City Council Receives Lawsuit Threat

A group of Grove citizens headed by Earl Barnes, who is also behind the call for a Grand Jury investigation of city officials, is calling for recovery of funds spent by the city in its lawsuits involving Earl Shero, a Grove area resident.
Barnes is threatening to sue City Manager Bill Galletly and City Clerk Bonnie Buzzard for treble damages, in the action delivered to city council members this week, unless current council members "immediately institute or diligently prosecute proper proceedings."
He cites Title 62, Section 372 and 373 of the Oklahoma State Statutes as the basis for his demand. This allows a taxpayer to institute a suit on "failure of officers."
However, the same statute provides for "frivolous lawsuits...if all claims stated by the resident taxpayers are determined in a court of competitent jurisdiction to be frivolous, the taxpayers who signed the demand shall be liable for all attorney fees and court costs incurred by the public officers."
The demand letter is signed by Earl & Sally Barnes; Carl and Sarabeth Thompson; Mike Haynes; Harold & Evelyn Lee; Dave Williams; Thomas Melton and Linda Poynor.
In one case, the city's insurance carrier paid $20,000 to settle one of the lawsuits and Galletly and Buzzard paid the remaining amounts from their own funds, according to a councilman.
In the other, the city paid $27,949.97 in the settlement of a case involving Shero, and Barnes alleges that Galletly, Buzzard and former city attorney Dorothy Parker filed suit against Shero without city council approval, a violation of the Open Meetings Act. Galletly said that council did approve the payment.
Galletly said Thursday that it was the Court that ordered the payment of $27,949.97 and the city had no choice in the matter; in the insurance carrier matter, all cities and towns in Oklahoma except for Tulsa and Oklahoma City pay premiums to the Oklahoma Municipal Insurance Group and the legal expenses were paid out of the total insurance pool of funds.
"They are out of line, entirely," said Galletly, of the 10 individuals who signed the demand.
The action requests that the city council "engage an independent, competent and experienced municipal legal counsel in your analysis of this demand" and that "failure in your required duties after having this proper notice of the facts shall result in legal action to recover for the taxpayers of Grove triple the value of all such sums of money so paid as a penalty to you, the proper officers of Grove, Ok." Treble damages could amount to about $150,000. The letter requests that "you not rely on an opinion from the City Attorney who is directly subordinate to the city manager."
The letter goes on to say "because of the criminal acts of its employees and after notification from the District Attorney the City of Grove should not have allowed its employees to file an insurance claim on its publicly funded insurance policy. Nor should the City of Grove settled the lawsuit of Grove v David Earl Shero without recovery of city monies from its City Attorney, City Manager, and City Clerk for their criminal acts."
Interestingly enough, the Grove Airport Board is asking the city to indemnify them in case of a lawsuit against them, in their "stipulation" list to be considered at Tuesday night's council meeting.