PBHA Moves to Impeach Officer

The Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) cabinet has begun impeachment proceedings against the secretary of its board of directors for three alleged violations of association driving policy this summer.

At an August 10 meeting, the PBHA board, acting at the direction of President John B. King '95 and Vice President Christina Ho '95, charged secretary Harvetta E. Nero '96 with driving a PBHA van while uninsured, authorizing an uncertified driver to transport PBHA campers and changing the association's policy on insurance deductibles.

During its retreat last weekend, the PBHA cabinet voted to begin impeachment proceedings. Nero has refused to accept an August 10 board recommendation that she resign, King said Tuesday.

Nero's actions, King said, have put PBHA's insurance policy in jeopardy. Without prompt action on the part of the association's board, Harvard will not renew insurance coverage of the 18 steel-blue vans owned by PBHA, he said.

"We've been lucky in that, unlike the U.C. and other campus organizations, I think we have a reputation for being responsible," King said. "And one of the ways you keep that reputation is that you deal with people who are irresponsible in a responsible way."

Without vans, the activities of PBHA's 51 student-run public service committees would be severely limited.

An August 10 letter from Lee Ann Ross, assistant director of insurance for the University, advised King to discipline Nero and her staff at Academy Homes, the program she was working on, or go without vehicular insurance.

"I can no longer defend PBHA as a well organized, responsible student group unless I have confirmation that the PBHA committees understand the gravity of this situation and are committed to enforcing the rules and regulations that have been established," Ross wrote.

"It is imperative that I have a written response from the PBHA committee directors informing me of the actions that will be taken against the Academy Homes individual(s) who operated vehicles without authorization and who operated the vehicles in an unsafe manner (exceeding passenger limits and having two children in the front seat)," she wrote.

These events have turned a once-cohesive PBHA board into a group both divided and confounded by conflicting accounts and allegiances.

The only thing all parties in the growing controversy agree on is that Nero's driving record is far from spotless.

The secretary, who directed PBHA's Academy Homes Summer Youth Enrichment Program this summer, got into three accidents in three days, according to King, Nero and PBH assistant director Ken Smith.

'Life Threatening Situations'

In an August 9 memo, which was obtained by The Crimson, Smith told PBHA Summer Vehicles Coordinator Michael K. Tran '96 that he had asked Nero to stop driving association vehicles "except [in] life threatening situations."

But Nero, who disputes the charges against her, said Wednesday she was told not to drive except in emergency situations. Such a situation arose, Nero said, when she realized her program for children ages 7 to 13 was without first-aid kits for a planned sleepover.

King and Smith, however, said Nero fails to understand the gravity of the charges leveled against her. As a liaison of the University's Insurance Office, Smith said, his decision to take away Nero's driving privileges is tantamount to her removal from the PBHA's insurance policy.

Nero said she is being made the scapegoat for countless vehicular indiscretions on the part of Phillips Brooks House drivers. She alleged that King himself had violated the vehicles policy on more than one occasion, a charge the president denied.

"The whole issue of this being a violation of [the deductible] statute of the insurance is just hogwash," Nero said.

"The issue is that we are trying to present ourselves as the best possible institution," she said. "There are rampant violations of the PBHA vehicles policy in our association."

With insurance costs rising and Harvard tightening regulations on the PBHA vans, Nero said King and other board members are looking for a head to hand to the University's insurance office is order to make peace for years of vehicles violations.

"Why single me out?" Nero asked in an interview Wednesday. "I think one of the reasons that I'm being singled out is that we need a scapegoat."

But an examination of the charges leveled against Nero shows she was not always honest in her dealings with the PBHA board and with her counselors at Academy Homes.

Three Accidents

The three driving accidents which resulted in the revocation of Nero's driving privileges occurred on July 5, 6 and 7 as the secretary carried her campers and fellow counselors to and from Academy Homes, the Roxbury development which houses the 15-year-old summer program.

According to both Nero and Smith, the July 5 accident involved a rear-ending at a Boston intersection. The case is under dispute because the driver of the other car claimed Nero's brake lights were not it.

On July 6, a truck passing the van on the right gouged its side and buckled its door hinges, Smith wrote. Nero said she did not notice the collision.

Nero took the van on an unauthorized U-turn on July 7. She completed it, but then hit an off-duty police officer who issued a citation on the spot.

