Greeney sues former employer for wages, wrongful dismissal

By Owen Boss

Staff Writer

NORTHAMPTON - The longtime coordinator of Amherst's Not Bread Alone soup kitchen filed a lawsuit against her former employer Monday in Hampshire Superior Court alleging she was wrongfully fired for comments made at an Amherst Select Board meeting last year.

Hwei-Ling Greeney, 51, of 76 McClellan St., Amherst, filed a civil action lawsuit against Center for Human Development Inc., of 332 Birnie Ave., Springfield, seeking $153,166.67 for emotional distress and lost wages, according to the suit.

Jim Goodwin, president of the center, declined to comment Monday because he said "this is the first I'm hearing about this," and he "didn't know anything about the lawsuit."

According to the suit, Greeney, who began her employment with the center on May 28, 1997, as soup kitchen coordinator at Not Bread Alone, attended a Select Board meeting on April 6, 2009, as a volunteer representative of Amherst's Committee on Homelessness.

Soon after, Greeney alleges, she was summoned to a meeting with her supervisor, Laura Reichsman, and Reichsman's superior, Rose Evans, and was told that her comments at the Select Board meeting had offended a town official and jeopardized the center's funding from the town. She was also told, according to the suit, that in order to keep her job she would have to resign from the committee and "no longer speak publicly about any topic." Greeney is a former member of the Select Board.

Greeney claims she asked for time to consider her decision, but was turned down. After telling Reichsman and Evans that she would rather resign that work under the conditions offered, the suit states that the pair told her to go home, write a letter of resignation, and surrender the keys to her office. When she attempted to recant her resignation in a phone call later that weekend, Greeney reported that Evans told her she was fired.

She never submitted a written letter of resignation, according to the suit, which was submitted by her lawyer, Lawrence J. Farber, of Amherst.

Following the April 6 meeting, Amherst Town Manager Laurence Shaffer stated that Greeney's comments at that meeting had no effect on the town's decision in respect to the center's funding, according to court documents.

Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com