America’s farthest-west town, Adak, is being sued by a former employee who alleges he was denied overtime pay and pressured into resigning because of racism by city officials.
A city council member named in the lawsuit, Christian Tolliver, declined extensive comment but said the allegation is untrue. A second person named as a defendant, former city council member Elaine Smiloff, could not be reached for comment.
The lawsuit, from Xavier Charles, was filed Nov. 12 in state Superior Court at Unalaska. It names the 67-person town of Adak and two city council members as defendants. Charles is seeking an unspecified financial award, including back pay, front pay, and “compensatory damages.”
Charles, who is Black, was a public works laborer from March 2023 to April 2024. He delivered mail and performed maintenance and a variety of jobs throughout the town.
The complaint alleges that a federal contractor who invited Charles to dinner at the Adak Lodge — owned by Tolliver — was told by Tolliver “that Plaintiff’s ‘kind were not allowed at his house.’”
The complaint says Tolliver repeatedly questioned Charles’ conduct and states that Tolliver told one of Charles’ coworkers that Charles “rides around the neighborhood stealing and joy riding” and said “he’s black so he must be stealing.”
The complaint alleges that Tolliver’s wife tracked Charles while he did his work, and that Charles’s supervisor called Tolliver racist.
Charles filed a formal complaint with a third-party firm used by the city of Adak. The resulting investigation “concluded with a finding that the allegations were substantiated,” the complaint states, but adds that “the city of Adak took no meaningful disciplinary action.”
In April 2024, another city council member told Charles, “if I didn’t resign they were going to figure out a way to fire me anyways,” the complaint states.
Charles filed a complaint with the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission and a charge with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the EEOC issued a “notice of right to sue.”
Charles is being represented by Anchorage attorney Isaac Zorea.
“It’s unfortunate,” Zorea said by phone. “Charles came from the Lower 48 up to Adak; you’re moving quite a distance from the South, you would think that you’d have a better reception.”
He noted that Tolliver has a Confederate flag on his truck, something mentioned in the complaint.
“I think it’s just sad, you know. It doesn’t look good for our state,” Zorea said.
Former Adak city manager Layton Lockett, who ran the city during Charles’ time, did not return two phone calls seeking comment. Adak’s current acting manager declined to comment, saying she had not seen the lawsuit.
Tolliver, reached by phone, declined extensive comment, saying that if he is formally served with the lawsuit, he will have a lawyer respond.
“I don’t know where or who he’s trying to extort money from, but he had just gotten out of prison when he got here, and his uncle was trying to give him a new start, and it didn’t really work out,” Tolliver said. “His behavior wasn’t what many people on the island would have wished it had been, so that was more of a problem with most people that I know than his skin color, and maybe he confused the two.”
Tolliver said he is a retired Army officer and has worked with racially different people before.
“If he was here, I would tell him to his face: I don’t have a problem with his skin color, but his behavior,” Tolliver said.