Opinion: Where Did Jim Lescault Go?

Faithful readers of the Amherst Media membership newsletter of September 19, were able to infer a change in leadership by the absence of my name after seventeen years as Executive Director.  This article described some of the major movements the organization had accomplished over the past twenty years and how it was time for a change. My leadership during seventeen of those years was erased.

Many people cautiously reached out to me.  Worried by the absence of my recognition in that newsletter and not wanting to intrude on my personal life, they gently inquired about my health.  At seventy-one years of age, people expect one’s health to be the potential problem; I assured them it wasn’t.  

An article appeared in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, September 27, 2024, in which I was described as “tight lipped” regarding my removal as Executive Director. In response I wrote an Op-ed piece which ran in the Gazette on October 7, 2024.  I feel it is time to let the wider community know the truth of what occurred at Amherst Media. I have waited under advice of counsel, only to learn that employment laws are not created equal when it comes to small staffed non-profits.

In July, 2024, I was ousted without cause, notice, or explanation. I must now question the organization’s current leadership for their lack of commitment to upholding the critically important objectives that honor the organization’s mission statement.

The current Board of Directors blatantly disregarded personnel policies and dedicated bylaws to egregiously and summarily dismiss me.  Free speech and transparency have been surpressed, manipulated, and falsely portrayed. 

Since 2010, I have been requested to help raise the necessary funds, facilitate design creation, and lead the organization through multiple and exceptionally complicated steps in obtaining the land and building permit for our proposed new facility at Main and Gray Streets.

Within a June report to the Board of Directors, I informed them on how I was able to lower the construction cost to $1.2 million from the $3.5 million estimate and obtain bank financing and foundation and state grants — we were ready to break ground this October, 2024.

The Board’s response to this joyous news was a Personnel Committee meeting, where three silent Board members: President Vira Douangmany Cage, Personel Committee Chair Jennifer Shiao, and Treasurer Michael Burkhart, had their appointed attorney read me my “separation” document, offering me one month’s pay as severance in return for a “non-disclosure agreement.”  I was coldly informed that as an “at-will employee,” the Board could remove me without cause. My separation was immediate and I was escorted out of the facility. I did not accept the non-disclosure agreement and was immediately confronted by loss of my family health insurance.  

To date, I have not been formally told what provoked this ruthless action, but have heard from supporters that a grievance was launched against me by an employee.  Personnel policies instituted to protect both employees and employers were knowingly disregarded, eviscerating my right to answer any and all criticisms leveled against me.  While I was unceremoniously removed after seventeen years of dedicated service, the complaining employee, Yanna Ok, was promoted to Interim Director.  

My fundamental right to defend myself was violated.  Free speech is not for one side of an argument to be selectively used to move someone’s agenda.  For an organization that has always had free speech as its cornerstone, to internally suppress that ideal is extremely disturbing to me as it should be to you.  

For forty-six years this small non-profit has stood for transparency and Free Speech- where are the organizational sign posts indicating those beliefs are being enacted? Its the community’s right to know what Amherst Media is doing in its name. I worked and fought for the stability and ongoing growth of the organization enough to assure a new building that would have broken ground this month. A building that was to be named in loving memory of Dr. Demetria Rougeaux Shabazz, the former Amherst Media Board President, and a beloved member of the Amherst and Western Mass communities. 

It is now the responsibility of the Amherst Media membership, the town and people of Amherst, to look beyond the self-promoting empty words and window dressing of this “new direction”, and find out what is truly going on fiscally, programatically, and educationally at Amherst Media. Who does it now serve, and how exactly is that happening? What are the qualifications of the new leadership? What has happened to the new building that would have broken ground this month?

Lots of questions. I urge you, Amherst, do not accept silence, smiley faces and platitudes as the response. Amherst Media is part of U.S. history, and belongs to the people of Amherst and all who walk through it’s doors. Who will keep those doors open and how?

Jim Lescault was the Executive Director of Amherst Media for 17 years.