The City of Peekskill is being sued once again after having already lost a million dollars in one lawsuit and facing a potential multi-million dollar payout in another.

In this new case, Tuesday McDonald, the current Peekskill Youth Bureau’s executive director, claims in a federal lawsuit filed June 27 that two city officials worked together to attempt to “force” her into resigning.

McDonald claims those two officials, City Manager Matthew Alexander and department head Johnathan Zamora, worked together as part of a “concerted effort” to “discriminate and retaliate” against her on account of her gender, disability, and her assertion of her rights.

McDonald also claims a misconduct investigation accusing her of improperly using a city credit card in the amount of about $400 was directed by the city for the purpose of “further harassing” her and “coercing” her into resigning.

McDonald alleges that her requests for salary increases have been repeatedly denied despite male employees in comparable positions making more money.

Now she seeks declaratory relief, back pay, compensatory damages, and liquidated damages resulting from “unlawful discriminatory and retaliatory conduct” as well as all costs and expenses, including reasonable attorney fees. No dollar figure is included in the court papers.

McDonald referred the Peekskill Herald to her attorney, Nathaniel Smith, who has not responded for comment as of this writing. City Manager Alexander said he could not comment on pending litigation. 

Peekskill paid $1 million in September 2023 to settle a case against a former Peekskill police officer involved in an off-duty traffic accident. And former Assistant Water & Sewer Superintendent Brian Raphael won a default judgement in April 2025 and wants $6 million in damages.

The city also faces a lawsuit from a former Peekskill Police Department officer who resigned in February after being caught covering a station camera and swiping women’s clothing. That officer, Michael Henderson, claims the city violated the terms of a settlement agreement that led to his departure.

McDonald says “excessive workload” takes toll on her mental health

McDonald’s complaint claimed the City of Peekskill and Alexander failed to address McDonald’s mental and medical health, which allegedly resulted from an “excessive workload.”

The Peekskill Youth Bureau, which McDonald previously said has four employees, provides governmental services to about 5,000 children living in Peekskill, according to the complaint.

McDonald alleges the City of Peekskill and Alexander failed to replace departing Peekskill Youth Bureau workers as part of its “discriminatory practices against women in general” and McDonald, adding significantly to her workload without any adjustments in her pay.

McDonald was appointed as executive director of the Youth Bureau on Aug., 6, 2018, reporting directly to Alexander.

Throughout her tenure, several positions or work assignments with the bureau became vacant as a result of retirement or termination of funding for a particular position, thereby requiring her to carry out their duties, she claims.

Examples cited included the Drug Free Community coordinator 2018 to 2022, Sexual Risk Avoidance Education program coordinator since 2022, and Grandpas United coordinator since 2022. 

In addition, the complaint stated that due to improper support from the city and Alexander, McDonald was required at times to take on responsibilities in 2023 and 2024 for two-part time recreational assistants for “Project Elevate” and a full-time worker for the Workforce Development Grant.

After McDonald’s senior office assistant retired in June 2024, McDonald said the city and Alexander failed to hire a replacement and three months later formally eliminated the position from the city’s budget in October.

This position, the complaint said, is a “critically (important) support position” for the executive director of the youth bureau and without a replacement, McDonald was required to carry out her full-time duties as director, the full-time duties of the senior office assistant, as well as the other aforementioned additional duties.

McDonald claims that in May 2023, she told her immediate supervisor, Alexander, and Director of Human Resources Joanne Duncan that as a result of the workload, she suffered from and required treatment for anxiety and depression. Later in March 2024, McDonald said when she told Alexander she was “drowning” as a result of the “excessive workload,” he told her to “power through” it. 

“In other words, Alexander refused to even consider alternatives in order to enable McDonald to manage the Youth Bureau and carry out her job responsibilities,” the complaint states.

McDonald said she was not provided with reasonable workplace accommodations she requested. She added she repeatedly requested immediate action to address the “unsustainable workload” and “its adverse effects” on her mental and medical health, but the city and Alexander “purposefully” and “maliciously” did nothing.

As a result, the complaint states, McDonald was admitted to a hospital emergency room on March 20, 2024, with “dangerously high blood pressure.”

After missing two days of work following her March 20 emergency room visit, McDonald on March 28, 2024, requested a modified four-day-a-week work schedule for three months under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA).

However, McDonald claimed that in an effort to pressure her to resign and falsely depict her as unable to carry out her duties, the city’s Director of Human Resources urged McDonald, at the request of Alexander, to take an extended leave for two months, the lawsuit said. This, she said, was not the type of accommodation she or her doctor had requested.

McDonald said she was required to have a non-emergency surgery on June 20, 2024. As a result of the scheduled surgery, she requested she be permitted to use her accumulated sick days for post-surgery recuperation. However, McDonald said rather than permit her to use her accumulated sick time, the city and Alexander told McDonald in July 2024 to take a leave of absence under FMLA.

This, the complaint claimed, was in an effort to document “purported performance and attendance issues” and depict McDonald as “unable to carry out her duties,” and to “coerce” her into resigning from her position.

McDonald claims she was demoted after told to report to Zamora

Despite claiming she had an “excessive workload,” McDonald alleges her authority was undermined after her leadership duties in several programs were now taken over by Zamora and “secret” meetings about conducting the affairs and operations of the Youth Bureau were held without her.

