Town Manager Kathleen Weiser
By Steve Plunkett
The Highland Beach librarian says the town manager is “non-communicative” and has spurned invitations to meet with her or attend library staff meetings in her 18-month tenure.
Librarian Mari Suarez
The town manager, librarian Mari Suarez says, also called her incompetent and pulled her town credit cards for making an unauthorized purchase.
The dispute bubbled into the public eye when Suarez sent town commissioners a letter appealing for them to resolve her issues with Town Manager Kathleen Weiser.
The request fell on deaf ears.
“I hope I have the support of this commission to ask Mrs. Weiser to handle this situation without involving any of us on the Town Commission,” Commissioner Louis Stern said, joined quickly by Commissioner Dennis Sheridan.
Suarez’s letter detailed how her relationship with Weiser had soured.
Last September, Suarez wrote, Weiser asked her to complete a self-evaluation for a salary increase “because Ms. Weiser said she did not yet know me well enough.”
In May, however, Weiser gave a written evaluation that said Suarez was spending too much time with the Friends of the Library organization.
“I believe that her criticism shows a lack of understanding of the Friends’ important role in supporting and funding library projects,” Suarez wrote, noting that the group provides $20,000 a year for programs and enhancements.
The flashpoint was when Suarez ordered a $500 “drop-in” shower for library worker Bertrand Desir, who also empties the town’s 25 trashcans three times a week.
Desir “becomes rather soiled in performing his duties” especially when it rains and when animals get inside the black trash bags, Suarez wrote.
Suarez is permitted to make purchases under $500 without higher authorization, she said, but she was contacted while on vacation and told the shower needed Weiser’s and Finance Director Cale Curtis’ signatures because a plumber would have to be paid to install the apparatus.
Suarez said she ordered the shower returned but had a message from Weiser when she returned from vacation for a “discussion of unauthorized purchase.”
“It is the continued lack of communication that has caused this issue to be handled by Ms. Weiser in the manner that she did, which is basically to fire off a reprimand without so much as even calling when I submitted the receipt,” Suarez wrote. “This could have been avoided.”
Dorothy Kellington, vice president of the Friends and a library volunteer, said the nonprofit group has “a wonderful relationship” with Suarez and depends on her to advise them of the library’s needs.
“It’s not like we work in a vacuum,” Kellington said. “If you don’t speak to people or spend any time, how can you work with them?”
Weiser did not want to comment on personnel matters in the media, but said the reprimand is a public record that will stay in Suarez’s file.
Suarez said besides regular staff meetings, “she hasn’t contacted me,” since commissioners told them to work out their issues.
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