Taking care of friends, family
Talk about irony. In an attempt to beat a discrimination complaint filed by a jilted older custodian, Brownsville School Board members testified his age had nothing to do with it. The reason James R. Bennett couldn’t get a full-time job with the school was that he wasn’t related or friends with any of the board members.
Said board director Melvin Sally II while under oath, “It’s not the best approach to hiring, but it’s the practice that’s most often followed.”
In fact it helps even more if you’ve fathered a board member’s grandchild or worked a re-election campaign.
These disclosures were brought out Tuesday during a hearing before the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. Bennett of Grindstone, who works as a substitute custodian and seasonal grass cutter, claims he has excellent qualifications, but that he was twice passed over for promotion to a full-time job in 1998 as he was 63 years old.
Nonsense. Age had nothing to do with. Just ask board member Stella Broadwater who lobbied for one of the hires, then 22-year-old Raul Delgado.
“He was the father of my grandchild,” she testified. Still that close relationship didn’t prompt Broadwater to abstain from voting. She made sure her future son-in-law had a good-paying job with the school district.
It takes gall to do this and to act today as though it was all on the up-and-up. It takes equal chutzpah to explain as Sally did that the other hire went to a woman he befriended along the campaign trail, who worked hard in his re-election campaign and then called him often looking for a job.
“She was terribly enthusiastic and eager to be employed,” he said. So are many other folks in the Brownsville School District, including Bennett.
The commission didn’t offer an immediate ruling on Bennett’s claim. But after reviewing the testimony it’s clear Bennett was discriminated against. His age probably wasn’t the culprit. He just didn’t have the right connections regardless of any so-called official board hiring policies that apparently are a waste of paper and ink.
As board president Jim Brown said, “Certainly you’re going to try to get someone you know a job. It may not be the best way or the best choice, but it’s done.” And now there is proof that cronyism lives on in the Brownsville Area School District.