City Hall has created a new crime punishable by firing: making use of the First Amendment.
The DeStefano administration has notified two employees of its Elderly Services department that it plans to fire them for, among other offenses, speaking to the press, and helping seniors speak in public about the closing of their center.
The two employees — West River Senior Center Director Michelle Clary and outreach worker Sharyn Bishop (pictured) — have been suspended with pay pending a “pretermination” hearing next Tuesday.
They were also accused of unauthorized efforts to save the city money on the senior center’s rent.
They plan to fight their dismissals. So does their union president, Larry Amendola.
“If there’s something wrong” with what Clary and Bishop did, Amendola said Tuesday, “then there’s something wrong with the world.”
The head of the Connecticut chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called not just this case, but the city’s larger policy governing employees’ comments to the media, an extraordinary and unconstitutional trampling of free-speech rights.
City Elderly Services Director Darcey Lynn Cobbs notified the employees by letter on May 16 of the May 27 pretermination hearing, at which the city will “determin[e] whether it is feasible to continue your employment relationship.”
Cobbs’ complaints stem from a May 15 public hearing of the Board of Aldermen’s Finance Committee. The hearing dealt with upcoming emergency budget cuts. Clary and Bishop showed up with members of the West River Senior Center, which is slated to be closed as a result of the cuts. The seniors spoke up at the hearing in favor of keeping the center open (pictured).
Their story was featured the following morning in the New Haven Independent.
Cobbs didn’t like that.
Sharon Bishop was quoted in the article. She called the closing “very sad.” She called the center “a family … That place is so full of love.”
Cobbs didn’t like that, either.
She said so in count 4 of the misdeeds listed in her letter to Bishop.
“You gave unauthorized verbal statements to the media (New Haven Independent on-line newspaper) on Wednesday May 14, 2008 that were in direct violation of the City of New Haven Media Protocol Policy. All staff in the Department of Elderly Services received a copy of this policy in December 2007,” Cobbs wrote.
“In addition, during our most recent staff meeting held May 9, 2008 I discussed clearly with all staff (where you were seated directly next to myself) that they were to make no comments to the media whatsoever and that all requests for statements were to be filtered through the office of Jessica Mayorga, Director of Communications for the City of New Haven.”
Bishop also committed an offense Cobbs categorized in a separate item as “Additional information provided to the media.”
“You provided a copy of the letter from [the center’s landlord] to Melissa Bailey, reporter for the New Haven Independent which was then quoted in their on-line newspaper.”
The letter detailed another set of complaints: That Bishop, for instance, held a conversation with the center’s landlord in a effort to prevent the closing of the center at 1562 Chapel St. Bishop “discussed with her and encouraged her to lower the rent on the facility in an effort to entice the City of New Haven to keep the center open. This behavior not only falls outside of the parameters of your authority as a staff person in the department, but it also undermines my authority.”
Another no-no for a city employee, according to Cobbs’ letter: “You have encouraged members of the West River Center to communicate their concerns” to the landlord, Audrey Grava.
Cobbs’ letter to Michelle Clary, the center’s director, repeated the charges about trying to work out a deal to keep the center open and organize seniors to speak up, according to union president Amendola.
Clary declined comment.
Cobbs (pictured) was asked Tuesday about the implications of disciplining employees for speaking to a reporter at a public meeting or encouraging constituents to speak in public.
“I’m really not at liberty to comment at all. I can’t give any comment that can be printed in the Independent,” Cobbs said.
Similarly, mayoral spokeswoman Mayorga said she couldn’t comment because this is an open personnel matter. The letter to Bishop also details two unrelated charges of inappropriate workplace behavior, including “loud and boisterous behavior” at a public function. Bishop Tuesday denied the allegations of inappropriate behavior.
Those allegations appear destined to be subsumed by the larger precedent the city is establishing about free-speech rights of employees.
Last November Mayorga announced a new city policy that supposedly requires all department heads to check with her before speaking to the press.
Other government agencies have periodically tried to institute such sweeping policies, only to see them struck down in court, according to Andrew Schneider, executive director of Connecticut’s ACLU.
“There’s a problem with this policy of having to run everything by a spokesman,” he said Tuesday. “I have heard of agencies that tried to do that. When it’s been challenged, it’s been ruled unconstitutional.
“The intimidating impact of employees having to ask a spokesman for the right to exercise a basic privilege creates a chilling effect that can be safely described as an arctic blast,” Schneider said.
“This is clearly a First Amendment problem — based on the belief in a free and democratic society, the public has a right to know how its institutions are operating. The fact that a senior center is closing is of public concern. Employees have a right to express their opinion.”
Amendola, president of union Local 3414, said he was outraged by the First Amendment implications of Cobbs’ letters — and vowed not to be muzzled by the administration.
“If you come to me for a statement, I’m going to talk. The policy as far as I’m concerned is way the hell off base,” said Amendola, who works for the parks department.
As for employees seeking to help seniors save their center, “as far as I’m concerned, it’s not inappropriate,” Amendola said. “What’s the whole purpose? To save the center, to save the seniors.”
West River Senior Center President Mary Jane Simmons said the suspensions, like the center’s planned closing, made her “sad.”
“We love the place. We love Sharon. And we love Michelle,” Simmons said. “I don’t know where I’ll go if they shut it down.”
Wow!
There has to be more to her termination than talking to the press that is just crazy and I am not sure it is legal as the sole justification. There must be more to it then meets the eye.
Given Bishop's history at City Hall there must be more to it.