NORTHAMPTON — The state’s Civil Service Commission has ruled that the Northampton Housing Authority had justification for firing a former maintenance director, adding that he is not entitled to have another job with the agency.
Even though David Adamson, a 32-year employee for the authority, claimed he was entitled to another position under the civil service law known as “bumping rights,” and despite identifying problems in the testimony from housing authority officials explaining why his position was eliminated, the commission voted Thursday that there was nothing illegal about his termination.
“Despite some troubling issues related to the forthrightness of NHA witnesses, the NHA has shown, by a preponderance of the evidence, that it had just cause to eliminate the position of maintenance director as part of a bona fide reorganization plan that was designed to increase the efficiency of the NHA,” wrote Christopher Bowman, the commission’s chairman, in the Dec. 8 decision.
NHA Executive Director Cara Clifford, whose contract was renewed and extended in July, reorganized staff when she assumed the job in summer 2015. Adamson and Michael Owens, the former director of administration and finance, were among five longtime employees let go as part of the reorganization.
The commission’s ruling on the Adamson case comes after an April 27 decision in which the commission ordered that Owens should be reinstated with full back pay and benefits following his termination.
In that case, which is under appeal and was heard concurrently with Adamson’s, the commission determined that Clifford and the board violated Owens’ employment rights and failed to meet their responsibilities under the law.
The commission stated that the employment actions were “more akin to a purge of certain long-time employees,” and that the firing of Owens was “nothing more than a bad faith effort to discharge a faithful employee …”
But the commission found differently in Adamson’s situation. Members found that “the NHA had put forth a bona fide reorganization plan that eliminated the maintenance director position, as opposed to simply purging long-time employees at will, something that was found to have occurred in the Owens decision.”
Because of the pending litigation, Clifford referred all questions to the housing authority’s attorney James Pender, with Morgan, Brown & Joy in Boston.
Pender said Friday that he was not surprised at the decision because Clifford had just cause to remove Adamson from his job.
“I think that was the only correct result,” Pender said.
Pender added that the workings of the housing authority are better under Clifford.
“She’s remarkably hard working,” Pender said. “She meets with maintenance staff each morning and things have improved dramatically under her tenure.”
After the first hearing on Adamson’s case last year, the commission held a second hearing June 15 at which members took testimony from Clifford, Adamson and three other employees — senior service technicians Michael Harris and Peter Doppman, and assistant executive director Maria Walton.
Clifford testified that she removed Adamson in part because of poor performance. She cited a terminally ill resident who alleged that maintenance personnel had hung up on him when he called to ask for repairs to his unit.
Additionally, Clifford overheard a maintenance employee describe a resident using foul language, she testified.
Efforts to reach Adamson by phone and email, and his attorney, Maurice Cahillane of Egan, Flanagan and Cohen of Springfield, were unsuccessful Friday.
Despite its ruling in favor of the NHA, the commission criticized some of the testimony of housing authority officials as lacking candor and documents provided as not being credible. Members also said that there were “multiple instances of significant discrepancies and implausible statements in their testimony which paint a troubling picture of an agency creating and back-dating documents solely for the purpose of this litigation.”
Specifically, it appeared the senior service technician job descriptions were not reviewed and signed by September 24, 2015, when Adamson was terminated, and Clifford gave inconsistent information on when these were finalized, the decision signed by Bowman states.
“In short, I accept the testimony of Ms. Clifford that she has effectively assumed the role of both executive director and maintenance director, in part by working (very) long days, with her work week often exceeding 70 hours,” Bowman wrote.
Pender disagrees with this aspect of the decision.
“Some of the findings related to credibility are outrageously wrong, and simply aren’t true,” Pender said.
Pender said the appeal in Owens case is active.
“We expect the court to address that matter in early 2017,” he said.
The Northampton Housing Authority oversees more than 600 federally subsidized housing units at the McDonald House on Old South Street, Forsander and Cahill apartments, Tobin Manor, the Walter Salvo House, Hampshire Heights and Florence Heights. It also administers a Section 8 housing voucher program for more than 1,200 area residents and works with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to administer HUD-VASH, or housing vouchers, for homeless veterans.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
Civil Service Commission decision on David Adamson by Newspapers of New England on Scribd
