Popular Searches
Print
E-mail
Comment
Rate
Share
Justice sues town over deputy court clerk’s reduced hours and status
Lawsuit heads to state Supreme Court Sept. 3
By Bob Green
NEW LEBANON — The next skirmish in a long running conflict between New Lebanon’s two town justices will take place Sept. 3 at the Columbia County Courthouse in Hudson, when a ruling could be made in the suit filed by Justice Darcy L. Poppey against the Town Board.
In her suit, Poppey claims laws were broken when the Town Board reduced the hours and status of Deputy Court Clerk Diane Brown. The suit seeks back pay and reinstatement for Brown, as well as compensation in “fees and costs” for Poppey. Teal described Brown as Poppey’s “campaign manager and best friend.”
Named in the Article 78 motion filed with the state Supreme Court Aug. 13 are Supervisor Margaret Robertson, Town Clerk Colleen Teal, Town Attorney Jason Shaw and board members Allen Livermore, Bruce Baldwin, Karl B. Chittenden and Monte Wasch.
A countersuit has been filed by long-time Town Justice Shaun McHugh and Court Clerk Marianne Renfro. Among the claims of the countersuit is that Poppey missed the four-month statute of limitations that applies to her complaint, which concerns events from last November.
Shaw is representing the Town Board members, supervisor and town clerk, while Poppey is representing herself. McHugh and Renfro are being represented by Attorney Jay Renfro.
In a phone interview with the Chatham Courier, Poppey, who began serving in January 2008, called Renfro a “no show clerk” and that she had been “insubordinate” and had “impaired” the court. Poppey said she has documented many serious irregularities to the Office of the State Comptroller and maintains that an agreement made between the two town justices in October to evenly split the weekly hours of Renfro and Brown is legally binding.
But Shaw disagrees, pointing out that legally, the “town doesn’t have to provide clerks” at all, but like many towns, funds them to help judges with their often overwhelming bureaucratic workloads.
Town Law 29 from 2005 established the positions of both court clerk and deputy court clerk. The deputy’s role is to “assist in filling the Clerk duties” and to serve in cases of absence or other inability to serve on the part of the court clerk. Shaw said the intent of the law is that the deputy court clerk be “subordinate” to the court clerk.
The lawsuit contains hundreds of pages of e-mails, photocopies and handwritten notes with complaints about deficient paperwork and procedures, mainly from Poppey on the subject of Court Clerk Renfro. Charges and responses, both grave and trivial, were hurled in all directions over the course of more than a year. And While many names and addresses were redacted from Poppey’s filing, at least some names or other identifying information of defendants appear to be visible in the documents, which are now public.
An October 2008 agreement signed by both Poppey and McHugh gave each their own clerk, with nearly all functions duplicated. Any fines collected by a clerk but not owed to their respective justice were to be packaged and “slid under the door” of the other justice’s chambers. The agreement includes a prohibition against “communication by either clerk though their attorney, agent or any other representative.”
While the agreement hinted at the nature of past problems, minutes from the budget process through the month of October showed that things were far from settled. On Oct. 22, there was discussion of the relative merits of “one full-time clerk and one part-time clerk versus two clerks split between the judges with equal time and equal pay.”
On Nov. 3, Teal asked the board for guidance on vouchers submitted by Poppey, including mileage reimbursement for a conference in Rochester for which she got rides both ways and a bill for changing the locks to the Town Court and then changing them back again after it became clear there was no authority to do so. Neither the board nor the supervisor were notified of the change in advance, according to those minutes.
Then, on Nov. 6, the board directed Poppey to relinquish one of two locking file cabinets provided to the court by Teal so that Poppey and McHugh could each have one. Robertson said the file cabinet incident was “contributing to the insanity of the past year.”
The dispute over hours also surfaced that day when Shaw stated emphatically that “there is no need for 52 hours per week for clerks in a court the size of New Lebanon.”
Board member Wasch said it was “inherently inefficient to have two clerks operating separately.”
In a public hearing on Nov. 15, Poppey spoke in opposition to the court’s part of the proposed budget, in which two part-time clerk positions were set to be replaced with a full-time and part-time position. The entire budget passed on Nov. 18, with three voting in favor, including the supervisor, and two opposed, though the court’s budget was not among the sticking points.
A letter from Administrative Judge George Ceresia Jr. to the town from Unified Court System in January 2009 points out that, under Town Law 20, “the Town Board may only appoint the new Court Clerks upon the advice and consent of both Town Justices” and noted Poppey’s “lack of trust and confidence in the newly-hired full-time Court Clerk,” an appointment to which she did not consent. In the letter, Ceresia offers to meet with the parties to “discuss a mutually agreeable solution.”
On June 10, another UCS official wrote about being alarmed that previous letters and phone calls had shown no results. “It is imperative for a meeting to be scheduled as soon as possible” in order to “insure that the administration of justice is not negatively impacted by any deficiencies in the New Lebanon Town Court.”
Teal said that, as far as she knew, there had still been no meeting between state and town officials.
Shaw said that, other than persuasion, there is no way to force the parties to talk. “Ceresia has no legal authority,” he said of the UCS judge who continues to offer to mediate.
