By Katy Reckdahl
Times-Picayune
NEW ORLEANS — For more than 30 years, Angela Koenig has been punching the clock, putting in long hours in the juvenile-justice system in Orleans and Jefferson parishes. She is known among judges, parents, and co-workers as a seasoned, tireless advocate for children.
But last month, Koenig, regional manager of the state Office of Juvenile Justice, received what some of her co-workers say amounts to a ticket to Siberia and they say it’s all because she spoke her mind.
Koenig, who in July was carried out of a state office building on St. Charles Avenue near Lee Circle on a stretcher after suffering congestive heart failure, is being transferred to Thibodaux, a three-hour daily round-trip commute.
Earlier this year, Koenig cried foul when the state budget ax eliminated nearly three-quarters of the community-based placements for juveniles in this region.
Last month, despite an outcry by judges, juvenile advocates and colleagues, the state Office of Juvenile Justice ordered Koenig, 61, to report to work in Thibodaux starting Monday.
The state Office of Juvenile Justice, which has 11 regional managers, offered little explanation for the move except that it was in the agency’s “best interest.”
Standing up for a crusader
“For Angela to be moved off to Thodaux is an injustice to juvenile-justice reform in Louisiana,” said Roy Juncker, director of the Department of Juvenile Services for Jefferson Parish and chair of the Children and Youth Planning Board for the parish.
David Bell, chief judge for Orleans Parish Juvenile Court said that without Koenig, whom he called “one of those institutions you can’t replace,” progress in his court would also take a hit. “That’s the fear that most, if not of all, have,” he said. “And how do we resolve these fears? I don’t know any way except this: keep Angela.”
Last month, Mary Livers, director of the Office of Juvenile Justice, notified Koenig that she would be swapping places with Thibodaux’s longtime regional manager, Kelly Clement.
“Staff in both offices will benefit from a different leadership perspective,” Livers said in a written statement.
Making waves in Lafourche
But in Thibodaux, Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said that he didn’t understand why “a total stranger” would be replacing Clement, “a person who is from the area who has worked in the area for his entire career.” The two have worked closely together ever since the sheriff was first elected, 18 years ago, said Webre, who called the news of Clement’s transfer one that lacked “compelling reason.”
“I’m not in his chain of supervision,” Webre said, “but I think it would help those of us in the criminal-justice system who are befuddled and disappointed by the move if we had heard the rational basis behind it.”
And in Houma, longtime social-service coordinator Brenda Johnson found the situation “very puzzling.” She has worked for 13 years with Clement, who runs “an excellent office,” she said.
“I think it could cause both regions to step backward instead of forward,” she said.
Both Clement and Koenig declined comment.
Repercussions feared
In Orleans and Jefferson an overwhelming number of people who work regularly with Koenig believe that the move could needlessly derail state juvenile-justice reforms in the region at a crucial time. And on a personal level, they said, they worry about the effect of the long commute on their hardworking colleague, still on a defibrillator, who after her illness returned to her office and its long hours because she was determined to continue her work.
Earlier this month, the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana wrote a letter to Livers, urging her to reconsider Koenig’s transfer. So did Citizens for One Greater New Orleans, which called the switch a “devastating blow to the children of this region.”
“I can’t see making a change like this at a time like this,” said Gina Warner, head of the Afterschool Partnership of Greater New Orleans, who said that she and others who work with youths feel “demoralized” about the change. As the city tries to stem crime, particularly juvenile crime, Warner said, it needs a seasoned hand like Koenig, to juggle the nearly 450 youths who are at any given time under court supervision in Orleans and Jefferson with the 50 remaining slots in community programs, a number that was slashed by 140 during recent state budget cuts.
“It’s not the best time for a learning curve,” Warner said.
While the Office of Juvenile Justice blamed the program cuts on belt-tightening in the face of a smaller budget, children’s advocates like Warner believe the move “turned the clock back” on reform because the cuts favored juvenile incarceration over community programs, which have been the bedrock of the state’s much-lauded reform efforts in recent years.
Bell said that he hoped that Koenig hadn’t been shifted as a result of her criticism, because, to him, her candor is “one of her best qualities.”
But Bell said he was never consulted about the transfer.
“Maybe it’s the right decision, I don’t know,’ he said. “But maybe it’s the wrong decision and they won’t know, because they didn’t ask.
Copyright 2009 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company