Madison County State's Attorney Tom Gibbons has said members of his office prepared employment termination documents in advance of a special Madison County Board meeting where two county officials were terminated.
Administrator Doug Hulme and IT director Rob Dorman are now suing the board claiming their April terminations, by 26-1 votes, violated the Open Meetings Act. The board filed its response Monday denying those allegations.
The two plaintiffs, accused of improperly accessing county e-mails and other data for political use, said they were not allowed to speak in their defense and that the board was guded by the state's attorney, whom they claim is involved in a vendetta against them.
They are both Republicans while Gibbons, who is running for a circuit judge position in November, is a Democrat.
"Gibbons and (Sheriff John) Lakin pressured county board members behind the scenes and in a hastily gathered special board meeting to make a very bad decision regarding Dorman’s and my employment with the county," Hulme told the Record.
Documents released under a Freedom of Information request quote Board Chairman Kurt Prenzler as saying the proposed firings were not on the agenda of the April 16 meeting. A transcript of the meeting also quotes Gibbons as saying he did not write resolutions supporting termination, though a document released through the information request appears to show Gibbons as author.
Gibbons told the Record: "The resolutions passed on 4-16-20 were all prepared by members of the Civil Division of the State’s Attorney’s Office, at the request of Board Members."
The state's attorney added, "I did not personally write the final resolutions as passed by the Board on 4-16-20. I may have corrected typos on the final drafts prior to distribution."
He said his office serves as legal counsel for the board and "our actions in this and every matter are in service to them, according to their direction."
"We worked directly with majority caucus members of the County Board who requested assistance with this matter and provided legal services to them," Gibbons said. "Most of the work in personnel matters is handled by members of the Civil Division, and this matter was no exception."
The transcipt of the special meeting also quotes Gibbons as saying "multiple alternatives as possible resolutions" were requested.
"I cannot comment on draft documents prepared at the request of our clients, as they are attorney-client privileged," Gibbons said.
"In any matter subject to debate and vote by the Board, it may be necessary to discuss and prepare for multiple possible outcomes, depending on what the Board decides to do on any particular matter."
Former administrator Hulme countered, "It is no secret in county government that Gibbons is incompetent and not a truth teller. The rationale for the unilateral action by the board, and without the Chairman’s support, was Gibbon’s official legal opinion that 'and' means 'or' when interpreting the personnel policy that reads '(appointed officials) may be terminated by the Chairman and County Board'.”
Former IT diretor Dorman told the Record: “Gibbons improperly started an investigation in which I went to court and had him kicked off for a conflict of interest. The (state) Attorney General agreed with me and ended the investigation. Gibbons’ three year obsession with hurting me and my family is frankly sociopathic.”
On the litigation by the two ex-employees, Gibbons said, "We will not comment on the merits other than to state that we trust the Court will agree the claims filed in relation to this matter have no merit and the Madison County Board’s nearly unanimous decision to terminate the Plaintiffs was lawfully executed, and will be upheld."
The Freedom of Information request for documents related to the April 16 County Board meeting was filed by Andrew Kane, a former employee in Gibbons' office who filed a wrongful termination claim against the state's attorney, which Kane won in arbitration.
Gibbons had to be ordered by a judge to reinstate Kane, who was then assigned to a remote location. After that happened, Kane filed suit in federal court, an action that settled last August.
One of the documents Kane obtained through his recent information request was a screen shot that appears to show Gibbons as author of the Dorman termination document.
Upon viewing the screen shot, Gibbons added: "As I said in my prior response, I made a few corrections on the copy I received from my staff before I distributed it in final form to Board Members, so it’s no surprise it has my name on it."