By William Schneid Santa Monica
Who is Michael Steen and what went wrong during his tenure as the city of Santa Monica’s superintendent of Woodlawn Cemetery?
The cemetery is one of a handful owned by California municipalities and approximately 15 years ago there was an opening, on the horizon, as the then current superintendent was facing retirement. A search began scouring the United States for a premier performer. Someone who understood the unique kind of service to be continued to Santa Monica’s residents and relatives. Many of the founding families are interred there. Residential or relationships are required to repose in these hallowed grounds.
The city found Mr. Steen who had applied while director of the world famous Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Mortuary and Memorial Park (Marilyn Monroe along with numerous other Hollywood luminaries are “at rest” there.) Steen had a sterling career, going back to his Nebraska childhood roots and his neighbor role model who just happened to be a mortician. He felt his calling to service in an industry under fire for death and dollars and knew that his mission was to serve families in grief and endlessly give of himself as a sincere grief mitigator.
He did his job well enough to be featured in Gentleman’s Quarterly (GQ) as the “Mortician To The Stars.” Everyone seemed to hear about the genuine caring that flowed from this dedicated man and sought out his counsel. When the AIDS epidemic hit, it was Mike who conducted endless seminars on death and dying. He would take his time to go to assisted living facilities to, sometimes, be the only visitor to be seen by some of the abandoned elderly.
As an ordained minister, he offers weekly communion at one of the city’s board and care facilities. He sits on the board of the International Cemetery and Funeral Association, and was responsible for bringing that organization’s convention to this city.
So, what happened? What went wrong? Apparently nothing for almost 14 years, if you are to believe the exceptional job performance evaluations he had received from his supervisors. Performance bonuses were approved by the City Manager.
But something was wrong. Very wrong. The city viewed the cemetery as some kind of step-child. None of Steen’s supervisors knew anything about cemetery operations and didn’t seem to care. The cemetery fell under the water department. Steen tried to increase revenue and suggested the facility be used, in a dignified manner, as a movie backdrop. Movie location managers had been pestering him for years to pay the going rate of $2,000 per day. When he brought it up, City Hall hierarchy dismissed the idea with a “don’t bring up that subject again.”
He created a mausoleum expansion and hand-painted wall murals. He beautified the once drab mausoleum and surrounding grounds.
He made it a point to attend most every burial less there be a potential flaw. He spoke at many when there was no one to speak for the deceased.
Don’t let the acreage fool, you. This place was run by a handful of groundskeep-ers, Mike and his administrative assistant. That’s it. Two people manning the endless calls for service and assistance.
You might ask what happened to his administrative assistant? His right-hand woman. Her sworn statement indicated that she was “afraid to report problems to supervisors for fear of repercussions.” Huh? She was sent over to fill a vacancy, as his assistant, coming with 12 years of human resources experience with the city. What in the world could he have done to her in a two-person office? A laughable excuse for abandoning any responsibility for anything that was alleged and she enjoys continued employment within the city.
Armed with an incomplete audit and unanswered questions the city went on the offensive, seizing his city vehicle, in the middle of the afternoon with a funeral about to get underway, and ordering him, under police guard to take some personal belongings and not return under penalty of arrest. For what? There was no comment. He was placed on administrative paid leave being left clueless as to what he was facing. Not pleasant a couple of weeks before Christmas. Not even a chance to say anything to his staff. Forbidden to communicate with any city personnel.
Ultimately, under demand from legal counsel, the city responded, indicating they were looking into allegation of financial irregularities.
The Santa Monica Police Department’s special audit unit (which deals with internal corruption) was called into the investigation and found no evidence of criminal misdeeds.
And then with hundreds of hours of auditing and tens of thousands of dollars later, the city determined that there were some “financial record keeping problems” but after an exhaustive review could not put their fingers on an amount or even an approximate amount. Oh, they did find a $78 check that hadn’t been cashed. Several years old and buried in the back of Steen’s desk. And there was that sticky matter of Steen’s domestic partner owning a grave marker and monument company. A conflict of interest the city cried. Steen responded that if someone asked if there was a monument company in the city he did in fact state that there was. Mine. The only one in the city. How about the closest monument company to the cemetery? Yes. Mine. Who does most of the monuments here? Me. He even handed out a sheet of paper with all the monument companies in the surrounding cities with the disclaimer written on it that the list was neither a “recommendation nor an endorsement.” All of the above were truthful statements. If you want to call those statements “referrals” so be it. Read back in this article. Remember Steen’s passion to serving his families? He was not about to do what is current policy and tell people in town or out of town to either look in the phone book or the internet. Hardly serving grieving or inquiring families in need of information.
As this story unfolds, seven months into his suspension, Steen is formally terminated.
Shocked by this, his attorney requests an appeal by binding arbitration. The city refuses and elects, as is its privilege to use its in-house, City Council-approved personnel board to handle the appeal. The die is cast. Testimony and evidence is presented and then, in a surprise move the board informs the city’s attorney and Steen’s attorney that they will be limited to 10 minutes each for closing arguments. Let’s get this right. Fourteen years of service, confusing testimony and contradictions all to be dealt with in no more then 10 minutes? All those years of service and dedication and the board just couldn’t see fit to allow, say, 20 minutes? Or had they already made up their minds?
You might be asking yourself was anyone else held accountable? Nope. Not the staff that gave Steen all those misleading years of glowing performance reviews. Not the finance department who might have cut the problems off at the pass since it was their requested initial audit. Why didn’t they come over to the cemetery to see if the checks and balances were in place? Craig Perkins, Steen’s department head, under oath stated that he didn’t check because “… I assume all my managers are going their jobs …” If that be true then what is the city paying Mr. Perkins for? Or Gil Borboa, Steen’s immediate supervisor. He thought, under oath, that Steen’s office was “messy” but didn’t tell Steen to clean it up.
Please don’t get this writer wrong. Mike is responsible for whatever he did or did-n’t do. I’m furious that he didn’t listen to my admonition to protect “thine own posterior” and send e-mail every month to finance, Perkins and Borboa asking them to come by and check to see if he was in compliance. I could kick him into the first open grave for being service oriented and not a politician. For not listening when I warned him about mean-spirited people populating city government. Mike always looked for the good in people and couldn’t believe that people, close to him would actually lie under oath about him.
The personnel board upheld the decision to terminate Mike’s employment and in such wording that you would think he didn’t have an attorney or they weren’t listening. Nothing short of termination would do. Not a suspension. Nothing. A 40-year career and 14 years of city devotion flushed.
But I will close this with this observation. An observation based on 34 years of knowing him. Not a 10-minute closing argument.
On the day of the infamous Northridge earthquake devastation when our house stopped shaking Mike said, “I have to go to the cemetery. I have to see how it is.” The image I will always have is him being seated on the mausoleum steps, with his head in his hands sobbing as he surveyed the downed upright markers …. repeating … “I have to get these back up before the families see this …”
The city will find another cemetery superintendent but they will never replace Mike.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 10, 2006. Read the original PDF.