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Center for disabled fires two
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET HOMOSASSA -- The boss came down Friday from Gainesville, handed Alma Warren her walking papers and watched as the advocate for the disabled packed up her belongings and turned in her keys to the Center for Independent Living office. After spending the past three years helping Citrus County's disabled residents lead full and independent lives, Warren said, she was fired for reasons that remain a mystery to her. "I'm at a loss," said Warren, former program coordinator for the center. "I'm totally confused." Warren's former boss, Center for Independent Living executive director William Kennedy, is saying little about her termination or the firing Friday of Donna Mead, an independent living skills trainer at the center. "I can't really speak in any detail about any single staff member or personnel issues," Kennedy said on Monday. "What I can say is that the center is still there and we're still open." The center, which has seven remaining employees in Citrus County, will scale back its hours until new hires bring the center back to full staff, he said. Previously open five days a week, the center is now open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Kennedy and two other officials from Ocala and Gainesville will pitch in at the Homosassa office, he said, and other employees have the skills to meet clients' needs. "Our entire staff is fairly cross-trained so any number of our staff can fill in as necessary and needed," Kennedy said. The nonprofit center uses federal and state grants, as well as private donations, to provide peer support, independent living skills and information referrals for people with physical, mental and emotional disabilities. Many of the 135 clients who use the center learned Monday that Warren and Mead would no longer be working at the center. "Two individuals came out, and they saw Alma and they hugged her and kissed her and cried," said Jean Mazzei, who co-founded the local Center for Independent Living branch with Warren in 1998. "These are disabled people, and she is like their second mother." Warren's letter of termination cited a litany of employee sins -- insubordination, violation of policies and procedures, inability to perform her job function as local program coordinator -- but Warren and her supporters are baffled by the charges. "As a businesswoman, if I had a girl working for me and I saw she wasn't doing the job in a way that was suitable to me, I would have called her in and reprimanded her or discussed the situation with her," Mazzei said. "In her three years, Alma has never been reprimanded, never been called on the carpet, and all of a sudden a man comes in and hands her a letter saying she's terminated?" she said. "It doesn't make sense." Warren wonders whether she was fired "to shut me up." For the past month, Warren has been publicly questioning the lack of handicap-accessible facilities in county buildings. County officials say they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent years bringing facilities up to Americans with Disabilities Act standards. But Warren has asked why essential facilities, such as the bathrooms at the Crystal River branch of the Citrus County Health Department, remain inaccessible to people in wheelchairs. "If a man in a wheelchair needs to use the urinal (at the Health Department), he needs to stand back 5 feet and shoot," she said. "That's our job, to advocate," Warren added. "But when you question the county and question money, you're stepping on people's toes." Kennedy would not say why Warren was fired, but he said her advocacy of handicap-accessible facilities had nothing to do with it. "This matter was reviewed by our governing board of directors executive committee, as well as our board attorney," Kennedy said. "There should be no question that an appropriate course of action took place, and that the center is going to move forward from this." Warren said she plans to hire an attorney and take the matter to court, where Center for Independent Living officials will have to explain why they fired her. In the meantime, Warren said, she will not let up on her campaign to make sure disabled residents enjoy the same access to government buildings as everyone else. "I'm not giving up, because a lot of people have depended on me," Warren said. "If I don't speak out for them, who's going to?"
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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