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Former editor files complaint
By CHASE SQUIRES
© St. Petersburg Times, DADE CITY -- The former editor of the weekly Pasco News and her attorneys announced this week they have submitted a formal complaint against the newspaper, claiming age and sex discrimination. Connie J. Jones, who turns 52 this month, said she had signed an agreement July 26 with publisher Tim Matthew that would have given her control of a new monthly magazine insert -- in addition to her duties as editor of the weekly paper -- but Matthew fired her a day later. "He didn't shut the door. He just said, "I don't have the confidence you can do this job, so I'm going to let you go now,"' Jones said. "I'll never forget that. . . . I loved that job." Matthew could not be reached for comment Thursday. Messages for him were left at his office, but workers there said he was at a conference. Jones hired Palm Harbor law firm Florin, Roebig & Walker to represent her. The firm's Internet site notes it specializes in employee rights litigation and has tangled with Western Auto, the city of Brooksville and Humana Medical Plan on behalf in clients in recent years. Christopher Gray, a litigator with the firm, said the firm sent Jones' complaint this week to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and said the firm plans to sue Pasco News' parent company, SunPress Inc., when the EEOC investigation is complete. The investigation can take months, and age and sex discrimination lawsuits cannot be filed until the EEOC reviews complaints, Gray said. An operator at the EEOC on Thursday would not confirm the report had been filed with the agency. Jones said she took over as editor in January 2000 at the urging of former publisher J.W. Owens, after editor Carlene Ellberg died unexpectedly in September 1999. Jones said she was not paid a lot -- $300 a week -- but the opportunity to serve the community she grew up in appealed to her. "I really love being in the community," she said. "I loved being the hometown person in the hometown paper." Jones was born at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Dade City and has lived all her life in the area. Owens, who has since moved on as publisher of a paper in South Florida, said he hired Jones because he liked her connection to local residents. "In a small a paper like that, it's as much P.R. as it is editing," he said. "It's about visiting with people, being out in the community." Jones says she had been preparing for a month to launch a new monthly magazine section, tentatively dubbed Pasco Plus, when she was fired. In her complaint to the EEOC, Jones alleges a writer, Joe Potter, was promoted immediately to her former position. She said another writer, Chris Curry, was hired the day before she was fired. Jones' family this summer opened a store, Garden Delights, in downtown Dade City, but Jones said she would like to pursue her journalism career.
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From today's Pasco Times |
