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Judge rules for Airport Authority in suit against county
By Lynn Hotaling
A Superior Court judge Tuesday (Feb. 14) upheld an April injunction that restored Airport Authority officers to their posts and ruled that county elected leaders violated the state’s Open Meetings Law last January.
Judge Zoro Guice, who indicated how he planned to rule during last Wednesday’s Superior Court session, signed an order Tuesday that says Jackson County’s commissioners broke the law and denied Airport Authority Chairman Tom McClure due process when they removed him from his post on Jan. 12, 2005.
Asheville attorney Joe McGuire, who represented the plaintiffs – McClure and fellow Authority members Jim Rowell and Eldridge Painter – successfully obtained commissioners’ closed-session minutes from Jan. 11 and 12, 2005, which prove officials considered McClure’s removal in closed session. Under North Carolina’s Open Meetings Law, it is illegal for elected officials to discuss the qualifications of a member of another public body during closed session. McGuire also successfully argued that McClure had been denied due process in that he was removed from his seat on the Airport Authority without advance notice and without an opportunity to be heard.
Superior Court Judge Ronald Payne reached a similar conclusion last April when he granted an injunction that restored McClure to his post pending the trial outcome. According to documents on file in the Jackson County Clerk of Court’s Office, Payne based his decision on the plaintiffs’ prospects of winning the trial.
“The plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the action of the commissioners to remove McClure as a member of the Airport Authority without notice or opportunity to be heard was contrary to law,” Payne wrote.
Attorney McGuire Tuesday expressed satisfaction with the trial’s outcome.
“We are pleased that the court reinstated Tom McClure to the Airport Authority. Tom is an outstanding public servant who deserved more than being summarily removed from office without any explanation,” McGuire said Tuesday. “Hopefully the court’s decision will allow the Commissioners and the Airport Authority to get back to working together for the good of the community.”
Both McClure and Rowell showed similar pleasure at the judge’s ruling and echoed McGuire’s wish that the verdict lead to renewed cooperation between commissioners and the airport authority.
“We always thought the law was on our side,” McClure said. “Hopefully we can now get on with the Airport project.”
“It simply verifies what we’ve been saying,” Rowell said. “The minutes of the closed session shed a lot of light on things. Hopefully now we can get on with the business of the Authority.
“I hope the commissioners will appoint new members, and I hope the Authority can have an open dialogue with them now that there’s no longer a pending lawsuit,” Rowell said.
Both Jackson County attorney Paul Holt and Commissioners’ Chairman Brian McMahan declined to comment on Judge Guice’s ruling.
“I haven’t seen the judge’s ruling yet, and I have no comment at this time,” Holt said.
“I’m not going to make any comment until this is finally settled,” said McMahan.
Guice’s ruling does not award any damages to the plaintiffs but says that he will “hear any motions by the plaintiffs to recover their costs and attorney fees.”
The series of events that led to the lawsuit was set in motion by commissioners on Jan. 12, 2005, when – with no public discussion – they removed McClure from his Airport Authority seat as part of a complex, five-part motion that also sought to transfer Economic Development Commission activities back to the control of Jackson County.
Commissioners subsequently appointed Ed Riley to fill McClure’s seat, and during elections in February 2005, Gary Buchanan and Riley were elected chairman and secretary-treasurer, respectively. That Authority election was done despite the protests of then Secretary-Treasurer Rowell and member Painter.
McClure, Rowell and Painter filed suit March 21, seeking an injunction that would restore the Authority as it was prior to commissioners’ action to remove McClure, which would also reinstate Rowell as secretary-treasurer.
Judge Payne’s April 15 injunction restored McClure and Rowell to their former positions and ended Riley’s tenure, pending the resolution of the lawsuit.
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