A few days after McDonald submitted her requested schedule modification on April 1 and April 3, 2024, she said Alexander and the Director of Human Resources both separately informed McDonald that she now reported to Zamora, who McDonald claims was a peer as the Nutrition Site Manager.

Of 15 separate departments or organizational units within the city, this was the only occasion where one director of a city department was told to report to another city director, rather than the city manager, the lawsuit states.

This, her complaint alleged, was an adverse and retaliatory employment action which in effect and purpose was a “demotion.”

“Rather than provide the support that McDonald requested to address her excessive workload, Alexander humiliated McDonald by requiring McDonald to report as a subordinate to Zamora, who upon information and belief had entered into a plan with Alexander and others to coerce McDonald into resigning by creating an abusive work environment,” the complaint claims.

McDonald claimed that in 2023, Alexander and Zamora established a plan to create a “hostile work environment” and “coerce” her into resigning. She claimed that after she was told to report to Zamora, Zamora and Alexander took steps to undermine McDonald’s authority.

This included Zamora “inserting himself” into dealings with other governmental agencies with whom McDonald worked for the past six years and meeting “secretly” with one of McDonald’s male subordinates about conducting the affairs and operations of the Youth Bureau.

McDonald claims Zamora and Alexander “continue to seek to undercut” her role as the Youth Bureau head by taking over leadership in programs that squarely fall within the scope of the Youth Bureau’s functions, such as summer youth activities for 2025.

On June 6, 2024, McDonald submitted a complaint to the city’s human resources department claiming Alexander failed to provide her with required support, was abusive in the manner in which he spoke to McDonald, and was creating a hostile work environment.

This resulted in Alexander and Zamora being interviewed by investigator Ian Loehner of Public Sector HR Consultants LLC, a firm hired by the city to investigate her complaint. However, after the investigator issued a report to the city, the city determined there were no grounds for McDonald’s complaint and Loehner was then hired to investigate McDonald, her complaint alleges.

McDonald investigated for “improperly using a credit card”

McDonald claims that in December 2024, the Human Resources Department, acting at the direction of Alexander, informed McDonald that she was being accused of improperly using a credit card.

As a result McDonald was required to appear before investigator Loehner to address the misconduct charges that the complaint described as “bogus.”

The complaint stated that McDonald explained at the December 2024 meeting that the credit charge for about $400 was an “innocent processing error” that had already been corrected several months prior as soon as she learned of the error.

The complaint claims Loehner, without notice, shifted the subject of the “investigation” to “entirely meritless suggestions” that McDonald had improperly used city property for personal gain.

Loehner showed McDonald Facebook pages from several years ago in a “bogus attempt” to suggest McDonald had “improperly” used a few Youth Bureau shopping bags when she used the bags to provide to another governmental agency Christmas gifts for children, the complaint claims.

The complaint claims the misconduct investigation was directed at McDonald by the city and Alexander for the purpose of “further harassing McDonald” and “coercing” her into resigning.

McDonald said six months later she has not been informed of the outcome of the investigation, resulting in her working under conditions where she “fears on a daily basis that she will be terminated based on bogus charges and that other equally bogus charges will be made against her.”

The City of Peekskill did not respond for comment on the outcome of the Public Sector HR Consultants investigation as of this writing.

Other than the misconduct investigation, McDonald says she has never received any performance write-ups, warnings, or discipline.

McDonald says city didn’t pay her same rate as males in similar roles

McDonald said that requests for salary increases have been repeatedly denied and that she has only been granted slight salary increases since 2018.

The lawsuit said the city has a past practice of discriminating against women in terms of their pay and said the city continues to “violate” the rights of female employees, including McDonald, by paying them less than similarly situated male department heads.

McDonald earned her B.A. in Political Science in 1995 from SUNY-Old Westbury and her M.A. in Public Administration in 2007 from Pace University. 

From August 1996 through June 2006, McDonald worked as the director of the Creating Learning Center for the Peekskill Housing Authority. From February 2009 through July 2018, McDonald was the director of youth services for Sun River Health.

McDonald said when she started working for the Youth Bureau in 2018, the bureau was in disarray. Two prior directors had “very short” tenures and left or were removed from the position. As a result McDonald claims the bureau was not properly managed until she assumed the role. Since then and under her leadership, the Youth Bureau has thrived, the complaint says.

McDonald said that although she is “more qualified” than Zamora due to having advanced degrees and experience, her current salary is $115,000 compared to Zamora’s $170,000 a year. (According to SeeThroughNY, McDonald’s salary is about $119,000 and Zamora’s is about $190,000.)

Zamora holds various titles including nutrition site manager, director of the Community Hub, and an “administrator” within the Parks and Recreation Department, according to the complaint.

In addition, McDonald said that in early 2025, she told Alexander that she would not be handling the annual Juneteenth celebration event, which she had handled without compensation for the past four years. This, she said, was despite that it wasn’t in the scope of the Youth Bureau.

As a result, McDonald said Alexander hired the Youth Bureau’s senior youth advocate Darryl Francis to handle the event. However, McDonald said Francis was paid an extra $700 a week (amounting to about $8,000) for the work. This, her complaint said, was in violation of McDonald’s right to equal pay. 

McDonald demands a trial by jury and requests several actions from the court, including declaring that defendants’ conduct regarding her employment was in violation of her rights, order an injunction and order permanently restraining defendants from engaging in any such “further unlawful conduct,” and award her damages in an amount to be determined at the trial.