When asked why Dickten was not fired as a result of the complaints, Klingle said: “There’s nothing that has happened that I have seen or that the board has seen that would give us any reason to dismiss him.”
When Dickten was asked about it, he said he had “no comment at this time.”
Likewise, John Moliterno, authority executive director, said he could not discuss the matter, referring questions to Dan Keating, the board’s legal adviser.
Keating said there have been no lawsuits filed against the airport or Dickten alleging harassment and no complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or Civil Rights Commission.
He, too, said he could not discuss the nature of the complaints because of the confidentiality agreement.
On or about Oct. 5, 2015, Lauren Iaderosa “initiated a claim of sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination, slander and other allegations,” according to an authority document obtained by The Vindicator.
The authority fired Iaderosa on Sept. 28, 2015. The authority runs the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport and its economic-development arm, the Northeast Ohio Development and Finance Authority, or NEODFA.
Klingle signed a settlement contract June 28 that directed its insurance carrier, Cincinnati Insurance Co., to pay Iaderosa $40,000 in exchange for her to forever release all claims against Dickten and the authority, the contract says.
The authority’s board approved the settlement and payment of $1,000 as the authority’s deductible on the claim at the end of a more-than-three-hour board meeting May 18.
The resolution was approved unanimously when the board came out of a more-than-one-hour closed-door session at 11:47 a.m., according to minutes of the meeting provided to The Vindicator through a public-records request. The meeting was at the authority’s offices on Champion Street in Youngstown and began at 8:30 a.m.
Iaderosa was hired June 30, 2014, at $12 per hour and made $13.20 per hour when she was fired, the authority said.
The confidentiality agreement itself says the port authority and Dickten “intend merely to avoid litigation and buy their peace.”
It says the port authority “is not admitting to, and specifically denies, any violation of [Iaderosa’s] rights. It is understood and agreed that this settlement is the compromise of a doubtful and disputed claim, and that the payment made is not to be construed as an admission of liability on the part of the port authority.”
The agreement says Iaderosa agrees she is not eligible for rehire by the authority, will not seek future re-employment with the organization and will not “issue any communication, written or oral, that disparages, criticizes or otherwise reflects adversely, negatively or encourages any adverse action” against Dickten or the authority or impairs their reputation.
Likewise, the authority agreed not to “issue any communication” that disparages Iaderosa, the settlement contract says. Both parties will pay their own legal fees and other costs, it says.
Dickten has been aviation director since April 2010. His pay was increased to $95,481 in March.