By Steve Plunkett
Taxpayers will not pick up the $6,000 legal bill Town Clerk Beverly Brown incurred fighting a one-month suspension for sending offensive emails at work on her official computer.
“I decided it wouldn’t be appropriate,” Town Attorney Tom Sliney said following the Town Commission’s Aug. 30 workshop. The issue was not discussed at the meeting.
Sliney reasoned Highland Beach should not pay Brown’s legal fees, Brown said, because she admitted sending the emails, a violation of town policy.
Former Town Manager Dale Sugerman told Brown in January he planned to suspend her for a month without pay after she mistakenly emailed him jokes about Canadians not being politically correct. Sugerman investigated and found more jokes, some “sexually-oriented or defamatory,” that Brown had forwarded at work, including one alluding to President Obama and using the N-word.
But before he could suspend her, Sugerman was suspended — with pay — until his contract expired June 30. Town commissioners hired Kathleen Weiser, a former assistant Charlotte County manager, as his replacement.
Former Commissioner John Sorrelli, who while in office made the formal motions to suspend Sugerman and not extend his contract, led the charge in asking Highland Beach to pay Brown’s attorney fees, which nearly equal her $6,200-a-month salary.
“She should be reimbursed. It was not her fault; she had nothing to do with it. Let’s bring this town back to the peace we had in town before,’’ Sorrelli said at the commission’s Aug. 2 meeting.
His appeal was echoed in quick succession by former Mayor Harold Hagelmann, onetime commission candidate Joe Yucht and former Vice Mayor Joseph Asselta.
Commissioners balked at immediately approving the request.
Acting Finance Director Cale Curtis assured them the current budget had enough money set aside, but they asked Sliney to investigate whether Highland Beach’s insurance policy would cover the bill.
An independent hearing officer reviewed the case in April and sided with Brown’s lawyer and Sliney, saying the proposed suspension without pay was “draconian.”
“I am absolutely reversing the punishment,” said hearing officer Kenneth Stern, a recently retired Palm Beach County circuit judge, who decided a written reprimand was more than adequate.
Brown’s attorney told Stern tensions between the clerk and Sugerman started months before the Canadian jokes were emailed.
Mayor Jim Newill broke a 2-2 vote in January to discuss Sugerman’s planned punishment of Brown, then lost a reelection bid in March in part because of his handling of the case. Newill’s wife, a breast cancer survivor, was helping Brown, who had been diagnosed with the same disease.
Besides paying Sugerman’s $12,000-a-month salary and letting him continue to use a leased Nissan SUV, the town paid Weiser $6,000 a month as interim town manager, Stern $375 an hour to arbitrate the case, and a West Palm Beach labor attorney $400 an hour to review its contract with Sugerman. Ú
Comments