Late last week, the little guy won a round in the Virginia Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision, the court overturned a circuit court judge’s ruling that a group of 40 Gloucester county residents who mounted a recall petition aimed at certain members of the board of supervisors had used the process purely for political ends, and that each of the 40 residents would have to pay $2,000 in fines for abusing the system. But the narrowness of the court’s ruling has unsavory implications for those who decide to fight the courthouse crowd.
The supervisors’ lawyer – former Virginia Attorney General Tony Troy, stated that the ruling was narrow and procedural and that Gloucester County was still liable for the supervisors’ hefty legal bills. He went further, noting that the court also didn’t say the fines were wrong, but merely that the recall petitioners shouldn’t have been party to the case in the first place.
Still, for the 40 residents who were each staring down $2,000 fines, it’s a victory. But only just.
The story of why they mounted a recall effort is straight out of Chicago – a county administrator is fired and replaced with a friend of one of the supervisors. The county attorney was fired too – and questions arose as to whether these firings violated the state’s open meeting laws. A grand jury indicts four of the supervisors, but that case eventually folds. In the meantime, a group of residents mounts a recall campaign. They gather 6,000 signatures. The petitions were themselves later tossed due to various technical problems.
But by then, supervisors had lawyered-up and the fight was on (and the legal meter was running). When elections rolled around in 2009, one of the supervisors, Teresa Altemus, had been beaten at the polls. However, at a lame-duck meeting of the full board, Altemus and the other supervisors who had been the subjects of the recall effort, voted to have the county pay its legal bills. It was also at this meeting that the board voted to go after the 40 recall leaders to collect $80,000 in fines.
That move was called “‘spiteful.’” And in a way, the Virginia Supreme court agreed.
But only in a way. The court said that once the recall petitions were filed, it was the state, not the petitioners, who became the proper party to any lawsuit. That’s cold comfort to taxpayers in the rest of the commonwealth who may have to bear the costs of fighting local pols in court.
And as for the taxpayers of Gloucester? The board hopes its insurance company will cover the legal bills. If not, then residents will eventually have to pay the costs.
There’s a lesson here for those considering future fights with their masters at the country courthouse: things could get nasty and expensive.
But there’s a bright side, too: the law, for now, is still on your side. And the next supervisory election is only a few months away.
