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Voice of the People

Dear Editor:

The Board of Commissioners of the V.I. Housing Authority held a hearing on June 2nd beginning at about Noon and ending 12:50 PM on the appeal made by me against the unjust and illegal dismissal of my services from the Authority by Henry Millin of that agency.

The meeting took a matter of form aspect as in the midst of deliberations of the appellant, a motion was made by Com. Ariel Melchoir, one of the three attending judges, to preclude the hearing based on what had already been said & heard & that the Board move into Executive Session.

Items listed and prepared by the appellant in an effort to relate incidents surrounding this case and to prove them by requesting the summoning at the hearing of members of the staff of the Authority collectively were precluded by this motion. Some items which he wished to state and clarify to corroborate his newspaper articles & show conditions which existed were the Director's:

1. Preventing the U.S. Auditors from immediate access to Authority's Acct. Books & records and their consequent remarks.

2. False accusations that the appellant sided with the alleged H. W. De Lagarde & Company to subvert the authority's smooth operation.

3. Hiring of certain types of employees of the Authority

...contrary to the regulations of the Personnel Policy.

4. Destroying his own sick leave form, prepared by the Secretary to reflect time taken.

5. Terming certain tenant families of the Pearson Gardens "a set of black dogs".

6. Refusal or indisposition to obtain printed forms for the conduct of the Authority's work for a long time, refusal to obtain necessary items of stationery.

7. Entertaining discourses on personal affairs (gossip) about the appellant thereafter informing him at his job that he is a "damn good-for-nothing & unfit for the job occupied".

8. Aversion to properly explaining to Secretary, pertinent phases of the work remarking that "you should know" and that "It's none of your business. Mrs. Maria Rodriguez Nicholsen will take care of that from now on. We don't need a Secretary." as per P. R. Field office, and such similar remarks.

9. Calling up staff meetings to ridicule & abuse Jehovah's Witnesses, terming them a set of newspaper and lottery ticket sellers.

10. Requesting the Secretary to advise visitors that "The Director is not in" when he is either already seen or heard by them.

Same points were brought out by appellant, however, without reference to notes, when he summarized the main items of his talk. These included the calling into his office and advising the Secretary that the PHA Puerto Rico Field Office Director tipped him off that Jehovah's Witnesses are a subversive group and to spare no effort in getting rid of them, whether employee, visitor or tenant; and therefore the Secretary should decide who he preferred, the Jehovah's Witnesses or the job.

Commissioner Louis Brown spoke in support of the Executive Director, questioning the Secretary as to the propriety of taking the matter of the dismissal to the press to inform the public (who are, of course, the taxpayers) and if he expected justice from the public; as well as some other questions, either evasive, unnecessary, not quite bearing on the matter before the board, or the answers of which are implicit from the case of the appellant and the material he submitted for hearing, thus stretching out the time for discussing the matter on the agenda. Commissioner Melchior moved that the hearing be terminated and that the Board go into Executive Session.

From Commissioner Brown's questions and statements, as well as from the informal conduct of the hearing of this case, it is certain what decision will be handed down by the Board.

It was the Board's opinion as voiced that the Executive Director had the right to dismiss the Secretary without regard to the Authority-Personnel Policy or the constituted authority of its Board.

Hosea Colbourne