FORT SMITH — As alluded to last week, Joey McCutchen’s latest grievances with the Fort Smith Board of Education have reached the steps of the Sebastian County Courthouse.
The Fort Smith attorney has filed a second lawsuit against the school district regarding what he alleges is its most recent violation of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
“FOIA is intended to ensure that most governmental decision-making on the state and local level is conducted in an open and transparent fashion,” McCutchen’s press release stated. “This has been filed on half of Fort Smith resident and taxpayer June Bradshaw, seeks a declaratory judgment and other relief regarding a string of emails between school board members in which a slate of individuals to serve as School Board officers were extensively discussed”.
The plaintiffs on the school board for the Fort Smith School District were notified on November 8 by Sebastian County prosecutor Dan Shue of the possible FOIA violation. (The full complaint is available by clicking here.)
McCutchen contends that emails concerning the selection process of officers for the board violated the tenets of the FOIA and shows a pattern of willful disregard of the law when it comes to transparency.
School board president Deannie Mehl is on record saying the chain of emails were never meant to deceive anyone and felt at the time was legal because a slate of officers had been discussed in a public forum previous to the group email.
Mehl has also stated that there will be no future incidents of business being conducted through emails as long as she is on the board.
McCutchen, who has previously filed suit against the Fort Smith School District for actions regarding FOIA, has previously served on the Fort Smith School Board.
“We are keeping a watchful eye on this School Board in light of their shown propensity for doing business in the shadows,” said McCutchen . “As a famous person once said, ‘a law, without enforcement, is only good advice’.”
“We only ask that this School Board follow our open meeting laws or we will haul them into court every time they violate the open government laws,” said McCutchen.
“The public is entitled to be kept apprised during every part of the decision-making process of the School Board unless there is an exception within the law.”
“No such exception applies here,” McCutchen said. Although School Board President Deanie Mehl has said that the School Board will follow the law regarding FOIA, actions speak louder than words.”
McCutchen said he believes that the School Board should be trained by a legal professional well-versed in FOIA.
“We don’t know how many times this has happened before and we certainly want to take every step to make sure that it doesn’t happen again,” McCutchen said.
The lawsuit is filed in the Sebastian County Circuit Court and a hearing is expected to be set in the very near future.
McCutchen is also awaiting a judgement on a previously filed, similar lawsuit concerning meetings and discussion held outside the purvey of public scrutiny when the Southside High School mascot and fight song were changed from “Rebels” and “Dixie” at the end of the 2015-16 school year.
Click Here To Read The Lawsuit Filing