In an August 9 letter to the PBHA board of directors, Nero said she was at fault only in the third accident. She also said Smith's instructions that she not drive after the accidents were unclear.

"Since it was not explicated, it was my judgment that this was subject to my evaluation, much like the vast majority of issues associated with the running of Academy Homes Summer Youth Enrichment Program," she wrote.

But Smith said Nero's driving was not a matter open to interpretation. In a letter to Garth O. McCavana, Nero's senior tutor in Kirkland House, Smith wrote:

"In the case of Ms. Nero, three accidents were reported within a seven day span; Lee Ann [Ross] and I revoked Harvetta's permission to continue operation the vehicles; and Harvetta blatantly drove them following this revocation. By her actions she has thus jeopardized the agreement under which the insurance is extended; has operated a motor vehicle illegally (without insurance, namely, as she is not insured without our authorization); she has risked the reputation of PBHA, Inc. operations in general."

Speaking by phone from Washington D.C. yesterday, PBH Executive Director Greg A. Johnson said he endorsed Smith's letter to McCavana.

"I'm sure that he didn't get any joy out of it," Johnson said.

McCavana and Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 declined to comment on the letter.

Nero, however, said she was justified in driving the van without permission. She said she even made sure to leave Smith a note informing him of her decision to drive and pick up the "emergency" first-aid kits on July 16.

"I was not required by the circumstance or by getting caught to tell Ken," Nero wrote in her letter to the PBHA board, "Simply put, I believed honesty dictated it. Given the results of this decision, including probable administrative board action, it is unfortunate that I now regret my action."

"Part of PBH vehicles policy is that there's supposed to be a first aid kit in every van," she added.

A copy of the PBHA vehicles policy obtained by The Crimson makes no mention of a first aid kit.

Unauthorized Drivers

In his memo to Tran, Smith said he visited the Academy Homes program and "spotted Tonya M. Osborne '95 sitting in the driver's seat of a parked van with students on board."

But in the August meeting of the PBHA board--for which minutes are unavailable because Nero, as the accused, could not serve as secretary--Nero denied authorizing uncertified counselors, including Osborne, to drive the young children.

This week, Nero changed her story. She now says she told Osborne to drive but did not know the counselor had failed the PBHA driving test.

"The person in question, Tonya Osborne, took the test and did not pass it but never told me that she did not pass it," Nero said.

Nero said she did not ask Osborne if she had passed the test because she had never heard of anyone failing it. The test requires drivers to parallel park, back up in a straight line, drive in traffic and drive in a residential area.

"She is the only person in the last year and a half to fail the test, so I assumed that she had passed," Nero said.

Smith said yesterday that whether or not Nero knew of Osborne's failure on the test, it was the secretary's duty as program director to be familiar with her staff's driving records.

"I think it's incumbent on any director to know who those [authorized] people are," Smith said. "It's their responsibility to know who in their camp can drive."

Nero said she did not tell the board of Osborne's driving because she feared Administrative Board action would be taken against Osborne as well.

"At the time there was no way I could put somebody else in that position," Nero said. "As director of my program, I also try to protect my counselors and my kids. [Osborne] did a dumb thing, but her Harvard education should not be put at risk any more than mine should."

When interviewed Wednesday, Osborne declined to say whether she had driven at Nero's request while uncertified.

"With respect to myself, I would never ever breach PBH policy unless I was led to believe that it was okay by somebody who had led me to believe that they had the authority to do so," Osborne said.

Osborne said she did not feel that she was in any danger of being disciplined.

"I've spoken with Harvetta, and I've told her that she needs to take care of herself," she said. "I did not think that I needed protection because I did not do anything wrong."

But after Nero acknowledged that the counselor had driven while uncertified, Osborne called The Crimson yesterday and contradicted the secretary's story.

"Harvetta Nero did in fact know that I had not passed that test," Osborne said. "Any driving I did subsequent to not passing the test was only done because I had been given authorization to do so."

Osborne said she believed Nero was using her to distract the board from a more serious charge: that the secretary deliberately disobeyed Smith's orders.

"That's all bogus because Harvetta knows that I didn't do anything wrong," Osborne said. "I think that may even be a smokescreen to direct attention away from the issue which is, 'Did Harvetta herself drive after she was told by a member of the University not to do so?' That has nothing to do with me."

Osborne also said that she was not the only uncertified counselor to drive in Nero's program. She refused to elaborate, however.

