Former Conrad mayor sues to reverse removal from office

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The former mayor of Conrad and the city’s government are locked in a legal battle after the City Council voted last month to remove her from office.

Jamie Miller, who was elected mayor of the town of about 2,300 by a wide margin in 2021, filed a lawsuit against the city in late November, 10 days after the council voted to remove her from office following an investigation into a grievance filed by a city employee. 

In her lawsuit, filed in Pondera County District Court, Miller argues that the council broke the state’s open meeting law when it met to take the vote and asks the court to overturn the council’s decision and reinstate her as the “duly-elected mayor of the city of Conrad.” 

In its own filings, the city disputes Miller’s claims. 

The origins of the conflict are obscured by a haze of privacy protections, but court documents show that a city employee filed a grievance against Miller earlier this year.  The city hired an external party to investigate the complaint. 

On Nov. 14, Miller’s lawsuit says, the council president asked her to draft an agenda for a council meeting on Nov. 17 “for purposes of conducting an Executive Session regarding a personnel matter.” 

Public bodies can in certain circumstances — often regarding legal or personnel matters — conduct private deliberations in what’s called an executive session. Miller claimed she was given no more detail about the meeting’s purpose. 

She posted the agenda the next day, and the meeting took place on Nov. 17. According to Miller’s lawsuit, the council briefly met in public, then, following advice from city attorney Daniel Jones — the son of prominent GOP lawmaker and Conrad bigwig Llew Jones — closed the meeting, explaining that the demands of individual privacy outweighed the public’s right to know. 

Then, citing an obscure piece of statute that dates back to Montana’s territorial days, the council voted to declare Miller’s office vacant due to “the incumbent’s open neglect or refusal to discharge duties.” 

At a Nov. 21 meeting, residents peppered the council with questions and accusations, according to a report from the Conrad Independent Observer.

“Jamie had no support from the council,” one commenter said, according to the report. 

Miller herself offered comment, the report said, and announced her intention to file a lawsuit. 

“I do not believe the City Council had the legal authority to remove me from office,” she said. “Most importantly, I never engaged in any activity or conduct that would ever support my removal from office.”

Miller’s lawsuit doesn’t directly question the validity of the statute used to remove her. Instead, it argues that the definition of the “personnel matter” noted in the agenda diverged substantively from the actual purpose of the meeting — to oust a popularly elected mayor — and that the council had violated right-to-know and public-meeting provisions ensconced in state law and the Montana Constitution. The lawsuit also says the council improperly closed the meeting to the public.

“The mere recitation of the statutory language” justifying an executive session is not enough to actually close a meeting, the lawsuit says, as the council failed to make “any particularized, context-specific determination on the public record that a sufficient legal basis existed for closing the meeting to the public.” 

In a later court filing supporting a motion for summary judgment, Miller’s attorneys note that precedent has held that a city council can take same-day action on an agenda item only if it is not a “matter of significant public interest.” In Miller’s view, a vote to oust her constitutes a matter of significant public interest that is distinct from a non-specific “personnel matter,” and thus, the lawsuit argues, the council did not properly notice the impending vote. 

When the potential significance of any given matter is in question, the lawsuit maintains, the council should err on the side of public disclosure.

“It is beyond debate that a decision of a city council purporting to ‘remove’ an elected mayor is a decision that has meaning to or affects the citizens of the city of Conrad, and thus constitutes a ‘decision of significant interest to the public,’” the lawsuit says. 

In its response to the lawsuit, attorneys for the city wrote that the council properly noticed the meeting, and that the council’s deliberations and vote that day arose directly from the employee grievance and the subsequent investigation — in other words, a personnel matter. 

Attorneys for the city also cited case law justifying an executive session for similar matters. More strikingly, the response also asserts that Miller presided over the meeting and declared it should be closed because of employee privacy rights. It’s not clear from the legal filings whether Miller knew she was about to be removed from office when she closed the meeting. 

“Plaintiff Miller participated in the meeting and, as the presiding officer, declared it closed due to the nature of employee privacy interests under discussion,” the city’s response states. “Consequently, she was not injured by the closure of the meeting and has no standing to assert the right to know, right to participate, and open meeting claims at issue here.” 

The case is before 9th Judicial District Court Judge Greg Bonilla. Bonilla, an April appointee of Gov. Greg Gianforte, is at the center of a separate open-meeting dispute.

Earlier this year, Gianforte named an advisory panel to help him sift through candidates for a judicial vacancy in the district. The panel ultimately met in March to vet Bonilla and fellow applicant Dan Guzynski. 

While the meeting began with doors open, the presiding officer, Teton County Deputy Attorney Jennifer Stutz, decided the council would conduct its interviews and deliberations in private, explaining that both Bonilla and Guzynski had invoked their rights to privacy. One member of the advisory council, former newspaper publisher LeAnne Kavanagh, resigned in protest.

Members of the media in attendance, including the Choteau Acantha and Montana Free Press, asked for the meeting to be open, arguing that the privacy rights of candidates for a public office do not outweigh the public’s interest in the deliberations. But neither Bonilla or Guzynski were willing to waive their rights to privacy, so Stutz decided to go into executive session. 

The Choteau Acantha challenged that decision in court, where the case is ongoing. MTFP is a party to the litigation. 

In April, Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras defended the legitimacy of that executive session to lawmakers. 

“We did comply with the law in this process and the nomination of Judge Bonilla,” she said in a legislative hearing.

Bonilla has yet to rule in the Jamie Miller case.

Conrad City Council President Nathan Hunsucker is now serving as interim mayor. Barring legal action to the contrary, the council will soon appoint a replacement to carry out the remainder of Miller’s term.