Lawsuit asks judge to toss out severance agreement and reinstate Marilyn Dominick as superintendent. Court papers say she is willing to return.
School board members, background from left, Brian Richardson, Penny Feeney, Erica O'Brien and Mary Alley listen as Frank Miller, the district's lawyer, talks during a news conference at the high school Oct. 6. Alley is board president.Jordan-Elbridge school Superintendent Marilyn Dominick was forced to retire early as part of a takeover plan devised by a clique of school board members aided by the district’s former general counsel, Danny Mevec, a lawsuit filed this week against the district charges.
“Their actions against Dominick were maliciously executed in an effort to badger, cajole, threaten and coerce her into agreeing to resign early,” according to the court papers, filed late Wednesday in state Supreme Court.
The legal action, called an Article 78, asks the court to void any severance agreement between Dominick and the district and restore her old contract, a five-year agreement that runs through June 2012. The court papers state Dominick had offered to rescind her retirement and stay on because of the controversy surrounding the shake-up of district administrators.
The Article 78 lists five people — administrators and employees — who have been suspended, transferred, fired or denied tenure, along with two others retiring early and another quitting his job in the shake-up rocking the district.
Word of the pending legal action was made public at a school board meeting last week.
The court documents said the board took a number of improper or illegal actions. The lawsuit charges:
• The severance agreement payment of $82,444 to Dominick was an unconstitutional gift of public funds.
• The board violated the state’s open meeting law by failing to vote publicly to authorize negotiating a severance package and to accept Dominick’s resignation.
Marilyn Dominick• The board authorized school President Mary Alley on May 5 to negotiate a severance agreement with Dominick, but the agreement had already been negotiated in secret in violation of state law.
• Dominick’s resignation, dated April 7, should have been effective within 30 days after it was announced, under state law. Instead, the resignation was made effective Nov. 1, a full 207 days later.
The Article 78 was filed by nine residents of the school district against the school board, Dominick and William Speck, Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES superintendent who will serve as the district’s temporary interim superintendent after Dominick’s scheduled departure Friday.
The legal action was brought by Fred and Linda Weisskopf, Cheryl Liptak, Charles Carter Jr., Maureen and Michael Doyle, Walter and Rochelle Hubbs and Dennis Pelmear.
It was filed by the firm of O’Hara, O’Connell and Ciotoli, the same firm which represents William Hamilton, the district’s suspended assistant superintendent of business and finance, David Zehner, suspended Jordan-Elbridge high school principal, and Anthony Scro, recently fired as the district’s treasurer.
Fred Weisskopf resigned in September as an account clerk in the district’s business office. Pelmear in the Elbridge town highway superintendent.
Maureen Doyle is heading up a letter-writing campaign asking state education officials to step in to help the district solve the current controversy. Rochelle Hubbs is a member of community group J-E Community One Voice.
» Read continuing coverage of the Jordan-Elbridge school board
Reach John Stith at jstith@syracuse.com or at 251-5718.