[O]ne of the attorneys who was representing 33 school boards that are suing the state over Act 46 has stepped away from the lawsuit after calling a board member from Worcester a “Nazi.”
Charles Merriman said in an interview Wednesday the legal team had collectively agreed that he shouldn’t stay on the case after he blew up at Doty School Board member Matt DeGroot, first at an organizational meeting of the transitional board for the as-yet unformed Washington Central Unified Union School District last week, and later again in a group email.
“It was a fait accompli by Sunday, after I sent that stuff,” Merriman said. “You gotta own what you do.”
Merriman also said calling DeGroot a Nazi during an argument at the meeting was “totally wrong.” But he said DeGroot had been “craven and duplicitous” for writing an email on Friday night giving an account of the incident, copied to all six of the Washington Central Supervisory Union’s school boards and WCSU Superintendent Bill Kimball.
DeGroot’s email describing the exchange led Merriman to respond with his own group message early Sunday morning. In the short, blistering missive, Merriman slammed DeGroot for being “cowardly” and also took a jab at Kimball, whom he called “grossly overpaid, especially in light of the horrific job he has done.”
“Actually, matt, as I think more about-it, i realize you are a nazi. But probably (hopefully) not one if the genocidal types. More like one of the millions of normal looking, otherwise decent germans who attended rallies, followed orders, and blindly allowed fascism to destroy a liberal democratic state,” Merriman wrote.
Merriman said Wednesday that while his email had been ill-tempered, he still felt DeGroot’s decision to broadcast the initial in-person exchange was a politically motivated, and an attempt to undermine Merriman’s challenge to the school district merger.
He said he’d apologized shortly after the exchange and even shook DeGroot’s hand.
“It was a done deal. And for him to then subsequently put it out to the world, without contacting me, or even copying me on the email, evidences why I think he was craven and duplicitous,” Merriman said.
Three lawsuits pending before superior court Judge Robert Mello challenge Act 46 on both constitutional and procedural grounds. The Worcester school district is a plaintiff in the collective lawsuit filed jointly by over 30 school boards; Merriman, alongside Ines McGillion and David Kelley, was representing the plaintiffs.
But while DeGroot was technically Merriman’s client, the two were on opposing sides of the debate on Tuesday, according to an account of the meeting published in the Montpelier-Barre Times Argus.
The meeting was intended to be the first step in the process of preparing for the merger that is due to go into effect July 1 unless the state-mandated consolidation is blocked by the courts or the Legislature. Mello is currently considering a request by plaintiffs in the joint lawsuit to stay all merger activity while he considers the merits of the case.
As with most – if not all – school districts in forced mergers that had warned their inaugural meetings for next week, the electorate in the WCSU voted Tuesday to adjourn without taking action. DeGroot, according to the Times Argus, had argued doing so without setting a time certain to reconvene could jeopardize the board’s ability to pass a budget before next year.
In his emailed account of his exchange with Merriman, DeGroot described telling the attorney at the conclusion of the meeting that “we just screwed 1,300 kids.” The comment, DeGroot said, prompted Merriman to harangue him for several minutes and ultimately call him “a (expletive) Nazi.”
The encounter left him “sick and frightened,” DeGroot wrote. He also acknowledged that Merriman apologized afterward, and that he bore no ill will toward the man.
“I know he feels passionately about this issue, and I very much respect that. Obviously he may have a different perspective on this encounter,” DeGroot said.
Merriman, a Middlesex resident, is also running for a seat on U-32 high school board – a position that will cease to exist next year if the merger goes through. He said his singular focus at this point is to oust Kimball, who he feels has been “autocratic” in his leadership style. Kimball is widely considered to be pro-merger by anti-merger school board members in the WCSU, and has become something of a lighting rod in tensions over the merger.
“Fundamentally, my concern is that the superintendent’s office has intruded into the process of governance in a way that is well beyond the scope of the superintendent,” Merriman said.
In a phone interview, McGillion called Merriman’s “Nazi” comments “extremely inappropriate.”
“The only thing I can say on the record is that the legal team decided it would be best if Charlie withdrew from the team,” she said.
Kimball and DeGroot declined to comment.
