Deputy Chief Paul Chagolla Files Discrimination Claims Against County in Dispute Over Lack of Raise

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office promoted Paul Chagolla last year, even touting him as the agency's first Hispanic deputy chief, but Chagolla never got the raise that was supposed to come with the new title. That's because the county is discriminating against him for being Hispanic, Chagolla alleges in a complaint filed with the U.S. Equal Employment...

By Ray Stern

August 25, 2009

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The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office promoted Paul Chagolla last year, even touting him as the agency's first Hispanic deputy chief, but Chagolla never got the raise that was supposed to come with the new title.

That's because the county is discriminating against him for being Hispanic, Chagolla alleges in a complaint filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. As far as we can tell, Chagolla is alleging none of this discrimination is coming from the sheriff's office. Chief Deputy Dave Hendershott, quoted in the Arizona Republic article about the situation, says only the county has the ability to release funds for pay raises.

Without having seen Chagolla's claim, we'll reserve our comments about its validity. Suffice to say we take all such claims seriously -- all evidence suggests that racism and bigotry are still alive and well in modern American.

But if the criteria for advancement was how well he served the public as a public information officer, he would have gotten bubkus from us, too.

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.