A former south peninsula firefighter is suing the Kenai Peninsula Borough and her former boss. She claims her employer wrongfully fired her after she reported her boss discriminated against her because of her age and sex.
Kelli Parker filed the suit last week in Kenai Superior Court. Parker worked as a volunteer, then paid firefighter for Kachemak Emergency Service Area, or KESA. The agency operates under the umbrella of the borough and provides fire and emergency medical services to more than 200 square miles on the southern Kenai Peninsula.
Parker’s complaint says her boss, KESA Chief Eric Schultz, subjected her to discriminatory practices. He took over the department last year first as acting chief, then as chief in December. She says Schultz yelled at her in front of coworkers, uniquely subjected her to a timed agility test and put her on a probationary employment plan after not getting along with a coworker.
Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Peter Micciche said Tuesday the borough will answer limited questions once it has been served with the lawsuit. Schultz did not respond to a request for comment by air time.
Parker says her complaints to the Kenai Peninsula Borough’s Human Resources Department went unaddressed for months. Justen Huff, the borough’s director of human resources, later arranged a meeting to address Parker’s performance and behavior.
“He berated me for an hour, and I just sat there,” Parker said. “He had threatened to fire me, ‘I can fire you on the spot.’”
Parker says her captain and a representative of the borough employee union were also present. She says she recorded the meeting to share with her own union representative, if needed.
In April, KESA Captain Travis Ogden called an anonymous, no confidence vote against Schultz among 20 KESA employees and volunteers. Emails obtained by KDLL from multiple former KESA employees show that 11 indicated they had lost confidence in Schultz. Ogden later reported the results to Micciche and the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly. In that email, Ogden said the decision to hold the vote followed “extensive internal discussion and multiple good-faith attempts to resolve individual concerns through informal and direct means.”
Ogden says the vote was a formal request for an investigation into Schultz’s conduct. He says KESA staff and volunteers feared retaliation by Schultz.
In response, Huff says in his own letter to KESA on April 21 that the vote “further complicated” a lack of trust between Schultz and his staff and volunteers. Huff wrote changes in leadership are always challenging and that building trust must be a group effort.
“Working and/or volunteering at KESA is a choice that you are making,” Huff wrote. “For anyone who wants to cause discontent, create divisions and work against creating a great work culture at KESA, you are welcome to find work elsewhere.”
Parker eventually filed a complaint with Alaska’s equal employment opportunity program, which referred her case to the state human rights commission. Parker’s suit says the borough fired her for performance issues four days after the commission told her and the borough it would investigate the matter.
Parker wants to be compensated for losing her job and for her legal costs. But she says it’s not only about the money.
“I'm not just fighting for me,” she said. “I'm fighting for all the me’s. All the me’s now and all the future me’s. Someone has to fight back, and I now have nothing else to lose.”
Parker is being represented by Northern Justice Project, an Anchorage-based civil rights law firm.
Parker’s case is the second lawsuit brought by a KESA employee against the borough in the last three years. In 2023, a KESA fire technician, represented by the same civil rights firm, alleged her boss sexually harassed her over several months and that the agency retaliated against her when she reported what happened.
The borough settled that case out of court last year for $78,500.
