Hearing Delays

The Mount Vernon News website on Wednesday, February 25, posted a headline stating the John Freshwater contract termination hearing had been delayed again: "The hearing originally scheduled to resume this Thursday has been postponed until Friday, February 27."

Following the previous delay in the hearing, when the testimony was still scheduled to resume on Thursday, I contacted Don Matolyak, media contact person for John Freshwater. “All I can say about the delay is that there is some 'legal wrangling' taking place after a day of depositions for the federal lawsuit (brought by the Dennis family against John, the administration and the BOE) took place on Monday,” Matolyak said.

Rumors that the hearing was being delayed due to settlement talks are not correct, according to information supplied by Matolyak.

UPDATE 2/26/09:

I received an email from Matolyak giving some further comments on the delay of the hearing. “After a ton of discussions among the attorneys,” Matolyak wrote, “which caused the last two days of John Freshwater’s Employment hearing to be canceled, it looks like the hearing is on for tomorrow, February 27, 2009. The hearing will then be in recess for 3 weeks.”

Matolyak also said that attorney schedule conflicts were involved in the delays of the hearing—he may have been referring to how the hearing has been drug out over several months with only occasional days when testimony is actually taking place. “There are several attorneys involved besides Kelly including: Mr. Millstone (School Board), Mr. Shepherd (Referee), Ms Philemond (Dennis Family), and two insurance attorneys,” Matolyak wrote.