FCHA calls meeting after director resigns
An emergency meeting of the Forrest City Housing Authority Board has been called for this evening after another executive director resigned, citing an inability to continue working with board chair Ernestine Weaver.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m., at the agency’s headquarters on Dawson Road.
Donna Mathews, who was hired to lead the agency last year following the abrupt resignation of previous executive director Denise Grady, left the agency on Friday.
Grady also resigned over disagreements with Weaver and the board.
In both instances, the disagreements appear to be centered around the agency’s maintenance director Tony Bean.
During a meeting in October last year, Grady resigned immediately after the board voted to rehire Bean, who Grady fired due to “misconduct interaction with a fellow coworker, misconduct interaction with the residents and other unprofessional acts.”
The board reinstated Bean as a supervisor and voted to pay him for the time he missed work after being fired. Following that vote, Grady turned in her keys and left the agency.
During a recent meeting on Sept. 30, Mathews and Weaver argued over Juanita Bean being laid off, a move that Mathews said was due to the job she was hired to perform being completed.
Weaver told Mathews at that time to pay Juanita Bean for the two weeks she did not work, saying, “the board has spoken.”
The conversation at the September meeting eventually turned to back to Tony Bean, with Weaver saying he sent her a grievance, via certified mail, in April. Weaver said she spoke with Mathews then, who said she had
(Continued from Page 1) not received a copy of the grievance. However, Weaver claimed Mathews told her she had something on Tony Bean “that did not look good.”
Following the September meeting, during which disagreements between Weaver and Mathews escalated, Mathews sent the agency a letter dated Oct. 3 notifying them of her decision to resign, effective Oct. 7.
In that letter, Mathews wrote, “As executive director, your decisions should be respected as well as honored by the board who appointed you, unfortunately this is not the case.
“Aside from decisions, the level of disrespect and belittlement I have received from board chairman Ernestine Weaver over the past several months have reached a point where I am no longer willing to accept it,” wrote Mathews. “During board meetings, instead of being spoken to in a professional/respectful manner I have consistently been cut off mid sentence, told to ‘shut up’ and not allowed to respond without being overruled with the phrase, ‘the board has spoken.’
“Board chairman Ernestine Weaver has consistently undermined my decisions to hire and fire employees as I see fit, as well as consistently threatened my job if I did not do the things she thought I should do,” Mathews wrote. “In order for a Housing Authority to run smoothly there can only be one executive director, not two people making decisions on the day to day operations. I feel as long as board chairman Ernestine Weaver continues to undermine the decisions made by the executive director, then no matter who is appointed the position they will not be able to perform the duties of the job.”
The meeting this evening is open to the public.