Daughter to succeed Melendez

LAWRENCE — The woman hired to succeed her politically prominent mother as community services director for the region's leading anti-poverty agency worked for most of the last seven years as a secretary in a Florida middle school, where officials said her duties did not go beyond filing, typing, scheduling appointments and answering the phones.

Marisabel Melendez is the daughter of Isabel Melendez, a leader of the local Latino community for a half-century and a close friend and longtime political mentor of Mayor William Lantigua. Isabel Melendez ran the Community Services Center for the Greater Lawrence Community Action Council for most of the 38 years she worked at GLCAC, until handing it over to her daughter this week.

Christian Dame, GLCAC's interim executive director, said in a press release that he expected Marisabel Melendez's appointment "will invite scrutiny" because she is succeeding a woman "who happens to be her mother." Dame said he chose her not because of her family ties, but because of her "more than 15 years of professional social service experience."

He rejected a request for Melendez's resume, but briefly elaborated on her qualifications in an interview, when he said she "managed family counseling sites at two schools" in Broward County, Fla.

School personnel records show Melendez worked as a $20,588-a-year secretary in a family counseling program at Bair Middle School in Sunrise, Fla., from Nov. 3, 2004, until going on unpaid leave Oct. 11, 2010. She was laid off eight months later.

"I wouldn't say management per se," Debbie Glover, a supervisor in the counseling program, said about Melendez's duties at the school. "She was primarily a secretary. She scheduled appointments for families. She typed reports for us. Her duties were secretarial in nature. Mostly answering the phone. Filing. Things like that."

"She just kept the records," said Kathy Breitenkam, an office manager at the Bair School. "Typing notes for the counselors. Filing out monthly paperwork that goes to the school board about students going to counseling."

Dame also cited Melendez's experience as a project director for Lighthouse Senior Care in Lawrence. That agency failed last year before opening its doors or serving a single client because the state declined to fund it, said Lynne Brown-Zounes, who was to be its operations director.

Brown-Zounes said Melendez worked on the start-up from May 2010 to November 2011, when her duties included recruitment and marketing. Melendez would have directed the program had it opened, Brown-Zounes said.

"Marisa moved on and so did I," Brown-Zounes said. "She's a great people-person. She's compassionate, caring, loving. She has great work skills, great work ethics. I'd hire her tomorrow in a minute."

Dame would not say what Melendez will earn overseeing GLCAC's Community Services Center and rejected a request to interview her, noting that GLCAC is a private agency not bound by public disclosure laws. About 98 percent of its $28 million annual budget comes from the state and federal government.

Melendez did not return phone calls Tuesday. A reporter who visited the agency to request an interview yesterday was told she was not available. Isabel Melendez also declined to be interviewed. Dame also did not return follow-up phone calls later yesterday as The Eagle-Tribune vetted his statements about Melendez's experience.

Mary-Leah Assad, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Housing and Community Development, which provides most of GLCAC's state funding, said DHCD was not aware of Melendez's qualifications or her appointment and would not comment on them.

In an e-mail, Assad said, "Following proper protocols and transparent hiring practices is the responsibility of the executive director at all local community action agencies, and we expect those hiring practices to be used in all cases."

The decision to appoint Marisabel Melendez to succeed her mother comes a few months after GLCAC's board of directors enacted dozens of internal reforms at DHCD's direction, including new limits on nepotism. The policy allows GLCAC to hire "individuals with personal relationships to current employees" under several circumstances, including one that would not allow Melendez's mother to supervise her daughter. The two are overlapping at the agency this week, until Isabel Melendez retires tomorrow.

Marisabel Melendez will be the second child of Isabel Melendez to win a high-profile appointment in the city in recent months. In October, Mayor Lantigua named her son, Jamie Luis Melendez Jr., a retired Army sergeant, as director of Veterans Services. He earns up to $59,135 annually.

Dame said Isabel Melendez and Mayor Lantigua had no role in his decision to hire Marisabel Melendez. He said she was chosen from among eight applicants, including three who were interviewed by a screening committee that Dame served on. The director's position was advertised in two local papers, including The Eagle-Tribune and on the agency's web site. The ad said applicants should have "10-15 years of extensive experience in bilingual/bicultural programs."

"We have strict policies at GLCAC that would prevent an individual from being involved in the hiring of a relative," Dame said. "However, having said that, no one should be disqualified from applying and accepting a job at GLCAC simply because of a family connection."

The GLCAC board enacted the internal reforms following a series of stories in The Eagle-Tribune last year that revealed nepotism, fraud and mismanagement at the top, including the disclosure that Philip Laverriere, the agency's $145,000-a-year executive director, was spending workday afternoons playing cards and video games at the Elks Club on Andover Street.

The newspaper also reported that Gayle Williams was given a $70,000-a-year consulting contract to run a child-care program at the agency a few years after her husband Evan Williams joined GLCAC's board of directors, then hired her brother and sister-in-law and gave $14,500 in tuition reimbursement to a daughter. Laverriere and Williams resigned, as did 10 of the board of directors' 21 members, including Williams' husband.

The state Division of Housing and Community Development conducted its own investigation and threatened to cut off funding and de-certify the agency unless it enacted the reforms. Investigators for the federal Department of Health and Human Services conducted a second investigation and are scheduled to release their findings next week, along with another list of demands that could include refunding some government money.

Dame said Marisabel Melendez is living in Lawrence and was not working at the time he hired her. He said she had volunteered at GLCAC for 30 years but never worked for it.

Her mother helped lead the wave of Latinos from the Caribbean to Lawrence when she arrived from Puerto Rico in 1959 and went on to become one of the city's leading community activists. She has worked at GLCAC since 1973 and, besides the Community Services Center, ran the Roberto Clemente Youth Program and the Adult Literacy Tutoring Program.

Isabel Melendez ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2001 in a race that Lantigua managed. She worked in Lantigua's mayoral campaign in 2009, helping round up votes in the Puerto Rican community for the Dominican candidate.

Lantigua has tried to exert his influence at GLCAC since a few days after taking office in January 2010, when he demanded the board allow him to replace two of its members. The board rejected the effort, but Lantigua was able to name two or three people to the board following the resignations last year.

He did not return a phone call seeking comment for this story.

The Community Services Center operates an umbrella of social service programs out of a suite of storefront offices at 21 Lawrence St., including immigration and translation services. It also coordinates after-school, voter registration and homelessness prevention programs, provides funeral assistance and helps run a youth sports league.

The center is one of about two dozen social service programs GLCAC oversees. In all, the agency serves about 27,000 people in Lawrence, Methuen and the Andovers.

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