Simi Valley Council Will Discuss Officer’s Fight to Get Job Back : Lawsuits: Veteran police lieutenant says he was unfairly forced into retirement 15 months ago.

A long, bitter battle over Simi Valley’s attempts to oust a 19-year veteran police lieutenant will surface Monday behind closed doors in City Council chambers.

The case of Lt. Robert Klamser has not yet gone to a hearing in open court.

But the City Council is to huddle in closed session to discuss lawsuits that he filed in state and federal courts seeking to overturn his forced retirement 15 months ago.

The city ordered Klamser to retire on Nov. 23, 1993, for unspecified medical reasons, but Klamser said in court filings that he was removed after the department decided he was mentally disabled.

Klamser went without pay for about six months after that.

But last June, the city reinstated Klamser’s salary after deciding it had improperly denied him a hearing on his ouster.

Klamser was put on administrative leave at that point, ordered to stay at home for the hours he would ordinarily work to receive his full pay of about $66,000 a year.

Then in December, the city eliminated the salary, but still left Klamser on the list of department employees.

“They are attempting to impose an involuntary retirement, and we are opposing that,” Klamser said. He wants his job back, he said, because “there was no reason to remove me.”

City officials have repeatedly refused to comment on Klamser’s continuing battle for reinstatement, saying it is a confidential personnel matter.

Simi Valley City Atty. John Torrance again declined comment Friday, and said only that the City Council will meet privately to discuss the Klamser cases.

Klamser, 41, filed a lawsuit in Ventura County Superior Court in December, 1993, a month after his forced retirement, alleging that the city and Police Capt. Richard Wright conspired to oust him.

The suit asserted that Klamser was singled out for retaliation for protecting female victims of sexual harassment by male officers and for reporting an officer he believed was involved in illegal drug trafficking.

Klamser then filed suit in November, 1994, in federal court in Los Angeles, demanding that the city grant him a full hearing where he can challenge the department’s findings that he was mentally disabled.

So far, the city has not granted that hearing.

In addition, Klamser has appealed his forced retirement to two state panels--the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board and the Office of Administrative Hearings--all in a bid to regain his job.

“It’s our position that they have not provided all of the information,” he said. “We don’t have all of the data that they say they’re using.” But he refused to shed light on what that information is, saying, “It’s all tied up in litigation.”

The city agreed in December to settle for $15,000 a civil claim Klamser had filed for legal expenses he incurred while defending himself against a lawsuit filed by another officer.

Officer Paul Nolan had sued Klamser, alleging that the lieutenant mishandled his department’s inquiry into a citizen’s 1989 allegation that Nolan had raped her. A Municipal Court judge dismissed the case after it was revealed that the woman had had a sexual relationship with Nolan, and that they had exchanged gifts and Christmas cards after the alleged rape.

Klamser had asked for $25,000 to cover the legal costs.

In the meantime, Klamser said, he has been doing volunteer work as a security adviser for several overseas aid organizations. He recently traveled to Somalia to work out the safety of an air crew transporting food for the U.N., and helped work to free missionaries who were taken hostage in Latin American countries, Klamser said.