SAN LORENZO — A Hayward-area agency’s directors have censured a longtime board member for “offensive racist and sexist remarks” they say he made to district employees, including a racial slur at a recent committee meeting.
Laython Landis, a veteran of the Oro Loma Sanitary District board for nearly 42 years, was not present at the special meeting where board directors voted 4-0 to censure him for a pattern of “highly inappropriate” behavior, including intoxication at public events.
Landis, 88, was punished less than two weeks after using a derogatory term for blacks during the district’s Dec. 10 construction committee meeting, board President Timothy Becker said.
As committee members discussed the stormy weather that day, Landis remarked, “It looks like it’s going to rain cats and dogs and (black) babies today.”
Landis, a San Leandro resident, said that he did make the remark but avoids using the derogatory term for blacks unless he’s repeating that phrase.
“It’s a saying that’s been around for years — I’ve said it many times,” he said Tuesday. “I probably offended a few who take offense to the word.”
A Google search reveals the phrase appearing in a few books and a newspaper article around the turn of the 20th century.
Becker, who was not present at the committee meeting, asked Landis to resign last week over the incident. But Landis refused, saying he wants to read the censure resolution before deciding.
“I’ve been elected 11 times (to the Oro Loma board), and I think resigning would be a disservice to the people who voted for me,” Landis said.
He has not publicly apologized for the slur, but Landis said he did apologize to a board member during a recent phone conversation.
Landis’ censure was the Oro Loma board’s first in its history, district leaders said.
The district’s options for further punishment are limited because Landis is an elected official, Becker said.
“This is about the extent of what we can do,” he said. “It would be totally different if he were a district employee, where, ultimately, we could … dismiss a person.”
The agency’s leaders said they are looking into legal options to remove Landis from the board, but they declined to say what they might be.
“We’re trying to do what we can as quickly as we can,” Becker said Tuesday, after the censure vote. “It’s really painful for us to see the district associated with an incident and an individual who has failed to see the gravity of the situation.”
“A censure is a statement of disapproval of words or actions taken by one of the board members,” said agency attorney Jennifer Faught. It does not involve a fine or other punishment, she said.
Landis, a former San Leandro City Council member, said he was accused of making an inappropriate sexual comment to an Oro Loma female employee.
Landis said a district leader “verbally reprimanded” him for the incident, telling him never to do it again.
The censure resolution also accuses him of frequently being so intoxicated at events where he represented the agency that he was “physically incapable of controlling himself.”
Landis says that is only half right. “I know I’ve had some drinks at a convention and needed help to get back to my room,” he said. “But I’ve always been capable of controlling myself.”
Formed in 1911, the Oro Loma Sanitary District gives sewer, recycling and solid waste services to about 135,000 people in San Lorenzo and other unincorporated county areas, and parts of Hayward, San Leandro and Castro Valley.
The agency’s board of directors has always been represented by white males until this year, when its first female member — former San Leandro Mayor Shelia Young — was elected to the board.
Landis — a nephew of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, baseball’s first commissioner — will be 90 when his term expires in 2016.
“My plan is to run again,” he said. “But first I need to see the resolution.
Contact Chris De Benedetti at 510-293-2480. Follow him at Twitter.com/cdebenedetti.
