News-Press trial gets personal

BY ERIC LINDBERG
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

It is a part of Melissa Evans’ past that she isn’t proud of.
Last October, while working as a reporter at the Santa Barbara News-Press, Evans took a leave of absence to enter a rehabilitation program for her issues with alcoholism. She never planned to make that information public.
However, when News-Press associate editor Scott Steepleton and News-Press attorney Barry Cappello brought the issue up during a federal hearing into unfair labor practice charges against the newspaper that started this week, she had to come forward.

“I was prepared for it to come out,” Evans said. “I’ve been kind of mentally preparing myself.”
Evans said she realized in October that she had a problem and decided the best way to handle it would be to remove herself from the stress of her job in order to get help. She went to News-Press human resources manager Yolanda Apodaca to request a medical leave and explained her reasons.
“I had a private discussion with Yolanda Apodaca and she repeatedly assured me that it was private information,” Evans said.
She said she never received verbal or written reprimands, and after a month-long leave she returned to her job and considered the matter to be over.
However, during Wednesday’s hearing — in which National Labor Relations Board authorities allege the News-Press fired Evans and seven other reporters for union reasons — Cappello began questioning Steepleton on a 2006 performance evaluation for Evans.
At one point, he focused on a section in which Steepleton wrote that there were “things other than work affecting her performance,” and mentioned that she was “out more than a month.”
Steepleton then testified that those lines referred to “substance abuse” issues.
Union attorney Ira Gottlieb immediately objected, demanding to know why such highly personal information needed to be aired in open court. Cappello responded that the News-Press is facing public charges and the issue is part of its defense.
“We were very sensitive about that matter,” Cappello later told the Daily Sound, “but it’s in her personnel record.”
Cappello declined to comment on the issue further, and calls to Apodaca were not returned.
Gottlieb later called the testimony “pure character assassination,” adding that the fact that the News-Press is facing public charges “doesn’t give them the right to trash people.”
Teamsters representative Marty Keegan also decried the testimony, calling it a “low blow” and saying he had never seen anything like it in his 35 years of experience.
Evans said she read the line in her performance evaluation about her “head on something other than work,” but told the Daily Sound she didn’t know what it meant.
“I really didn’t know what Scott [Steepleton] was getting at,” Evans said.
She said she first became aware earlier this year that News-Press attorneys might bring up the issue during the current hearing, when she said NLRB attorney Steve Wyllie told her Steepleton mentioned that she had been in a substance abuse program.
“It’s really frustrating and embarrassing, but it’s not surprising,” Evans said. “They’re just nasty people, and that’s what they chose to do.”
She emphasized that she never felt her issues with alcoholism affected her performance at the News-Press, that she was never drunk on the job, and that she wouldn’t have handled the situation any differently.
“I wanted to nip the problem in the bud before it really got bad,” Evans said. “I was still showing up to work and still doing my job.
“I think the thing that is most hurtful to me is that it was a personal issue and a privacy issue. It feels like a fishing expedition and it feels like they are trying to put us on trial.”