'Staff-Student Power Nexus'

Although the PBHA board has outlined a list of charges, Nero said personality conflicts and power struggles are the reasons behind the impeachment effort.

Nero said Smith exceeded his authority as a staff member in the student-run association by writing a letter to her senior tutor.

"I think the second issue here is just a staff-student power nexus," she said.

Nero also charged that the board did not approve changes in the vehicles policy made by Smith earlier in the summer.

In addition, Nero said the August 10 meeting of the board, during which she was asked to resign, was improper in three ways.

* Parliamentarian Christopher J. Davidson '95 was absent from the meeting, so King served as chair and set all procedure.

* While King said the association's bylaws require two-thirds of the "possible" voting board members to attend, only 11 of 17 members showed up. Nero said that made the meeting illegitimate. But because one member was in England and one in the hospital, King said he decided to set quorum at 10--two thirds of a "possible" 15.

* Nero said she should have been allowed to vote at the meeting. King said Robert's Rules of Order required that he bar her from voting on a disciplinary matter concerning herself.

Davidson, the parliamentarian, said yesterday he endorses the decisions King made in the meeting.

"If half the board perished in plane accident, you wouldn't say, 'we don't have quorum,'" Davidson said.

Insurance Deductible

PBHA's vehicles policy says association drivers must pay the first $50 of the insurance deductible resulting from any accident in which they are at fault. The rest of the accident's cost is split between the driver and whichever committee was responsible for the van at the time of the accident.

But Nero said she and her committee decided prior to her accidents to split the deductible between all the adults present in the vehicle.

"There are people who can't drive and yet their kids are being taken around," Nero said. "I thought that was unfair. In my committee, I said I wanted to make it half [the deductible] to the committee and half split between the counselors in the van."

Nero said none of her committee members objected to this proposal. She included the decision in her minutes of the committee meeting and sent those minutes to PBH Director of Programming Monique Dixon.

Dixon raised no objections to the plan, Nero said. Repeated efforts to reach Dixon were unsuccessful.

But King and Smith said Nero had no authority to change the policy on insurance deductibles.

'Best Friends'

Ironically, Nero and King once were fast friends. Acquaintances from their first year in Pennypacker Hall refer to them as "John and Harvey."

"Up until the beginning of last May, John [King] and I were best friends," Nero said. "Then he and I had a falling out over an issue. Since then we have not spoken to each other in any situation that was not a PBH context."

King also said he and Nero had been friends until last year.

"We were good friends, but I don't think that this has anything to do with that," King said. "I think that I ran [the meeting] the same way I always did and the way I've run it is that the president can take a stand and still chair the meeting."

"Christins [Ho, the PBHA vice president], and I feel very strongly that Harvetta exercised very poor judgment, endangering herself, her counselors and the people we serve," he said. "And as a result we feel that it is inappropriate that she continue to make decisions on behalf of the board of directors of Phillips Brooks House Association."CrimsonEdward H. Wu

"It is imperative that I have a written response from the PBHA committee directors informing me of the actions that will be taken against the Academy Homes individual(s) who operated vehicles without authorization and who operated the vehicles in an unsafe manner (exceeding passenger limits and having two children in the front seat)," she wrote.

These events have turned a once-cohesive PBHA board into a group both divided and confounded by conflicting accounts and allegiances.

The only thing all parties in the growing controversy agree on is that Nero's driving record is far from spotless.

The secretary, who directed PBHA's Academy Homes Summer Youth Enrichment Program this summer, got into three accidents in three days, according to King, Nero and PBH assistant director Ken Smith.

'Life Threatening Situations'

In an August 9 memo, which was obtained by The Crimson, Smith told PBHA Summer Vehicles Coordinator Michael K. Tran '96 that he had asked Nero to stop driving association vehicles "except [in] life threatening situations."

But Nero, who disputes the charges against her, said Wednesday she was told not to drive except in emergency situations. Such a situation arose, Nero said, when she realized her program for children ages 7 to 13 was without first-aid kits for a planned sleepover.

King and Smith, however, said Nero fails to understand the gravity of the charges leveled against her. As a liaison of the University's Insurance Office, Smith said, his decision to take away Nero's driving privileges is tantamount to her removal from the PBHA's insurance policy.

Nero said she is being made the scapegoat for countless vehicular indiscretions on the part of Phillips Brooks House drivers. She alleged that King himself had violated the vehicles policy on more than one occasion, a charge the president denied.

