MCSD board member: Request from 2 reps to fire law firm ‘very hostile’

A Muscogee County School Board member has called the request from two fellow board members to discuss and vote on firing its law firm “very hostile and almost personal.”

That’s the way District 7 representative Cathy Williams described the request from District 8 representative Frank Myers and District 2 representative John Thomas. Myers emailed the request to board secretary Karen Jones approximately 1½ hours after the Ledger-Enquirer posted the news Tuesday that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has decided to investigate the Muscogee County School District’s settlement of a lawsuit — which included a $550,000 payment from the insurer — without board approval.

Board attorney Greg Ellington of Hall Booth Smith PC has argued that settling the lawsuit didn’t require board approval because the liability coverage provider, the Georgia School Boards Association, paid the full amount. The lawsuit in question was filed Feb. 4, 2016, on behalf of Columbus Police Department motor squad Officer William Green against MCSD bus driver Kenneth Canup after a 2015 crash that injured Green.

The Ledger-Enquirer has tried to determine whether Myers and Thomas have enough support on the nine-member board to accomplish their goal. Williams and county-wide representative Kia Chambers are the only board members who have shared with the Ledger-Enquirer their opinion about the request.

“Any board member has the prerogative to have anything they desire on the agenda for the work session,” Williams said in an interview.

Williams, however, said she has “full faith” in Ellington and Hall Booth Smith, a regional law firm with offices throughout the Southeast, including Columbus.

“Any action should be done at the conclusion of the investigation,” Williams said. “The law firm has stated nothing was done incorrectly, so I don’t understand the premise of firing based on an investigation that’s just started. … A couple of board members want to blow everything into a conspiracy. I don’t see that.”

Chambers echoed the caution.

“It is premature to entertain firing anyone or executing any type of disciplinary action when no wrongdoing has been definitively established,” Chambers said in an email to the Ledger-Enquirer. “The GBI is currently in the middle of conducting an investigation, and I think we should allow this process to take its course. Acting before collecting all of the facts is never a good idea.”

In his email to the board’s secretary, Myers wrote, “As the GBI is now actively involved in investigating this particular instance, I am confident other wrongdoing involving these lawyers will be brought to light. I can assure you that John Thomas and I have certainly reported other troubling issues regarding our present legal counsel.”

Williams said the board has settled other lawsuits without board approval – and without a problem. She was the board’s chairwoman for two of the eight years she served as the board’s lone county-wide representative but didn’t seek re-election in 2014. She recalled “situations where superintendents have told us after the fact of a settlement from an insurance company that has that purview.”

District 1 representative Pat Hugley Green, the board’s chairwoman, wouldn’t disclose her opinion about whether the law firm should be fired, but she noted in an email to the Ledger-Enquirer, “This matter is not determined by one or two board members but by a recommendation from the Superintendent to the entire school board.”

Lewis emailed this statement Friday to the Ledger-Enquirer:

“As you know, the District undertook an extensive vetting process at the end of 2015 to select a law firm to replace Hatcher Stubbs, who had been representing the District. Interested law firms around the state were invited to submit information about their qualifications and be considered. The vetting process included district administrators who most frequently use legal services. Hall Booth Smith was the only experienced local firm who requested to be considered. Factors including cost, proximity, and expertise with educational law were considered. The Board then voted to approve the recommendation to use the legal services of Hall Booth Smith in December of 2015. Given the extensive vetting process utilized last year and the service provided by the firm to date, there is no basis for a change in legal counsel.”

Hatcher, Stubbs, Land, Hollis & Rothschild had been the Muscogee County School District’s lone legal counsel in the first 65 years of the school district’s history until the Columbus law firm broke up at the end of 2015. The Hatcher Stubbs lawyers who had been doing the bulk of the legal work for MCSD (Ellington, Melanie Slaton and Chuck Staples), were among those who moved to Hall Booth Smith, which has been MCSD’s legal counsel since then.

Jones told the Ledger-Enquirer that, as required by board policy, the discussion requested by Myers and Thomas will be on the agenda for the Feb. 13 work session, but board policy says it’s up to the superintendent to recommend the legal counsel.

During the Jan. 19 meeting, Myers accused Green of breaking the law when the board didn’t vote on Lewis’ recommendation to retain Hall Booth Smith as its legal counsel. Ellington, however, said then, “There actually is nothing in the bylaws that says you’ve got to take an annual vote on the legal counsel.”

The Ledger-Enquirer asked the Georgia School Boards Association to weigh in, and GSBA communications director Justin Pauly said in an email, “GSBA does not have any recommended or sample policies on voting for school board attorneys and to our knowledge nor does state law on this particular subject.”

This story was originally published February 3, 2017 at 4:32 PM with the headline "MCSD board member: Request from 2 reps to fire law firm ‘very hostile’."