GM board votes to stop attorney’s defense of ‘Chieftain’ for now

By Shawn Cunningham
©2023 Telegraph Publishing LLC

The Board of Directors of the Green Mountain Unified School District voted 6 to 3 last night to stop paying an attorney and have him halt work representing the board to defend the Chieftain mascot in an appeal before the state Agency of Education.

Instead, the board will meet in executive session with the attorney to discuss the representation.  The attorney has agreed to do this at no charge.

The vote took place during a special meeting of the board called by a majority of members asking for information about how this legal representation came about in the first place. Those members say they were surprised to learn of the payments, which currently amount to more than  $10,000 and were first reported by The Chester Telegraph.

Last night’s meeting was dominated by members who had voted for discontinuing the use of the name Chieftain and who believed they were kept in the dark over the decision on its defense before the AOE. The issue was put before the AOE when three members of the public appealed the board’s May 18 decision to keep the name “Chieftains,” saying it did not violate school policy.

The majority who called for last night’s meeting had expected to be informed of the details behind the hiring at last Thursday’s regular meeting. But that meeting was cut extremely short due to what Board chair Deb Brown erroneously depicted as an error in how that meeting was warned.

Brown did not attend last night’s special meeting; Vice Chair Adrienne Williams instead took over the chair’s duties.

Following a session of public comment, Board member Lisa Sanders of Cavendish asked about the procedure for hiring and paying for the lawyer to represent the district in the appeal.

Williams said there was no formal procedure, but the decision arose from the May 18 executive session in which attorney Mick Leddy advised the board on its options on voting whether the Chieftain name violated the school district’s policy on Non-discriminatory Mascots and School Branding.

While Williams also said that the board could not publicly discuss what happened in the executive session, board member Josh Schroeder of Chester noted that the board never talked about actually hiring an attorney and never voted on paying one to defend the Chieftain name.

Board member Kate Lamphere of Cavendish also noted that any decision that the board would have made concerning hiring a attorney would have had to be done in open session since it is illegal for boards to vote during an executive session.

She also said that in her years on the board – serving beside two superintendents – it has “always been customary” for any decision to hire legal counsel to come before the board.

“It was shocking to me,” said Lamphere. “I don’t know where the board chair got her authority.”

At one point, Lois Perlah of Chester asked if any member remembered a board vote on legal representation and no one did.

Steve Perani of Cavendish recalled a conversation with he had with Brown, who told him that the attorney was not defending the Chieftain name and that hiring an attorney had been recommended by Lauren Fierman, superintendent of the Two Rivers Supervisory Union. Perani said Fierman had told him that was not true.

Fierman, who was at last night’s meeting, said that she cannot support or represent the board’s decision that the mascot did not violate the policy so when the AOE attorney contacted her about the procedure for the appeal, she said that board chair Brown should handle it.

Williams said that there are answers, but a public meeting was not the proper place. So for the purposes of that night’s meeting, Williams said they were “at an impasse.”

“Deb had prepared information and was going to give you an update,” said Williams referring to last Thursday’s abbreviated meeting, which actually ended on a motion to adjourn put forward by Williams.

Sanders said she wanted the board to act quickly to not have anymore money going toward the mascot defense instead of education initiatives.

Pointing to a new addition to the board’s agenda format, Schroeder noted that among the “board norms” was the phrase “no surprises.” But when he spoke with Brown looking for an update on the appeal, she said there was “not much to tell.” Shortly thereafter, he said, The Telegraph published its article about the rising legal fees.

“That was a surprise,” said Schroeder who then made a motion to have the attorney cease defending the Chieftain name.

Williams asked if the board wanted to vote to stop the legal defense without hearing from the attorney,  who she had said was willing to meet with them at no charge. “Do you want to vote without the information?”

Schroeder said he had asked Brown for information and had given her plenty of time to get an answer.

Lamphere said she disagreed with Williams’ characterization of the May 18 executive session but she was willing to talk about it after the defense of the mascot decision stops.

Fierman, who trained as a lawyer, said that she could not recommend cancelling representation in the middle of a legal action and that the firm had told her that they were willing to meet with one or two representatives of the board – or the whole board in executive session – to talk without charge.

Voting to cease paying the attorney were Kate Lamphere, Josh Schroeder, Steve Perani, Katie Murphy of Chester, Lois Perlah and Lisa Sanders. Voting against were Jeff Hance of Chester, Rick Alexander of Chester and Scott Kendall of Andover. Williams, of Baltimore, did not vote and Brown was absent.

After the vote to discontinue defending the board’s decision on the mascot, attention turned toward the meeting with the attorneys. Lamphere moved to ask the Superintendent Fierman to schedule a meeting with the full board for a discussion with the lawyers as soon as possible after this week. That was approved unanimously.

The meeting, which was also being held on Zoom, was interrupted by a Zoom bomber who flashed a porn video on the screen and blasted vile racial slurs. Zoom access was shut down and restarted with every Zoom attendee on mute and without video.