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Contact:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator
202-518-5624, scottmclarty@yahoo.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Activists in the D.C. Statehood Green Party
have joined the call for the immediate reinstatement of Michele
Tingling-Clemmons, who was recently ousted from her position as State
Director of the State Agency for Special Nutrition and Commodity
Distribution Programs (SNAC).
"Michele's firing has endangered D.C.'s $30 million summer project
to feed children who need good meals," said Kristen Arant, steering
committee member of the Statehood Green Party. "Here's someone who
took a failing agency, under audit by the D.C. Inspector General for
misuse of funds, and not only put it back on track, but expanded it. For
the sake of thousands of children, D.C. government must give Michele her
job back immediately!"
Several Statehood Greens participated in a noon rally on behalf of
Tingling-Clemmons on Wednesday, April 24, at One Judiciary Square.
Tingling-Clemmons has drawn national recognition for her work on the
model Summer Food Program, which enabled the District of Columbia to
provide food for 21,000 children a day last summer, 10% more than in
2000.
The increase in D.C. bureaucracy, when SNAC was transferred from D.C.
Public Schools to the newly created State Education Office, imposed new
demands on SNAC, such as siphoning of funds into other programs, in
violation of federal guidelines, and to which Tingling-Clemmons
objected.
D.C. Statehood Greens note that the situation echoes the firing of
Madeleine Fletcher from the same Health Department position nearly two
years ago after Fletcher, an epidemiologist, investigated and blew the
whistle on 200 tons of expired, rat- and insect-infested food at the
D.C. Public Schools warehouse. Fletcher's termination is still under
investigation by the Inspector General's office; meanwhile; meanwhile,
the Government Accountability Project is suing the DC Department of
Health on her behalf.
MORE INFORMATION
The D.C. Statehood Green Party http://www.dcstatehoodgreen.org
1314 18th Street, NW, lower level, Washington, DC 20036, 202-296-1301
"Food Fight," column by Loose Lips, in the Washington City
Paper, April
19-25, 2002
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/archives/lips/2002/lips0419.html
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