Kent Whealy responds to SSE board’s letter

Amy Goldman, supported by Neil Hamilton, has used the divorce as her opportunity to take control of SSE (in my opinion). And with me gone, it’s my understanding that she is now openly using Matt Barthel and Diane Ott Whealy to report to her on SSE’s staff and to carry out her orders. I am bitterly disappointed in Matt Barthel, who came out of meetings with Amy Goldman (on the day I was fired) bragging to SSE’s staff about how much power he had just been given. Matt Barthel was already such an unpopular supervisor that valuable garden staff quit last summer rather than continue to work for him. Last summer was the only time I actually witnessed one of his immature outbursts (stomping around, yelling, even dropping to his knees), but there have been other episodes usually involving SSE’s female employees (such as throwing a basket of garlic they had just cleaned out into the parking lot, telling them “I guess I’ve made my point” and then ordering the girls to go pick it up – they jumped right down his throat and he picked it all up). I have repeatedly counseled Matt Barthel, always trying to work things out because of his talents, but I have grown to believe that he shouldn’t be in a supervisory position at all at SSE, and certainly not “SSE’s Vice President for Gardens and Collections” as was recently announced by the board to support their hollow claims of “continuity of leadership” (which the board has just destroyed).Diane Ott Whealy’s letter also states “I do not believe that any Board member has a personal agenda to change the direction of SSE or dismantle any projects.” That too is a lie, because Diane Ott Whealy was in the room in Santa Fe when Amy Goldman substituted her own agenda of “big picture thinking” for SSE’s normal agenda. The following are examples of the disturbing personal agendas I was having to deal with before my firing. Following the Santa Fe meeting, Amy Goldman sent everyone on the board (and also to Diane Ott Whealy and me, who had been removed from SSE’s board by then) a list of her ideas for changes, and asked for everyone’s input. The shallow back-and-forth e-mails between Amy Goldman and Deborah Madison show either a complete lack of understanding or an unnerving disregard for SSE’s history: “Let’s emulate Seeds of Change.” “Let’s emulate Henry Doubleday.” “Let’s emulate Slow Food.” “Let’s emulate Clive Blazey.” Let’s emulate Jer Gettle.” I waited until Amy Goldman, Deborah Madison and Diane Ott Whealy were all done (to my knowledge, Neil Hamilton, Rob Johnston and Cary Fowler never responded). Then Amy Goldman sent me an e-mail wanting to know why I hadn’t responded. So I e-mailed my input to her (and to the rest of the board), “How about if we emulate Seed Savers?”

The most blatant example of Amy Goldman pushing her own agenda was when she wanted me to hire her personal trainer as my grant-writing consultant. (She brought that up at the Santa Fe meeting last March, but the board denied her request for $25,000 in SSE’s 2007 Budget to cover those expenses.) Later Amy Goldman told me that she was going to donate $5,000 to SSE to pay for her personal trainer helping with just one grant, but then immediately started e-mailing me about making it a permanent position to “get her the medical insurance that she needs for her twins.” Then Amy Goldman insisted that we bring the woman back for a several day get acquainted visit, which no one had time for right then (especially me). I complained again, but she insisted that it had to be done immediately, so SSE bought a $700+ plane ticket. The very next day, Amy Goldman got mad at the woman and called the whole thing off. The ticket was nonrefundable.

Yes, there has been an escalating four-year power struggle going on within SSE for control of the organization (increasingly centered on Diane Ott Whealy, Amy Goldman, Neil Hamilton and Deborah Madison), during which I obviously did not do enough to protect myself. A year and a half ago, Gary Nabhan resigned from SSE’s board, no longer able to watch the pain that his friends (Diane and I) were going through. After that I nominated Rob Johnston to SSE’s board (he only attended the Santa Fe meeting last March before I was fired) and then Amy Goldman nominated Cary Fowler (who was voted in at the Santa Fe meeting, but did not attend – nor does he expect to regularly attend SSE’s board meetings because of his location in Rome). But (in my opinion) no matter what Cary Fowler’s credentials are at the Global Crop Diversity Trust (U.N.’s FAO), Amy Goldman should not be allowed to place a major recipient of her funding on SSE’s small board.