The Legal Battle Between Greenwich First Selectman and School Board Moves to Court. The lawsuit between First Selectman Fred Camillo and the Town of Greenwich against the Board of Education and some of its members is now headed to a hearing after the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the case. If you’d like to know more about the legal battle between Greenwich First Selectman and the School Board in court and whether the motion to dismiss it will happen or not in detail, please keep reading the article below.
Legal Battle Between Greenwich First Selectman and School Board Moves to Court
The legal battle is still ongoing between Greenwich First Selectman Fred Camillo and the Town of Greenwich against the Board of Education. Some members need to go to an evidentiary hearing after the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the case. The hearing was originally scheduled to take place over the course of three days—February 19-21—at the state Superior Court in Stamford, but according to a Feb. 14 order, there will be an oral argument regarding the motion on February 24.
During that time, Judge Yamini Menon will determine if an evidentiary hearing will be needed. If so, one will be scheduled. Camillo and the town filed a lawsuit in state Superior Court in Stamford in December against the BOE, Karen Hirsh, Kathleen Stowe, Sophie Koven, Laura Kostin, and Jennifer Behette, over filling the Republican spot on the school board left vacant when former chair Karen Kowalski resigned.
On October 21, the Board of Education (BOE) organized an urgent meeting at which the five members in attendance voted 4 to 1 to add Republican Jen Behette to the board. At the time, the acting chair, Democrat Karen Hirish, clarified that six candidates had been interviewed. The plaintiffs’ complaint says that the meeting was not noticed properly and that there was no genuine emergency, an alleged violation of FOIA. The complaint says that the meeting and vote were held over the objection of Republican Dr. Michael Joseph Mercanti-Anthony.
In the suit, Camillo and the town ask that the official business handled by the BOE after October 21 be nullified. The suit also demands that the Board of Selectmen-chosen candidate, Paul Caooiali, be installed as a school board member in place of Behette, who was selected by the BOE. On Jan. 8, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the case, saying that the reasons behind the Oct. 21 emergency meeting were “genuine.”
In the memorandum that supports their motion to dismiss the case, the defendants say that the BOS’s decision to hold a special meeting on Oct. 22 to fill the BOE vacancy was the reason behind their decision to call for the BOE emergency meeting on Oct. 21 to fill the vacancy themselves. The memorandum says that the BOS’s decision to call its meeting on Oct. 22 was an “attempt to deprive” the BOE “of its rights to fill the open position on the board.”
Camillo’s and the town’s lawyers’ reaction reaffirmed the argument that the school board is acting illegally and the judge should grant “emergency interim relief” by deciding in their favor or permitting the case to go to trial.
Witnesses expected to be called to the stand at the time of the originally scheduled hearing included Camillo, Greenwich Town Clerk Jacqueline Budkins, Selectwoman Lauren Rabin, Selectperson Janet Stone McGuignan, Cappiali, Town Attorney Barbara Schellenberg, Assistant Town Attorney Abby Walder, Hirsh, Behette, Kostin, Koven, Stowe, Greenwich School Superintendent Toni Jones, Executive Assistant to the first selectman and Board of Selectmen, Board of Selectman Ken Borsuk and Board of Education members Michael-Joseph Merchanti-Anthony, Wendy Vizzo Walsh and Cody Kittle.
The emergency meeting was an attempt to “preserve the integrity of the board’s vacancy-filling process,” according to the memorandum. The motion to dismiss states, “The conflict caused by the unacceptable actions of the BOS left the board with no time to schedule another meeting in accordance with the usual 24-hour notice requirements, making the emergency special meeting the only legitimate and necessary course of action for the board to preserve its well-established powers.”
In the lawsuit filed by Camillo, he and the town asked the courts to need the BOE to return, on a temporary basis, to its personnel before Oct. 21 and to stop Behette from electing as a board member. This would then nullify the slate of officers, which includes Behette as vice chair.