"The whole issue of this being a violation of [the deductible] statute of the insurance is just hogwash," Nero said.

"The issue is that we are trying to present ourselves as the best possible institution," she said. "There are rampant violations of the PBHA vehicles policy in our association."

With insurance costs rising and Harvard tightening regulations on the PBHA vans, Nero said King and other board members are looking for a head to hand to the University's insurance office is order to make peace for years of vehicles violations.

"Why single me out?" Nero asked in an interview Wednesday. "I think one of the reasons that I'm being singled out is that we need a scapegoat."

But an examination of the charges leveled against Nero shows she was not always honest in her dealings with the PBHA board and with her counselors at Academy Homes.

Three Accidents

The three driving accidents which resulted in the revocation of Nero's driving privileges occurred on July 5, 6 and 7 as the secretary carried her campers and fellow counselors to and from Academy Homes, the Roxbury development which houses the 15-year-old summer program.

According to both Nero and Smith, the July 5 accident involved a rear-ending at a Boston intersection. The case is under dispute because the driver of the other car claimed Nero's brake lights were not it.

On July 6, a truck passing the van on the right gouged its side and buckled its door hinges, Smith wrote. Nero said she did not notice the collision.

Nero took the van on an unauthorized U-turn on July 7. She completed it, but then hit an off-duty police officer who issued a citation on the spot.

In an August 9 letter to the PBHA board of directors, Nero said she was at fault only in the third accident. She also said Smith's instructions that she not drive after the accidents were unclear.

"Since it was not explicated, it was my judgment that this was subject to my evaluation, much like the vast majority of issues associated with the running of Academy Homes Summer Youth Enrichment Program," she wrote.

But Smith said Nero's driving was not a matter open to interpretation. In a letter to Garth O. McCavana, Nero's senior tutor in Kirkland House, Smith wrote:

"In the case of Ms. Nero, three accidents were reported within a seven day span; Lee Ann [Ross] and I revoked Harvetta's permission to continue operation the vehicles; and Harvetta blatantly drove them following this revocation. By her actions she has thus jeopardized the agreement under which the insurance is extended; has operated a motor vehicle illegally (without insurance, namely, as she is not insured without our authorization); she has risked the reputation of PBHA, Inc. operations in general."

Speaking by phone from Washington D.C. yesterday, PBH Executive Director Greg A. Johnson said he endorsed Smith's letter to McCavana.

"I'm sure that he didn't get any joy out of it," Johnson said.

McCavana and Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 declined to comment on the letter.

Nero, however, said she was justified in driving the van without permission. She said she even made sure to leave Smith a note informing him of her decision to drive and pick up the "emergency" first-aid kits on July 16.

"I was not required by the circumstance or by getting caught to tell Ken," Nero wrote in her letter to the PBHA board, "Simply put, I believed honesty dictated it. Given the results of this decision, including probable administrative board action, it is unfortunate that I now regret my action."

"Part of PBH vehicles policy is that there's supposed to be a first aid kit in every van," she added.

A copy of the PBHA vehicles policy obtained by The Crimson makes no mention of a first aid kit.

Unauthorized Drivers

In his memo to Tran, Smith said he visited the Academy Homes program and "spotted Tonya M. Osborne '95 sitting in the driver's seat of a parked van with students on board."

But in the August meeting of the PBHA board--for which minutes are unavailable because Nero, as the accused, could not serve as secretary--Nero denied authorizing uncertified counselors, including Osborne, to drive the young children.

This week, Nero changed her story. She now says she told Osborne to drive but did not know the counselor had failed the PBHA driving test.

"The person in question, Tonya Osborne, took the test and did not pass it but never told me that she did not pass it," Nero said.

Nero said she did not ask Osborne if she had passed the test because she had never heard of anyone failing it. The test requires drivers to parallel park, back up in a straight line, drive in traffic and drive in a residential area.

"She is the only person in the last year and a half to fail the test, so I assumed that she had passed," Nero said.

Smith said yesterday that whether or not Nero knew of Osborne's failure on the test, it was the secretary's duty as program director to be familiar with her staff's driving records.

"I think it's incumbent on any director to know who those [authorized] people are," Smith said. "It's their responsibility to know who in their camp can drive."

Nero said she did not tell the board of Osborne's driving because she feared Administrative Board action would be taken against Osborne as well.

