In a meeting that lasted only a few minutes, Clinton city council voted to pay a settlement of over $180,000 to the city's former HR Director using money from the city's general fund.
"The meeting was rather short and quick, there was no allowance for audience comment or an allowance for consent agenda," Council Member John Rowland says.
In a lawsuit filed last November, former city employee David Geisler claims his department was eliminated during illegal closed city council sessions.
Court documents say the council didn't give reason to have a closed session, like having an employee request it or trying to protect an employee's reputation when discussing personnel issues. The city's mayor says this was the best route to take.
"The outcome I think we settled upon and agreed upon was actually probably the best deal the city was going to get out of it," Mayor Mark Vulich says, "There was no way the city was going to get out of the deal without paying something."
The mayor says they had a deadline to meet, the trial was set to start October 1st, and they needed to make a quick decision.
Others say the decision was too rushed and comes at taxpayer expense.
"This lawsuit was filed some time ago and then we had this last minute crunch to make a decision, I don't think the council should ever be put in that position," Former Council Member Michael Kearney, who is named in the suit, says.
"Most taxpayers have the view they're getting stuck with cleaning up the mess," Rowland adds.
While the city is not necessarily admitting wrongdoing, officials say this was still the best thing to do.
"I guess we're going to leave it that the judge's ruling that we were wrong, not necessarily sure that we were, but I'm not going to take issue with it," Mayor Vulich says.
The resolution to settle the suit has been signed and agreed upon by the city council, but still needs to go to the plaintiff in this case.
Once both parties sign off, it'll go before a judge for the final decision.
