This is from the Zenith Article:
“And Welty is now suing the former friend he still describes as “the smartest and most competent person on the other side.”
On April 9th, Grover and all but one member of the Board were personally added as defendants to the petition, which had to be filed by individual district taxpayers because LDV is not organized in such a way as to have any legal claim. Five including Welty, have signed on.
Grover declined comment on the lawsuit, pending he advice of legal counsel. The Board has held no closed sessions to discuss the lawsuit and none are planned, according to both Grover and Gary Glass.”
Interestingly, both Sarah Horner the Trib’s education reporter and Jennifer Martin Romme of the Zenith have asked me whether Gary Glass has a “conflict of interest” over this suit. He clearly has none because such a conflict refers only to pecuniary interests of elected officials. Gary won’t earn a dime from the Red Plan. The issue of conflict of interest is simply a red herring (is there any other color?) pushed by Red Plan supporters like Paul Goosens who want to neuter and discredit Gary Glass.
The District does owe the Board members the chance to hear from its lawyers about their potential liability and it is very real – to the tune of millions of dollars should a court find that they have permitted the violation of the law. But rather than protect his Board members by appraising them of their legal difficulty Dr. Dixon is more worried about holding a closed session with school attorneys with Gary Glass present.
Because our suit may end up being directed at Board members they do need legal counsel and they can not expect help from the District’s lawyers for their own personal defense. Any insurance they carry for the actions of the district end with their own illegal actions. Tim’s quote suggests he plans to talk to an attorney. Board members make a little over $6,000 a year. An attorney could eat into that pretty quickly and it wouldn’t begin to cover any punitive damages leveled at them.
I see this as yet one more instance of Dr. Dixon finding people expendable if that’s what it takes to make sure Gary Glass is kept in the dark in order to complete the Red Plan – even his own Board members.
