City Hall
Senior Advocates Protest Decision to Put Popular Director on Leave
Photo of Pam Piering and Mayor Mike McGinn via Seniors Digest.
A group of local advocates for seniors and the disabled met with Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith last week to lodge their protest against the city's decision to put Pam Piering, director of the city's Aging and Disability Services division, on indefinite paid administrative leave while the Human Services Department completes an investigation into whether Piering failed to take an anonymous complaint seriously enough last year. The tipster alleged that a former employee of a nonprofit social services agency defrauded the city of $89,000.
The advocates, who include at least one former employee of the division, charge that Piering is the target of a witch hunt; that there is a culture of age discrimination at the department; and that the city, under new HSD director Dannette Smith, is "dismantling" Aging and Disability Services.
According to several of the advocates who attended the meeting, Smith read a list of talking points and spent an hour or so listening to their concerns. According to the talking points, which Smith's office provided to PubliCola, the mayor's office "appreciate[s] the input, but ... needs to allow the process to reach conclusion," meaning the investigation. The city, Smith continued, gives departments wide discretion to conduct their own internal investigations, and believes this investigation will be completed by June.
Smith initially agreed to talk to PubliCola about the meeting and the investigation, but backed out at the last minute; his office told us he didn't have anything to add to the talking points.
Kaylene Moon, chair of the Seattle-King County Advisory Council on Aging and Disability Services, says her organization is "really worried about the morale at Aging and Disability Services right now. ... My guess is that the internal investigation has just really put the fear of god into people."
The investigation, Moon says, "feels like a witch hunt to me, because it's so out of proportion [with the allegations]---an agency with a small contract gets in trouble with a program for an $89,000 loss, out of hundreds of millions of dollars ... and they're implying that she has some responsibility for fraud?"
The advocates also charge that all the employees who have been let go at HSD during a recent reorganization of the department are over 50, an allegation HSD has not yet responded to.
HSD spokesman David Takami said Smith was not available for comment, and added that he was "not sure she'd want to comment" on the advocates' allegations. He says he does not know how much the investigation will ultimately cost the city.
Former ADS employee Margaret Casey, who attended the meeting, says Piering was called in to Dannette Smith's office at 5:00 on Wednesday, May 12, the day before a story ran in the Seattle Times about the allegations, a story repeated by other advocates familiar with the situation. "That's how much warning she had," Casey says. (An email to Piering's home address bounced back.)
Casey adds that it's a "huge waste of money to be paying Pam full time and benefits and not having the work done" while she's on leave.
A group of local advocates for seniors and the disabled met with Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith last week to lodge their protest against the city's decision to put Pam Piering, director of the city's Aging and Disability Services division, on indefinite paid administrative leave while the Human Services Department completes an investigation into whether Piering failed to take an anonymous complaint seriously enough last year. The tipster alleged that a former employee of a nonprofit social services agency defrauded the city of $89,000.
The advocates, who include at least one former employee of the division, charge that Piering is the target of a witch hunt; that there is a culture of age discrimination at the department; and that the city, under new HSD director Dannette Smith, is "dismantling" Aging and Disability Services.
According to several of the advocates who attended the meeting, Smith read a list of talking points and spent an hour or so listening to their concerns. According to the talking points, which Smith's office provided to PubliCola, the mayor's office "appreciate[s] the input, but ... needs to allow the process to reach conclusion," meaning the investigation. The city, Smith continued, gives departments wide discretion to conduct their own internal investigations, and believes this investigation will be completed by June.
Smith initially agreed to talk to PubliCola about the meeting and the investigation, but backed out at the last minute; his office told us he didn't have anything to add to the talking points.
Kaylene Moon, chair of the Seattle-King County Advisory Council on Aging and Disability Services, says her organization is "really worried about the morale at Aging and Disability Services right now. ... My guess is that the internal investigation has just really put the fear of god into people."
The investigation, Moon says, "feels like a witch hunt to me, because it's so out of proportion [with the allegations]---an agency with a small contract gets in trouble with a program for an $89,000 loss, out of hundreds of millions of dollars ... and they're implying that she has some responsibility for fraud?"
The advocates also charge that all the employees who have been let go at HSD during a recent reorganization of the department are over 50, an allegation HSD has not yet responded to.
HSD spokesman David Takami said Smith was not available for comment, and added that he was "not sure she'd want to comment" on the advocates' allegations. He says he does not know how much the investigation will ultimately cost the city.
Former ADS employee Margaret Casey, who attended the meeting, says Piering was called in to Dannette Smith's office at 5:00 on Wednesday, May 12, the day before a story ran in the Seattle Times about the allegations, a story repeated by other advocates familiar with the situation. "That's how much warning she had," Casey says. (An email to Piering's home address bounced back.)
Casey adds that it's a "huge waste of money to be paying Pam full time and benefits and not having the work done" while she's on leave.
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