Coos Bay’s former finance director has filed a tort claim against the city, suggesting she was fired because of a confrontation with the city’s auditor in 2006.

Janell Howard’s attorney notified the city in a letter dated Oct. 17, saying she will sue the city for wrongful termination and violating her freedom of speech.

City Manager Chuck Freeman fired Janell Howard on Sept. 23., less than a month after Wal-Mart staff said the certified public account attempted to leave the Coos Bay store without paying for several items.

Freeman said he decided to fire Howard after consulting with the city’s attorney and an attorney from the city’s insurance company.

In a phone call this morning, Howard offered to supply a copy of the letter she sent to the city, but declined to discuss her legal action.

“I think the tort claim speaks for itself,” she said.

In the document, Howard contends city officials wanted to fire her after she spoke out against the city’s former auditor, Wall & Wall. She suggested the city used the Wal-Mart incident to back its decision.

The audit dispute started in October 2006. Howard submitted financial documents to the auditor but then made revisions. The auditor came back to the city several days later, saying he would need to charge the city more to conduct additional work because of the changes.

At the time, Howard disputed the request for more money, suggesting Wall & Wall was taking advantage of the interim city manager, Joyce Jansen. The auditor withdrew from its contract and the city was forced to hire a new auditor to review the city’s financial record. The audit gave the city a clean bill of health.

Howard subsequently filed a complaint against Rob Wall with the Oregon Board of Accountancy. She said she did so as a citizen, rather than as a spokeswoman for the city or its finance department, according to the letter.

Freeman suspended her on July 16, 2007, saying she needed to consult with him first before taking such actions with ramifications to the city. Howard contacted her lawyer, who protested. The city agreed to expunge  the record from her personnel file.

This summer, on Aug. 24, a Wal-Mart employee stopped Howard as she left the store with about $12 of items she hadn’t paid for. Oregon State Police found no reason to charge her with a crime and the Coos County District Attorney R. Paul Frasier agreed, saying there wasn’t enough evidence.

At the time the city fired Howard, Freeman contended it was a trust issue. He suggested the city had concerns beyond the Wal-Mart incident, but would not discuss them.

In Howard’s tort claim, she suggests the other issue was a rumor that she had been barred from grocery shopping at Albertsons. She contends that former City Councilor Cindi Miller told Freeman that former finance director switched price tags while shopping at the store.

This morning, Miller said, “I’m not involved in the investigation in any way.”

In an interview today, Mayor Jeff McKeown said the OSP discovered the Albertsons allegation during its investigation this summer. He didn’t want to talk about the Albertsons issue, but disputed that the auditing disagreement was tied to Howard being fired. He said he was in contact with the head of the state’s audit division, who advised the city how to handle the dispute between Howard and Wall & Wall.

“They are completely unrelated issues,” he said.

Freeman said Coos Bay police looked into the Albertsons allegations when OSP officials recommended an internal inquiry.

“It revealed a pattern of behavior that is not consistent with someone handling $49 million of taxpayer money,” he said.

In Howard’s tort claim, Albertsons’ service operations manager was reported to have said management never barred Howard from the store, never said anything to her, and has neither surveillance footage nor any documentation about any tag switching.