The wife of Riverside’s top municipal executive has filed a claim against the city he runs, marking another unusual chapter in a political drama that has roiled the Inland Empire’s largest population center.
Susan Freeman, the wife of City Manager Mike Futrell, filed the claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, on Wednesday. Freeman alleges the city of Riverside violated her rights by investigating her without due process in retaliation for her criticism of public officials. That came after the Riverside City Council sent Freeman a letter alleging she harassed municipal employees, which she denies.
“For anyone who looks carefully at the facts, my claim raises serious questions about whether I became the victim of retaliatory conduct and whether official power was allegedly used to distract from or avoid accountability for serious issues inside City Hall,” Freeman said in a videotaped statement uploaded to YouTube.
City officials confirmed receipt of the claim and said it would be handled through the city’s normal review process.
“We take our obligation to protect the constitutional rights of all residents seriously,” said Steven Robillard, Riverside mayor pro tem, in a statement. “At the same time, claims against the City should be evaluated based on the facts and the law through the established process.”
The intrigue comes as Riverside officials face criticism over the city’s handling of an internal investigation into allegations that two of its senior code enforcement officers engaged in physical altercations with street vendors and improperly seized their property — and that supervisors retaliated against a whistleblower who reported the conduct.
Members of several social justice organizations spoke at a City Council meeting this week, demanding a moratorium on code enforcement operations and restitution for vendors whose property was seized.
“We are taking notes on what the city does,” said Daniela Ramos, an organizer with the Inland Empire Immigrant Youth Collective, “and we want you to know that we will not stand behind a city that does not value the hardworking people that live here.”
At the meeting, Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson called on the city management team to hire an independent consultant to review the Community and Economic Development Department, which includes the code enforcement division. Two of the department’s directors have been terminated in the span of five years, she said.
“Two terminated within five years, multiple other terminations, recurring anonymous complaints and letters, employees out on stress leave, long-running conflict, documented malfeasance that’s resulted in dismissals: These all point to a very dysfunctional department,” Lock Dawson said.
One of the former directors of the department, Jennifer Lilley, also figures into Freeman’s saga. Freeman describes Lilley as a friend, and an anonymous email sent to City Council in 2024 complained their socializing “could be perceived as exerting undue influence or favoritism.” Both women have denied that allegation.
Freeman declined to discuss the claim beyond her videotaped statement.
The longtime communications specialist is a prolific Facebook poster and often criticizes President Trump. In previous interviews, she said she learned late last year that a city official had given a presentation to council members that depicted her online activity as problematic. She then sent the City Council and Lock Dawson a five-page PDF defending her social media use.
The City Council responded with the letter requesting that Freeman “cease all harassing telephone calls, emails, text messages, social media posts, or any other form of harassing communication to any City employee that lacks a legitimate purpose.”
“While your right to express your political opinions is protected speech, speech that harasses City employees and disrupts their ability to perform their duties is not protected,” the letter read.
The letter also stated that while Freeman has the right to promote business endeavors, “your relationship with the City Manager creates a feeling of pressure for City staff when you solicit City employees to participate in services they have to pay for or ask City staff for donations.”
Freeman previously said that she had contacted city employees to invite them to events, provide them with advice and, in one case, solicit donations for a tool lending library, but she denied that her communications were unwanted or harassing.
In her statement, Freeman said she came to Riverside an accomplished professional but has since been reduced to one role: the city manager’s wife, which she called “misogynistic.”
“That framing was not by accident,” she said. “It was used to diminish me, silence me, isolate me and cast me and my independent thoughts, words and deeds as suspicious.”
“My protected speech, civic engagement, public records activity and advocacy were recast as misconduct,” she added.
Her claim, she said, “is about whether government can use official authority to stigmatize a private citizen without facts, without process, without fairness, accountability, investigation or even an interview — not even a phone call.”
The letter from the City Council became public in April after Freeman got into a Facebook dispute with local resident and frequent City Council commenter Jason Hunter over a proposed sales tax increase.
Someone then tipped off Hunter to a public records request Freeman had filed with the city in which she requested evidence to back up the allegations in the letter, as well as anonymous correspondence mentioning both her and Lilley.
Hunter filed his own public records request to obtain the letter and posted it on a popular community Facebook group.
Meanwhile, Futrell, Freeman’s husband, had recently announced he was leaving to become city manager of Pasadena but soon walked back the statement. Both he and Freeman have suggested that the publication of the letter cost him the job.
Freeman is seeking unspecified monetary damages for alleged violations of her constitutional rights, damage to her reputation, and pain and suffering, according to her claim.
The case is one of several active legal cases involving Riverside employees or their relatives.
The city is continuing to defend itself from a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit filed last year by Phaedra Norton, the former city attorney, who alleges she was terminated after she reported that a City Council member had leaked confidential information to a friend who was suing the city over a lease dispute. Meanwhile, the city also has sued City Councilmember Chuck Conder and former Councilmember Steven Adams, who allegedly leaked the information.
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