Retiring superintendent's $20-million legal mess

(Editor's note: The following column appeared April 14, 2017 in the Finger Lakes Times newspaper in Geneva, NY.)

Leaving a $20 million legal mess

By Michael J. Fitzgerald, columnist

The legal legacy of retiring Watkins Glen NY Unified School District Superintendent Tom Phillips will likely be long remembered by area taxpayers.

When Phillips leaves later this year, the district, Watkins Glen Police and the tiny Village likely will still be scrambling to defend against a federal lawsuit alleging abuse of power and violation of a citizen’s constitutional rights — all linked to Phillips’ actions last year.

The damages demanded by the plaintiff tally up to approximately $20 million, not counting legal fees that are quickly piling up.

Hansen arrested at a tennis match

The 20-page lawsuit in the federal Western District of New York court is the outgrowth of two arrests of a Watkins Glen woman, a persistent critic of Phillips’ administration and the elected school board.

In both arrests Kristina Hansen was handcuffed and taken into custody by Watkins Glen Police, once for attempting to attend a publicly noticed school board meeting, the second for attending a public, outdoor tennis match.

You read correctly — a public meeting of elected officials ... and a public outdoor athletic event.

She raised the superintendent’s ire to the boiling point when she tried to attend a school board meeting about staff cuts. When Hansen attempted to enter, Phillips blocked her entry.

“Phillips behaved in an intimidating manner, flailing his arms and continuing to shout at her,” the lawsuit says.

Police were called and escorted Hansen off campus without incident.

Days later she received a letter from Phillips barring her from setting foot on any school district campus or office without his written consent.

That letter, which a Watkins Glen judge months later ruled was unlawful, was the basis for Hansen’s two arrests, both of which the judge tossed out.

“No citizen of the United States, the State of New York or the Watkins School District needs to ask ‘permission’ of anyone in order to exercise her constitutional or statutory rights,” the judge wrote.

While Phillips’ clumsy, illegal attempt to silence a critic is clearly the headwaters of this fiasco, school board members, Watkins police and the community share the blame for letting a simmering local disagreement boil over into literally a $20 million federal case.

The school board members should have lassoed their superintendent at the first meeting at which staff cuts were to be discussed. A quorum of the board was present. It was a public meeting. Hansen should have been welcomed, not shunned, despite her history of asking skeptical questions.

Ten days later, when Phillips had Hansen arrested to bar her entry into a public school board meeting, the board members should have overruled him on the spot and invited Hansen’s attendance.

An apology that evening — versus arrest — was in order, too.

Instead they sat passively while Kristina Hansen’s wrists were shackled in handcuffs.

Had the board used its words, a second arrest at a tennis match the next month, ordered by Phillips’ staff, also would have been avoided.

While Watkins police should have diffused both arrests with thoughtful community policing and mediation, the Watkins community needed to voice outrage that a fellow citizen was being denied basic constitutional rights.

If this could happen to Hansen, anyone could be at risk.

All this is likely to prove costly to taxpayers.

The lawsuit seeks a jury trial. And juries historically frown on bureaucratic trampling of First Amendment rights.

Juries also are not fond of mothers being hauled off in handcuffs for simply wanting to attend a public meeting.

The school board has done its best to ensure Phillips and the two school district employees who ordered the second arrest won’t have to pay cash penalties.

The board voted to provide their legal defense and indemnified the trio against any financial judgments.

Too bad it can’t indemnify taxpayers whose money will pay for district lawyers and the potential $20 million legal-judgment avalanche rumbling their way.

Fitzgerald worked for six newspapers as a writer and editor as well as a correspondent for several news services. He splits his time between Valois, NY and Pt. Richmond, Calif. You can email him at Michael.Fitzgeraldfltcolumnist@gmail.com and visit his website at michaeljfitzgerald.blogspot.com.