"At the time there was no way I could put somebody else in that position," Nero said. "As director of my program, I also try to protect my counselors and my kids. [Osborne] did a dumb thing, but her Harvard education should not be put at risk any more than mine should."

When interviewed Wednesday, Osborne declined to say whether she had driven at Nero's request while uncertified.

"With respect to myself, I would never ever breach PBH policy unless I was led to believe that it was okay by somebody who had led me to believe that they had the authority to do so," Osborne said.

Osborne said she did not feel that she was in any danger of being disciplined.

"I've spoken with Harvetta, and I've told her that she needs to take care of herself," she said. "I did not think that I needed protection because I did not do anything wrong."

But after Nero acknowledged that the counselor had driven while uncertified, Osborne called The Crimson yesterday and contradicted the secretary's story.

"Harvetta Nero did in fact know that I had not passed that test," Osborne said. "Any driving I did subsequent to not passing the test was only done because I had been given authorization to do so."

Osborne said she believed Nero was using her to distract the board from a more serious charge: that the secretary deliberately disobeyed Smith's orders.

"That's all bogus because Harvetta knows that I didn't do anything wrong," Osborne said. "I think that may even be a smokescreen to direct attention away from the issue which is, 'Did Harvetta herself drive after she was told by a member of the University not to do so?' That has nothing to do with me."

Osborne also said that she was not the only uncertified counselor to drive in Nero's program. She refused to elaborate, however.

'Staff-Student Power Nexus'

Although the PBHA board has outlined a list of charges, Nero said personality conflicts and power struggles are the reasons behind the impeachment effort.

Nero said Smith exceeded his authority as a staff member in the student-run association by writing a letter to her senior tutor.

"I think the second issue here is just a staff-student power nexus," she said.

Nero also charged that the board did not approve changes in the vehicles policy made by Smith earlier in the summer.

In addition, Nero said the August 10 meeting of the board, during which she was asked to resign, was improper in three ways.

* Parliamentarian Christopher J. Davidson '95 was absent from the meeting, so King served as chair and set all procedure.

* While King said the association's bylaws require two-thirds of the "possible" voting board members to attend, only 11 of 17 members showed up. Nero said that made the meeting illegitimate. But because one member was in England and one in the hospital, King said he decided to set quorum at 10--two thirds of a "possible" 15.

* Nero said she should have been allowed to vote at the meeting. King said Robert's Rules of Order required that he bar her from voting on a disciplinary matter concerning herself.

Davidson, the parliamentarian, said yesterday he endorses the decisions King made in the meeting.

"If half the board perished in plane accident, you wouldn't say, 'we don't have quorum,'" Davidson said.

Insurance Deductible

PBHA's vehicles policy says association drivers must pay the first $50 of the insurance deductible resulting from any accident in which they are at fault. The rest of the accident's cost is split between the driver and whichever committee was responsible for the van at the time of the accident.

But Nero said she and her committee decided prior to her accidents to split the deductible between all the adults present in the vehicle.

"There are people who can't drive and yet their kids are being taken around," Nero said. "I thought that was unfair. In my committee, I said I wanted to make it half [the deductible] to the committee and half split between the counselors in the van."

Nero said none of her committee members objected to this proposal. She included the decision in her minutes of the committee meeting and sent those minutes to PBH Director of Programming Monique Dixon.

Dixon raised no objections to the plan, Nero said. Repeated efforts to reach Dixon were unsuccessful.

But King and Smith said Nero had no authority to change the policy on insurance deductibles.

'Best Friends'

Ironically, Nero and King once were fast friends. Acquaintances from their first year in Pennypacker Hall refer to them as "John and Harvey."

"Up until the beginning of last May, John [King] and I were best friends," Nero said. "Then he and I had a falling out over an issue. Since then we have not spoken to each other in any situation that was not a PBH context."

King also said he and Nero had been friends until last year.

"We were good friends, but I don't think that this has anything to do with that," King said. "I think that I ran [the meeting] the same way I always did and the way I've run it is that the president can take a stand and still chair the meeting."

"Christins [Ho, the PBHA vice president], and I feel very strongly that Harvetta exercised very poor judgment, endangering herself, her counselors and the people we serve," he said. "And as a result we feel that it is inappropriate that she continue to make decisions on behalf of the board of directors of Phillips Brooks House Association."CrimsonEdward H. Wu