BELLOWS FALLS — Attorneys for both sides in the wrongful termination lawsuit filed by the town's former library director have agreed to postponing further legal action pending the outcome of a meeting with a mediator on April 30.
In the meantime, the formal search for a replacement is still technically active but in a state of limbo.
A stipulation was filed in Windham County Civil Court on March 24 to postpone the injunction hearing in the case filed by Célina Houlné, former director of the Rockingham Free Public Library (RFPL).
An injunction was filed in January by Springfield attorney Richard Bowen on behalf of Houlné to halt the search for a library director, pending settlement of a potential lawsuit for damages.
Vermont League of Cities and Towns (VLCT) attorney Constance Pell and Town Attorney Stephen Ankuda represent the town and the library's board of trustees, both named in the lawsuit.
While the RFPL search committee for a new director is still intact through the next board meeting on April 8, there are no plans to reconvene, according to David Gould, recently elected chair of the RFPL Board of Trustees.
“The search committee is in limbo and [technically] waiting for more applicants,” Gould said, explaining that one person has applied through an ad on the Vermont Library Association website.
At the March 11 board meeting, the board elected to send a letter to all previous candidates, explaining why no candidate had been hired, stating, “We chose not to act on that posting, we're internally re-evaluating our job description for library director, and we have decided to re-open and feel free to reapply.”
Former chair Jan Mitchell-Love was tasked to draft and send the letters to the candidates.
With the ad running through the end of March, and an April 11 deadline for applications to the search committee, the status of the search committee itself was deferred until the April 8 board meeting, three days before the deadline for director candidates.
Gould was unsure what would happen at that meeting regarding the search committee, or any potential candidates.
Mediation set for April
Bowen said that he, Pell and Ankuda will meet with an agreed-upon mediator, Michael Marks, of Marks, Power LLP in Middlebury, to discuss settlement of the lawsuit on April 30.
In the stipulation, the attorneys seek to delay further judicial action on the case “based on the fact that an early mediation is scheduled to explore whether a settlement is possible,” at that meeting.
Bowen and Houlné have maintained throughout the conflict, both prior to and subsequent to the lawsuit filed in January, that any legal action would “go away” if the board votes to rescind the termination.
The board voted in August to terminate Houlné and affirmed that vote following a formal appeal in November.
“What we are looking to do is resolve the case in a manner in which Célina is returned to her position as director,” Bowen said.
He noted that any lawsuit would seek damages and hopes that any settlement that might arise out of mediation will “resolve everything,” such as back pay and damages to Houlné to compensate for the effect the firing has had on her reputation.
In the stipulation, both parties agree to suspend the search for Houlné's successor.
“In order for us to put off the preliminary injunction,” Bowen said, both sides are “agreeing that the status quo stay the same until mediation and no director will be hired in between.”
At odds with old business
Despite this most recent agreement to maintain the status quo, the new board still has an ad for a new director running on the VLA site until it expires on March 30. The ad maintains an April 11 deadline for applicants.
Gould said the board has received one applicant so far, and that it would appear that the “word is out” regarding pending legal action from the library's former director.
At the Feb. 11 trustees' meeting - the last before a new board was elected - the old board voted to continue the search committee and continue to run the ad, as no candidates had been selected from the three finalists.
The members who voted in favor of continuing the ad were also the five who voted in favor of Houlné's termination.
Four new members on the board have shifted the balance of votes in favor of mediation, with the agreement emerging a few days following a March 18 meeting with the new board, whose members entered into executive session with attorneys Pell and Ankuda.