by Maddie Dockery (NCC News)
Nov. 10, 2010, 5:32 p.m.
SYRACUSE, N.Y.- Suspended principal David Zehner has filed a lawsuit against the Jordan-Elbridge Central School District, claiming that the school board met illegally behind closed doors.
Zehner wants the state Supreme Court to disregard any decisions that were made by the school board during these closed-door meetings. Judge Donald A. Greenwood ruled in early October that under the Open Meetings Law, the school board cannot hold a private meeting without first giving a specific reason to the public.
The lawsuit
Zehner’s lawyer, Dominic D’Imperio of the Syracuse law firm O’Hara, O’Connell and Ciotoli, says that Zehner filed an Article 78 proceeding.
“In New York it’s a very specific type of lawsuit to challenge the actions of government or state or local municipal officials,” D’Imperio said.
With this legal action, Zehner is asking the court to order the school board to reveal to the public the topics of six specific executive sessions. These executive sessions were all held in private, after the court’s Oct. 1 ruling.
Throw out decisions from closed-door meetings
In addition to other decisions made by the school board during private meetings, Zehner wants the appointment of Interim Superintendent Lawrence Zacher to be thrown out.
D’Imperio says that the board announced Zacher’s appointment to the public on Nov. 3, after a two-hour-long, private executive session.
“If the board made that decision… and they just exited executive session, it’s not an extravagant leap of logic to assume that decision was made in executive session,” D’Imperio said.
The hearing for this case will be on Dec. 9, at which time everything is in the court’s hands. D’Imperio says it could take the court anywhere from one day to six months to make a decision.
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