Due to separation of powers, the town “can’t control judges, can’t make them behave like adults,” Shaw said. “This has taken too much time.”
In her suit, Poppey claims laws were broken when the Town Board reduced the hours and status of Deputy Court Clerk Diane Brown. The suit seeks back pay and reinstatement for Brown, as well as compensation in “fees and costs” for Poppey. Teal described Brown as Poppey’s “campaign manager and best friend.”
Named in the Article 78 motion filed with the state Supreme Court Aug. 13 are Supervisor Margaret Robertson, Town Clerk Colleen Teal, Town Attorney Jason Shaw and board members Allen Livermore, Bruce Baldwin, Karl B. Chittenden and Monte Wasch.
A countersuit has been filed by long-time Town Justice Shaun McHugh and Court Clerk Marianne Renfro. Among the claims of the countersuit is that Poppey missed the four-month statute of limitations that applies to her complaint, which concerns events from last November.
Shaw is representing the Town Board members, supervisor and town clerk, while Poppey is representing herself. McHugh and Renfro are being represented by Attorney Jay Renfro.
In a phone interview with the Chatham Courier, Poppey, who began serving in January 2008, called Renfro a “no show clerk” and that she had been “insubordinate” and had “impaired” the court. Poppey said she has documented many serious irregularities to the Office of the State Comptroller and maintains that an agreement made between the two town justices in October to evenly split the weekly hours of Renfro and Brown is legally binding.
But Shaw disagrees, pointing out that legally, the “town doesn’t have to provide clerks” at all, but like many towns, funds them to help judges with their often overwhelming bureaucratic workloads.
Town Law 29 from 2005 established the positions of both court clerk and deputy court clerk. The deputy’s role is to “assist in filling the Clerk duties” and to serve in cases of absence or other inability to serve on the part of the court clerk. Shaw said the intent of the law is that the deputy court clerk be “subordinate” to the court clerk.
The lawsuit contains hundreds of pages of e-mails, photocopies and handwritten notes with complaints about deficient paperwork and procedures, mainly from Poppey on the subject of Court Clerk Renfro. Charges and responses, both grave and trivial, were hurled in all directions over the course of more than a year. And While many names and addresses were redacted from Poppey’s filing, at least some names or other identifying information of defendants appear to be visible in the documents, which are now public.
An October 2008 agreement signed by both Poppey and McHugh gave each their own clerk, with nearly all functions duplicated. Any fines collected by a clerk but not owed to their respective justice were to be packaged and “slid under the door” of the other justice’s chambers. The agreement includes a prohibition against “communication by either clerk though their attorney, agent or any other representative.”
While the agreement hinted at the nature of past problems, minutes from the budget process through the month of October showed that things were far from settled. On Oct. 22, there was discussion of the relative merits of “one full-time clerk and one part-time clerk versus two clerks split between the judges with equal time and equal pay.”
On Nov. 3, Teal asked the board for guidance on vouchers submitted by Poppey, including mileage reimbursement for a conference in Rochester for which she got rides both ways and a bill for changing the locks to the Town Court and then changing them back again after it became clear there was no authority to do so. Neither the board nor the supervisor were notified of the change in advance, according to those minutes.
Then, on Nov. 6, the board directed Poppey to relinquish one of two locking file cabinets provided to the court by Teal so that Poppey and McHugh could each have one. Robertson said the file cabinet incident was “contributing to the insanity of the past year.”
The dispute over hours also surfaced that day when Shaw stated emphatically that “there is no need for 52 hours per week for clerks in a court the size of New Lebanon.”
Board member Wasch said it was “inherently inefficient to have two clerks operating separately.”
In a public hearing on Nov. 15, Poppey spoke in opposition to the court’s part of the proposed budget, in which two part-time clerk positions were set to be replaced with a full-time and part-time position. The entire budget passed on Nov. 18, with three voting in favor, including the supervisor, and two opposed, though the court’s budget was not among the sticking points.
A letter from Administrative Judge George Ceresia Jr. to the town from Unified Court System in January 2009 points out that, under Town Law 20, “the Town Board may only appoint the new Court Clerks upon the advice and consent of both Town Justices” and noted Poppey’s “lack of trust and confidence in the newly-hired full-time Court Clerk,” an appointment to which she did not consent. In the letter, Ceresia offers to meet with the parties to “discuss a mutually agreeable solution.”
On June 10, another UCS official wrote about being alarmed that previous letters and phone calls had shown no results. “It is imperative for a meeting to be scheduled as soon as possible” in order to “insure that the administration of justice is not negatively impacted by any deficiencies in the New Lebanon Town Court.”
Teal said that, as far as she knew, there had still been no meeting between state and town officials.
Shaw said that, other than persuasion, there is no way to force the parties to talk. “Ceresia has no legal authority,” he said of the UCS judge who continues to offer to mediate.
Due to separation of powers, the town “can’t control judges, can’t make them behave like adults,” Shaw said. “This has taken too much time.”
Share this Article
 |
||
| Hall of Fame — Lawrence ‘Red’ Schroeder, Athlete, Class of 1955 |
Article Rating
Reader Comments
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of registerstar.com.
You must register with a valid email to post comments. Only your Member ID will be posted with the comments.
Registered users sign in here: |
Become a Registered User |
