Library staffer who won election suit quits job

SOUTH PORTLAND — A South Portland library employee who last month won a lawsuit asserting her right to seek election to the school board has quit her job, citing extreme unhappiness and a pattern of harassment related to her past union activities.

“I’ve had a lot of trouble since we unionized,” said Karen Callaghan on Tuesday, noting that she was the last remaining member of the library union, which folded last year for lack of support after its founders quit, retired or got laid off.

Callaghan’s attorney, David Lourie of Cape Elizabeth, says the trouble included recent changes to her schedule, including a transfer to the branch library that cost her hours when one of her new days fell on Easter, which was ruled an unpaid holiday.

Despite her departure, both Callaghan and City Manager Jim Gailey say their respective sides will not abandon a fight over the summary judgment handed down April 17 by Superior Court Justice Thomas Warren, who upheld Callaghan’s free speech rights to engage in non-partisan political activity as a city employee. 

Callaghan says her decision to move on to a part-time post at the Scarborough Public Library was not driven by the city’s appeal, which was filed May 8. She submitted her resignation to South Portland Human Resource Director Don Brewer May 11. It is effective May 25. She remains on the school board.

“It has nothing to do with the lawsuit,” she said. “I won that lawsuit and I’m going to continue fighting against this appeal. I was just very unhappy at the library.

“I’m tired of the culture of the city is what it is,” she said.

Meanwhile, the City Council is slated to hold a workshop session on concerns expressed by Councilor Rosemarie De Angelis, who says the decision to file the appeal may have violated Maine’s Freedom of Access Act, because it occurred behind closed doors. Another decision, not to accept a settlement offer in a separate lawsuit filed by Albert DiMillo over councilors’ compensation, also was made in executive session, says De Angelis.

According to the law, an ordinance, order, rule, resolution, regulation, contract, appointment or other official action cannot be finally approved at an executive session.

De Angelis says that while she “completely gets” the need for councilors to consult with city attorney Sally Dagget in private, the decision to continue both legal battles “was not unanimous.”

“In both cases, there was more than one member of the council opposed,” she said Thursday, while declining to reveal her own position, or that of any of her peers.

“But doesn’t the public deserve to know where each of us stood?” she asked, rhetorically. “We’ve made two decisions now. Doesn’t the public deserve to know even if it was 5-2 or 4-3?

“I’m not liking how it feels when I can’t be up front with the public,” said De Angelis. “I hate that. It makes me feel less than transparent. It makes me feel slimy.”

Following Monday’s council meeting, Mayor Patti Smith declined comment on Callaghan’s resignation. However, she defended the council’s deliberations.

“There were discussion and they definitely weren’t consensus discussions,” she said. “Everybody came at it with a different point of view, as they always do. Those points of view are part of the executive session.”

On De Angelis’ assertion that the council should have conducted public votes on how it wanted to proceed with each suit, Smith deferred to Daggett, who did not respond to requests for comment by press time Tuesday.

Gailey said Monday that the workshop De Angelis has requested would happen, but had not yet been scheduled. However, he said, the law allows the council to enter executive session to discuss “legal strategy,” to which De Angelis counters that the strategy debate is necessarily over when it comes time to vote on what to do next.

That leaves disagreement over whether there was a closed-door vote.

“I can tell you I’ve never seen a hand raised or a tabulation of votes taken in executive session here in South Portland,” said Gailey.

“If you’re deciding what to do next, you need to know if you have a majority in favor or not,” says De Angelis. “That means you’re counting somehow.”

Aside from how the city chose to appeal Callaghan’s victory, the why, says Gailey, boils down to “the principle.”

“There have always been people who have tried to personalize it, but we’re not fighting it because we want to fight Karen Callaghan,” he said. “Were fighting it because it’s a policy that some 300 employees fall under.”

With the appeal pending, Gailey declined to specify how any of those 300 employees differ from Callaghan. In his decision, Warren said the “perceived awkwardness” Gailey might feel should he have to discipline an employee holding a vote on such a large swatch of the city budget, “is not sufficient to restrict the first amendment rights of municipal employees who want to participate in school board elections.” 

Callaghan filed her suit Sept. 26, 2011, in Cumberland County Superior Court after being told Sept. 13 that her name could not appear on the November ballot for re-election to an at-large seat on the school board unless she first resigned her job at the circulation desk of the city’s public library.

“I considered that totally taking away of all my rights,” said Callaghan.

A longstanding personnel policy bars city employees from holding any municipal elective office in South Portland. On Nov. 15, 2010, that policy was updated to clarify that the elective offices at stake include school board seats, not just positions on the City Council – this after councilors overlooked the policy when appointing Callaghan to fill an unexpired school board term in 2007, or when she won election outright in 2008.

On Sept. 19 – after Callaghan first threatened to sue – Gailey wrote Callaghan to say he “would not enforce” the policy “for this election.” The “grandfathering” gesture was one of good will, Gailey said, given that Callaghan was “informed of the policy back in January [2011].”

Despite the offer, Callaghan pressed on, joined in her suit by part-time Parks & Recreation employee Burton Edwards, who said he ran afoul of the policy in December 2010, when he was refused appointment to a vacant seat on the school board. In the meantime, a temporary restraining order allowed Callaghan to collect signatures despite the policy’s prohibition on political activity. She won re-election unopposed with 5,223 votes.

At its Nov. 21 meeting, the City Council voted unanimously to relax part of the policy, which had also barred employees from signing or circulating nomination papers or other campaign literature. Under the new rules, a city employee can now sign a petition for someone else to run for office.

Even if she hadn’t quit her job, Callaghan could have continued to serve on the school board during the appeal process, says Lourie. Lourie says Callaghan’s case rests on the remaining policy restrictions on employees running for school board. The city actually could have barred Callaghan from serving once elected, he says, making her choose between her job and her elected office.

“There is a constitutional right to run for office,” he said, “there is no constitutional right to serve.”

With her resignation, it will not come to that. Still, she questions why the council has chosen to continue the legal battle.

“Frankly, I’m stunned that they are spending more money on an appeal when the city keeps saying it has no money and it doesn’t want to raise taxes,” she said, noting council efforts to trim $225,000 from the school budget.

Gaiey did not respond by press time to a request for an estimate of the city’s outlay, to date, on the Callaghan and DiMillo suits. However, based on Lourie’s bill alone, the cost will not be inconsiderable.

“My hourly time now exceeds $25,000,” said Lourie. “The appeals now adds to that, as does the application for attorney fees.”