New hire linked to 1996 Florida scandal

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January 27, 2012

By Keith Eddings and Yadira Betances keddings@eagletribune.com The Eagle Tribune Fri Jan 27, 2012, 02:41 AM EST

LAWRENCE — The woman who succeed her politically connected mother to a top job at the area's leading anti-poverty agency was at the center of another storm over hiring 15 years ago that ended when her former fiance was fired as director of a Florida housing authority, according to news stories published at the time.

The woman, Marisabel Melendez, this week succeeded her mother, Isabel Melendez, as director of the Community Services Center run by the Greater Lawrence Community Action Council, a $24-million-a-year non-profit that remains under the scrutiny of the state following revelations last year of nepotism, mismanagement and fraud.

Christian Dame, the agency's interim director, said he hired Melendez because of her experience in social services but rejected requests for her resume and would not allow her to be interviewed. He cited her work managing a counseling centers at Broward County, Fla., schools and at a local day care center for seniors, but her duties at the schools were secretarial and the senior center never opened its doors, The Eagle-Tribune reported yesterday.

Fifteen years ago, Melendez's former fiance, Ronald Range, was fired as interim director of the Delray Beach Housing Authority after the South Florida Sun Sentinel newspaper reported he had recommended Melendez for a job at the agency, supervised her work, promoted her and gave her an 18 percent raise without disclosing they were engaged.

Range and Melendez had been dating for six years and were living together in Sunrise, Fla., at the time, the newspaper reported.

Range fired Melendez the day after the newspaper disclosed their relationship on Aug. 16, 1996. He was himself fired by the housing authority's board of directors a few weeks later.

Sixteen months later, Range was charged with grand theft for writing Housing Authority checks totaling $2,296 to his mother and to a car repair service, the Sun Sentinel reported. Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti could not be reached yesterday to determine the outcome of the charges. Housing Authority president Dorothy Ellington did not return a phone call.

Melendez also did not respond to phone calls or messages left at the Community Service Center at 21 Lawrence St. Wednesday and yesterday.

Melendez's mother, Isabel Melendez, yesterday defended GLCAC's decision to hire her daughter during her daily radio show, "La Voz del Pueblo," on the Impacto radio station at 1490 AM. She said she and Mayor William Lantigua — who has at least two appointments to GLCAC's board — did not influence Dame's decision to hire Marisabel Melendez.

"I sacrificed myself and my children to work with the community, sometimes leaving them alone, taking food or clothing from them to give to people who needed," she said. "Today, I feel happy that my children are contributing to the city and the community."

In October, Lantigua named Isabel Melendez's son — Marisabel's brother — Jamie Luis Melendez Jr., a retired Army sergeant, as director of Veterans Services. He earns up to $59,135 annually.

Isabel Melendez was at a GLCAC board meeting last night to accept a resolution commending her 38-year career at the agency. Wearing her signature fedora, she spoke for 15 minutes about her work and received a standing ovation from the board. She declined to be interviewed.

Isabel Melendez has been a leader of the local Latino community since immigrating from Puerto Rico in 1959. She was one of Lantigua's political mentors, helping guide his rise to the state legislature and then to the mayoralty, and now serves as one of his political lieutenants.

"This was something I'd been waiting for," she said the day after Lantigua's election in 2009, following a campaign that she helped run. "And we got it."

Thomas Perrault, the chair of GLCAC's board of directors, said yesterday he supported Dame's decision to hire Marisabel Melendez but could not describe details about her career.

"The volunteering part," he said about what impressed him most about Marisabel Melendez, referring to what Dame said was her 38 years of volunteer work with GLCAC.

Dame said Wednesday that Marisabel Melendez, 49, never worked for GLCAC. In reporting on her relationship with Range in 1996, the Sun Sentinel said she claimed working as a consumer aide at GLCAC in her application for employment with the Del Ray Housing Authority. She also reported working as an associate manager at the Lawrence Housing Authority.

Dame did not respond to phone calls and e-mails as The Eagle-Tribune checked out the work experience he said Melendez had. He declined to be interviewed at the GLCAC board meeting last night and has declined to say what she will be paid.

About 98 percent of GLCAC's annual budget comes from the state and federal governments.

GLCAC's board has enacted three dozen internal reforms over the last year after a state investigation confirmed the findings of an Eagle-Tribune investigation that uncovered nepotism, mismanagement and fraud at the agency.

The reforms include new limits on nepotism, but allow 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 overlapped at the agency this week, until Isabel Melendez retires today.

At the GLCAC board meeting last night, Isabel Melendez said that while she was leaving the agency, she would be a continued presence.

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