Last week, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty fired his neighborhood services coordinator for Ward 6, and she is not happy about it.

In an e-mail to Fenty that has been passed around by Ward 6 community activists, Caroline Jhingory strongly criticized Fenty, saying she had lost “hope and respect for you and your administration.” She strongly defended her work record in the e-mail and describes being told by her “tearful” supervisor that Fenty believed she was “not a ‘team player.'”

What does that mean? Jhingory describes having been “fired 5 hours after not refusing, but questioning someone who was not my direct supervisor instructing me to use personal funds to purchase the mayor Chamomile tea” before a press conference.

She also describes her firing as “a somehow underhanded move to replace me with Forest Hayes and provide an opportunity to an individual that describes himself as a ‘friend of the mayor for over 20 years’ in addition to his being your fraternity brother.”

Mafara Hobson, spokesperson for Fenty, confirmed that Hayes has replaced Jhingory Jhingory is no longer a city employee and that Hayes started as a Ward 6 neighborhood services coordinator this week. She had no comment on Hayes’ relationship to the mayor. E-mails forwarded to LL from local community activists expressed strong support for Jhingory and satisfaction with her job performance.

Jhingory, contacted by LL, had no comment. Full e-mail is after the jump.

UPDATE, 1 P.M.: LL was wrong to say Hobson had confirmed that Hayes had replaced Jhingory. Hobson did confirm that Jhingory is no longer employed by the city and that Hayes has just started. There are typically two such positions per ward and Hayes had been slated to the vacant second position prior to Jhingory’s departure.

Mr. Mayor: (you have been blind copied)

I write this email with both a heavy heart and with disappointment in regards to my being let go from my position last Friday as an Outreach and Services Specialist. However, please be advised that I am not contacting you as a disgruntle employee or pleading for my position. Both my heavy heart and disappointment grows out of a loss of hope and respect for you and your administration. Often I defended you against those who saw you as an unreasonable firing maverick and I never thought I would experience it first hand. Since my start date of June 9, 2008, I have never used leave (sick or annual), produced 2-3 or more Fix-It’s every week and generated no personnel complaints against me. Each day I approached the job with integrity, never abused or boasted that I was from the “mayor’s office” to get any of my work done and did my very best to provide constituents with a 24-hour response to their concerns. Despite my not having access to a car for 3 months, I made it to every community meeting, life-threatening crime scene and press conference. The one press conference at Eliot Junior High School where I did arrive late and leave early was the same day that my mother was being prepped and underwent surgery at Providence Hospital in which I did inform my direct supervisor Sarah Latterner. Instead of going into a laundry list of what I did or did not do, if you honestly felt that I was not a “team player” as you sent a tearful Sarah to say to me last Friday then why not give me an opportunity to improve? I have not even been in the position a full four months. I am more than confident that both my work ethic and the reports I presented to you each week exhibited my team commitment. And again this hurts a great deal, not because I merely lost my job, but I have lost the opportunity to work with individuals such as members of the Ward 6 Core Team, Sarah and CM Wells that I have grown to look up to and appreciate a great deal. Honestly, Sir beyond you sending Sarah to tell me that I am not a team player, I have no understanding as to why I was fired, which has forced me to explain to my family that I was fired 5 hours after not refusing, but questioning someone who was not my direct supervisor instructing me to use personal funds to purchase the mayor Chamomile tea before the Union Station press conference last Friday. I did proceed to purchase you tea, however my questioning was due to my feeling that purchasing tea was not within the scope of the community outreach for which I was hired and took me away from the conversations I was having with constituents outside of Union Station who were anxiously awaiting your arrival. Lastly, I do feel that this was a somehow underhanded move to replace me with Forest Hayes and provide an opportunity to an individual that describes himself as a “friend of the mayor for over 20 years” in addition to his being your fraternity brother. I will not send any future emails and no reply is needed and I wish you all the best in the duration of your administration.

Caroline A. Jhingory, MSW