Though the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Employee and Labor Relations department instructed parking management to mediate disputes between parking enforcement officers, they failed to do so, said a key witness in the trial of Elias Georgopoulos v. the SFMTA on Tuesday.
That failure, Georgopoulos’ attorneys said, makes the city culpable for the racial harassment faced by his client at the hands of coworkers.
“The bottom line is, the city should have intervened,” said Eduardo Roy, who is representing Georgopoulos in his case against SFMTA for racial harassment and retaliation, among other issues.
The exchange occurred during the first day of a new trial for Georgopoulos, a former senior parking enforcement officer at SFMTA who is alleging that the transportation agency failed to address rampant harassment and discrimination at SFMTA.
His first trial, which kicked off on April 25, ended in a chaotic mistrial last Thursday, because of the jury’s scheduling conflicts.
On Tuesday, James Lee, the former deputy director of the SFMTA’s parking division, took the stand. Lee said that when Parveen Boparai, SFMTA’s employee and labor relations manager, was informed of Georgopoulos’ multiple allegations of harassment, she told the parking enforcement division to provide conflict resolution and mediation services.
That was in March of 2020. Instead, Georgopoulos claims that even after he filed multiple complaints to managers, and expressed that he feared for his own safety, SFMTA took no action.
In a response to Boparai, SFMTA stated it had responded by trying to get the transit workers’ union to intervene, according to an email from a former SFMTA human resources employee read into evidence on Tuesday.
“We tried to engage the union in working with employees to attempt to get employees to a professional workplace demeanor,” read the email from Lawrence Lindisch.
But that showed negligence, according to Georgopoulos’ attorney. “This is not the responsibility of the union,” said Roy outside of the courtroom on Tuesday.
Lee also testified today that Georgopoulos, who is Latino, pleaded with management multiple times over email to address his concerns over harassment and discrimination. “You have disrespected my position, and I feel that you hold your commander status over me,” said Gerogopoulos in an email sent to Lee in 2020. “Apparently it’s okay to threaten people at our division without any recourse … unless your name is Elias Gerorgopoulos.”
Lee did not respond to Georgopoulos’s multiple emails, he said, because he was told by McCormick to “not get involved.”
In one message, Georgopoulos threatened to take the city to court if his coworkers were not disciplined for allegedly threatening to “find him” and his wife at his home address, and harassing him for his race and height, as well as physically intimidating him. “I do not believe our management team has what it takes to hold people accountable,” Georgopoulos wrote.
Georgopoulos says he was repeatedly threatened and taunted by fellow parking enforcement officer Sterling Haywood, and accuses the SFMTA of fostering a widespread culture of discrimination, stating that the division’s current director, Shawn McCormick, targeted the Mission, Excelsior, and Bayview for citations, because “those people don’t know how to fight City Hall.”
Haywood could not be reached for comment by the time of publication.
The city states that Georgopoulos himself has been accused of yelling at subordinates, and Mission Local found that Georgopoulos was accused of attacking a tow truck driver, a limousine driver, and harassing other co-workers, all more than 15 years ago.
But the city has not yet responded to Georgopoulos’ claims that the SFMTA refused to address employees’ concerns about a hostile work environment.
On Tuesday, Roy and city attorney Amy Frenzen rehashed their opening arguments to a new set of jurors. On Thursday morning, Lee will take the stand for a fourth and final time.
Roy once again described a work environment at the SFMTA parking division rife with harassment, blowout fights, and racial division and discrimination between parking enforcement officers between 2019 and 2020.
“There was this division that happened then,” said Roy, referring to the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. “This issue of Black versus Latino employees was happening at a public agency.”
“This trial isn’t about George Floyd,” countered Frenzen. “It’s about someone who liked to enforce the rules but resisted them when it came to him.”
It’s disheartening to hear about ongoing issues like those involving SFMTA, where institutions fail to address serious complaints like harassment. It reminds us how vital accountability and trust are in any organization—especially when people rely on them for essential services. That’s why it’s so reassuring to see Hajj and Umrah service providers like yours maintain a strong reputation for transparency, support, and ethical service. Trust is everything when you’re guiding people on such an important spiritual journey.