[nfbmi-talk] Blind Training Center position posted while appeal is pending

[J.J. Meddaugh]

By
Rosemary Parker | Kalamazoo Gazette
April 18, 2010, 1:00AM
KALAMAZOO
 - The Michigan Commission for the Blind Training Center is looking for a new director
- a state job, right here in Kalamazoo, that requires only a high school diploma,
two or three years of regulatory experience, and pays up to $53 an hour.
The only catch: if you get the job you might have to give it back if a judge rules
that the former director was wrongfully fired.
Christine Boone is still waiting for an appeal hearing before the state's Civil Service
Commission, but the position has been posted as a  job opportunity on the state's
Web site.
Boone, 50, had served as director of the residential center for adult blind students
since 2006, but was fired Feb. 4 over a marksmanship class at an on-site range, using
audible targets and spring-powered pellet guns.
Boone was cited for "a serious work-rule violation" for organizing the class.
"You cannot have firearms on state property," said Mario Morrow, director of communications
for the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth.
Boone said her boss,  Patrick Cannon, director of the Michigan Commission for the
Blind in
Lansing, gave his verbal consent for the class. The first she learned there was a
problem, she said, was when she was ordered by Cannon to suspend the class after
she mentioned it at a state convention as an example of successful programming.
Morrow said Boone was fired, rather than reprimanded, even though she canceled the
class, because her employer had lost faith in her judgment.
Boone said she requested a hearing on the matter within her department, which was
supposed to be held within 28 days. When that was not scheduled, she moved on to
the next level of appeal, which can be heard by an administrative law judge or an
arbitrator. That has not yet been scheduled. Both the arbitrator and the judge have
authority to reinstate her, should they find on her behalf, she said.
"I really do want to get my job back," Boone said.
Contact Rosemary Parker at (269) 388-2734 or rparker at kalamazoogazette.com.

http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2010/04/blind_training_center_position.html
J.J.