NYCLU blasts Cairo for seeking fees from plaintiffs
Watchdog group says town has no legal recourse for recovering money
The Daily Mail
July 30, 2009

CAIRO — The New York Civil Liberties Union has decried a resolution passed by the Cairo Town Board as “chilling” according to documents obtained by The Daily Mail.

A complaint was made to the NYCLU after the Town Board passed a resolution April 15 to try to recover more than $13,000 in attorney fees from plaintiffs in a recent Article 78 lawsuit against the Town Ellsworth “Unk” Slater, the Cairo Township Taxpayers Association and Cairo First.

The lawsuit was dismissed in March and is currently on appeal.

Councilman Richard Lorenz, who offered the resolution, Councilman Raymond Suttmeier and Town Supervisor John Coyne voted for the resolution. Councilwoman Janet Schwarzenegger did not. Councilwoman Alice Tunison abstained from the vote because she wanted to discuss the matter with Town Attorney Tal Rappleyea before making a decision.

An audience of Cairo residents present at the April meeting applauded the resolution’s passage.

However, in a letter dated May 5, 2009, and addressed to the Town Board, Coyne and Rappleyea, Melanie Trimble, of the NYCLU, said the Town had no legal grounds to recover the money.

“We believe that there is no legal provision for the recovery of the fees from the plaintiffs, and efforts to recover fees from them would be illegal,” the letter reads.

We also believe that people should have the right to go to court

Trimble stated in the letter that residents should have the right to challenge the Town in court and should not be intimidated from exercising that right under threat of having to pay the Town’s legal fees.

“The actions of the Town Board have a chilling effect on an individual’s right to pursue his or her interests in the courts,” the letter reads.

Schwarzenegger reiterated Wednesday the position she took in April, which mirrored that of the NYCLU.

“That resolution was an attempt to intimidate the people who file a lawsuit and also to intimidate any future lawsuits and anybody who might be thinking of suing the Town,” she said.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit said Wednesday that they were glad the NYCLU had taken a position against the resolution.

Charles Umbach, president of the Cairo Township Taxpayers Association, said he and every member of the association, as well as the members of Cairo First and Slater had been slandered by the Town Board through the passage of the resolution.

He said the letter indicates that the Town Board does make mistakes, which is why entities in Cairo have sued the Town.

Erica Gravina, president of Cairo First, agreed.

”The Article 78 was created to ensure our civil liberties,” Gravina said.

She said that as a not-for-profit organization Cairo First could not ask its members to pay the fees even if the Town had successfully requested payment.

Slater said the resolution singled him out while ignored fees owed the Cairo Planning Board by developer Charles Maggio, a defendant in the Article 78 lawsuit.

“[Lorenz, Suttmeier and Coyne] voted to aggressively go after me for legal fees even though it does not appear to be a legal option and at the same time they let Mr. Maggio run up a tremendous bill on the Town for engineering fees and viewing his project by ignoring the laws we do have, This is money they will have to recover through legal action according to the Town’s lawyer at the last board meeting. Apparently they are still trying to keep the focus off of their inadequacies,” he said.

Lorenz said he did not disagree with the letter’s statement that people with legitimate concerns should not be intimidated from challenging the Town.

And Suttmeier, who had seconded the resolution, said again that the Board should seek to recover the fees.

“We would be negligent in our duty if we did not at least attempt to recoup the legal fees that cost the taxpayers as the result of a frivolous lawsuit,” he said

Although the letter from the NYCLU had been addressed to the Town Board, Lorenz and Suttmeier said they were unaware of the group’s involvement in the issue.

Coyne deferred questioning Wednesday to Rappleyea. Rappleyea declined to comment, citing attorney-client privilege.