Park Slope Food Coop Founder Suspended Amid Rumors Of Ousting: Report

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — Joe Holtz, a co-founder of the Park Slope Food Coop and longtime general manager, spends most days in the Union Street cooperative, but this month he's been conspicuously missing.

Holtz hasn't entered the building since June 30, when he was suspended without pay and barred from the Coop for 30 days after violating a staff COVID-19 policy, according to a report in the Linewaiters' Gazette, the Coop's newspaper.

On May 26, Holtz went to work in an N95 mask while awaiting the results of a PCR test, which ultimately came back positive, the Gazette reported.

Coming back to work before he got the test results back, Holtz was informed in a meeting a couple of weeks later, violated the Coop staff COVID-19 policy, according to the Gazette. His punishment: a month's suspension without pay and banishment from the Coop during that time.

The co-founder told the Gazette that his punishment was akin to "coming down with an incredible sledgehammer" and speculated that the decision might be related to other leadership disagreements, possibly including his tenure on staff — points also raised by other paid staff.

The suspension also lead to bigger conversations about Coop policies among staff and leaders, the Gazette reported.

A 'punitive' penalty

A couple paid staff members talked with the Gazette about rumors of Holtz's possible ousting.

"I’ve heard rumors that there are people who want Joe to retire," membership coordinator Karen Mancuso told the Gazette. "I have no idea if it’s true or if this was an attempt to push him out. Regardless, I think the membership and the rest of the staff deserve to know more."

Bill Penner, a longtime member of the Coop's Board of Directors, said he didn't know what to make about rumors of Holtz's termination in light of this penalty.

"I don't know how realistic it is," he told the Gazette of the rumors. "I'm not sure. I would be very surprised — and yet I was very surprised at this [penalty]!"

Imani Q’ryn, the current Coop board president, said she and other board members thought the penalty was severe, but admitted they might not know the full picture.

"I think most of us were thinking that 30 days was a long time. It just seems punitive in terms of what we were told the issue is," she told the Gazette.

"But one of the general coordinators said to us without having all of the information from the investigation that they did, it’s hard to say what's really punitive."

When reached for comment, the general coordinators, a small body of upper-level paid staff who help manage the Coop, refused the Gazette's interview requests and told the newspaper to not report the article.

Instead, the coordinators directed the newspaper to the personnel committee, the unpaid group of Coop members tasked with disciplinary issues, including meeting with and penalizing Holtz.

That committee, though, said in an email that its decisions are made "in consultation with the General Coordinator team," and encouraged the paper to speak with the coordinators.

Decision-making discord

The apparent discord between the general coordinators and personnel committee over how Holtz's penalty came to be is among the internal tensions laid bare by the Gazette.

Some area coordinators — staff who supervise different areas of the Coop like membership, bookkeeping and food receiving — told the Gazette that staff COVID-19 testing policies were muddled prior to Holtz's penalty.

"I’ve gone to the [staff] home page, and it is not clear," receiving coordinator Gillian Chi told the outlet of the staff COVID-19 policies, saying you have to fill out a form after being in close contact or testing positive for COVID-19 before getting an email about what to do.

"So you have to actually be the person in that situation to actually find out what that policy is," she said.

In the wake of his suspension, Ann Herpel, a general coordinator, sent an email to staff clarifying they must stay home while awaiting test results if they are experiencing symptoms. She also directed staff to the aforementioned forms, the Gazette reported.

Chi told the outlet she thinks the email only came at the behest of confused staff.

"Several of us said, ‘Where is this policy? Where is this stated? Policies that you say are abundantly clear—can you show us where they are?’ And that’s the email that was given in response," she said.

This is hardly the first time the Coop has dealt with internal disputes. The cooperative, by design, is a place of many opinions, and is best when all are heard said Q’ryn, the board president.

"If you want to see change, come to the meetings," she said, urging members to come to the monthly, democratic General Meeting — a two-hour-and-forty-five-minute forum known for its raucous discussions on politics and plastic bags alike.

"We don’t have to complain about how things are run; we can come in and change things," she added. "We have this amazing experiment, this cooperative experiment where we have to work with each other in this very interesting way."