The Missing Local Letters

To all members of the Board of Trustees of the CHCA

This is my Christmas list for CHESTNUT HILL.

I hope you have read the letter sent by the Rev. Kari Hart; if not, please scroll down to it.

I hope you have read the ad on page 4 of the CHRISTMAS issue of the Local. It is an ad that implies the replacement of EVERY staff position at the Local (except for editor which is an ad that should have gone in weeks ago) and know that this is a form of terrorization of YOUR employees, some of who are older women, long time residents of Chestnut Hill and long time employees of the Local.

THIS IS THE WORST KIND OF P.R. FOR THE CHCA...AND IT'S FREE. NO $90,000 NEEDED HERE.

I hope you read a letter I sent to the Local and was not published... and the board reaffirmed the Lentz policy??? It is also included below.

The Letter

I hope as board members you have the good sense to feel SHAME for the vile treatment of the staff members of the Local. Each and Every ONE on the board is RESPONSIBLE for this reprehensible situation because you have had this brought to your attention and either approve it by your silence or don't have the guts to denounce it. As a board member you don't have the right to sit this out.

I hope that you understand that YOU DO NOT OWN THE LOCAL. It is owned by the members who pay dues to the CHCA. As one of those members, I have no intention of watching this valuable COMMUNITY resource wither away, as it is already doing with an editor who:
- writes editorials about herself and "The Husband". An editorial is not a column.
-has no Christmas editorial
-uses her time to write up recipes. That's pathetic.
-who doesn't publish info about office hours over the holiday season.

I hope that when I send an ad to the Local which I plan to do, that I am not censured or that those employees are not punished. If this were to happen, I remind board members that I got my start in the CHCA by taking on a leadership that was interfering with the goals of the community association which existed long before those leaders came along. We won.

I hope that anyone who calls me crazy knows that that would be an
enormous improvement over what's been said about me over the last year.


REV. KARI HART'S LETTER

Dear Ms. Boynton:

I am writing in regard to your recent firing, "re-hiring" and "re-firing" of my husband, Shawn Hart, from his position as Associate Editor at the Chestnut Hill Local. You may consider this letter written not so much on his behalf as it is on behalf of his family-myself and our two children.

Terminating Shawn from his job as you did this past Friday (December 16, 2005), without any warning or process of any kind, might be considered outrageous enough-sending him and his family into a tailspin only a week before the holidays. Then, to send a message to him the following Monday morning (December 19, 2005) that you had "changed your mind" and wanted to re-hire him, only to announce when he met with you later that day that you had re-changed your mind; all of this, aside from being the most flagrantly unprofessional behavior I have ever encountered, all of this has caused our family undue pain and stress. By toying with Shawn's job status, you have toyed with his family as well. As a wife and mother, I am beside myself with outrage that you have been allowed to do so.

Ms. Boynton, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for such reckless abuse of power, as should the people who gave you and authorized such power. And you all should be held accountable for it.

It is my understanding, as per the Lentz Policy, that this letter as it stands will appear in the next issue of the Chestnut Hill Local. In the event that it does not, I have forwarded copies of it to Maxine Dorneman, Kari Ghezarian, Nancy Berger, Betty Brady, Chris Kemezis, Mark Keintz and the Publishers' Committee.

The Reverend Kari L. Hart
West Mount Airy