FORT SMITH -- The attorney who blew the whistle on the Fort Smith School Board's email discussion over the election of board officers has sued the school district and the board, accusing them of a violation of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
Joey McCutchen is asking a Sebastian County Circuit Court judge to rule that the emails the board members circulated among themselves from Oct. 8-14 constituted a meeting for which no notice was given. The suit, filed Tuesday, also asks the judge to order the School Board not to conduct its business outside the public's view.
McCutchen filed the lawsuit on behalf of Fort Smith resident June Bradshaw.
He decided to take the School Board to court after Sebastian County Prosecuting Attorney Daniel Shue sent a letter dated Nov. 8 to School Board members in which he said he had concluded that the email discussion over board officers constituted a violation of the Freedom of Information Act.
Noting that violating the act was a Class C misdemeanor, Shue said in the letter that he would not prosecute the board members but that the letter was a caution to the board not to violate the act in the future.
McCutchen complained about the board's conduct to Shue, which prompted his investigation. McCutchen became suspicious and sought the emails after the board voted without any discussion at its Oct. 24 meeting on the slate of officers for the next school year.
In the emails, board members discussed who should become the board's president, vice president and secretary. The string of emails began with Jeannie Cole objecting to the plan to re-elect the current officers. She said they should be rotated, as they had been in the past, and which would have moved her from vice president to board president. She wrote that she would not accept re-election as vice president.
In response to Shue's letter, board President Deanie Mehl told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that she and the board members did not believe they had violated the Freedom of Information Act because the board took no action on the election of officers until members were in public session and because the emails were made part of the record.
She said that after receiving Shue's letter, she and the other board members vowed not to use email again to discuss school business.
State Desk on 11/24/2016