Trial set in city's firing of director

Sanitation chief suing Fort Smith

FORT SMITH -- A judge in Sebastian County Circuit Court has set a trial date of July 8 for a lawsuit in which the fired city Sanitation Department director claims he was a scapegoat in the city's recycling debacle.

The lawsuit filed in November by attorneys for Mark Schlievert, claimed he was fired May 10, 2017, a week after a newspaper story was published with information that he had revealed to a reporter that the city was sending recyclable material it collected from residents to the landfill rather than to a recycling facility without residents' knowledge.

Schlievert claims he was wrongly fired under the Arkansas Whistleblower Act "because of his communications regarding the waste of public funds via the recycling program," the suit said.

Violation of the act made him eligible to receive lost wages, court costs and attorney fees, he claimed. He also is asking for punitive damages against the city.

Schlievert also claimed defamation, stating that City Administrator Carl Geffken -- one of the defendants in the lawsuit along with the city and Deputy City Administrator Jeff Dingman -- made false and malicious statements about Schlievert in blaming him for failing to resolve the recycling problem.

In an answer to the lawsuit in December, the city denied it had violated the whistleblower act because the conduct under which Schlievert made the claim did not constitute whistleblowing.

"Deny that the newspaper article was the cause of plaintiff's termination," the city claimed. "Plaintiff was terminated for job performance issues."

On the defamation claim, the city argued that Schlievert was a public figure as the city director of sanitation and he would have to prove Geffken acted with malice. The city claimed Geffken did not act with malice in statements he made about Schlievert.

The city had been without a recycling contract from September 2014 to mid-2017. During that time, residents continued to separate their recyclable material and set it out in separate containers, and city recycling trucks continued to pick it up but dumped it in the city's landfill.

One resident, Jennifer Merriott, sued the city in a class action lawsuit in Circuit Court charging that the city was guilty of illegal exaction and unjust enrichment in charging customers for recycling services they were not receiving. No trial date for that lawsuit has been set.

"Defendant Geffken's statements falsely implied that plaintiff [Schlievert] was to blame for the failure of the recycling program when plaintiff was leading the effort to solve the problem he had inherited," the suit said.

Schlievert took over as sanitation director April 18, 2016, according to the lawsuit. Assessing the condition of the department, he discovered recycling records in disarray.

He learned in August 2016 from a staff member's email that Green Source Recycling of Clarksville, which had been taking a portion of the city's recycling, had stopped taking any material as of June 2016. The manager of the facility had said the volume of Fort Smith's recyclable material was overwhelming his operation.

Seeking bids from recycling companies, the lawsuit said, Schlievert received responses from two companies in October 2016 but they lacked clarity. Geffken told him to issue requests for proposals, not for bids, and to set the deadline for January 2017, the suit said.

Proposals were submitted by the deadline and, in February 2017 Schlievert told a reporter during a presentation that recyclable material being collected by the city was being dumped in the landfill. An article about the disclosure was published May 1, 2017, the lawsuit said.

Schlievert claimed in the lawsuit that he was badgered by Geffken and Dingman after the article appeared.

The suit said that on May 9, 2017, a citizen contacted local elected officials by email, including a member of the city board of directors. The email expressed concern that no one had been disciplined or fired because of the recycling issue and threatened to sue the city.

Geffken and Dingman met with Schlievert and fired him the next day.

NW News on 10/04/2018

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