The Lafayette Parish School System on Tuesday filed a pleading that notified the judge and the plaintiff that they plan to appeal the judge's preliminary injunction in the Comeaux closure case.
The Notice asks the court to set a return date, which refers to the judge setting a deadline for the hearing transcript to be complete, so it can be submitted to the appeals court. It also states that LPSS will be requesting expedited consideration on the appeal.
The Notice was filed on Tuesday in Lafayette district court. We checked with the Third Circuit, and they say the writ application has been filed with their clerk.
Also this week, the petition seeking to halt the Lafayette Parish School Board's decision to close Comeaux High School was revised, to add more plaintiffs.
Suzanne LaJaunie filed the petition herself last month; after a hearing last week a district judge ordered the board to halt all efforts to close the school until a hearing could be held next week.
On Friday, a revised petition was filed, which added seven plaintiffs to complaint. The petition was revised by Baton Rouge attorney Brian Blackwell, who Lajaunie hired to handle the case for her.
The petition lays out several reasons to support its request that the board be stopped from closing the school, all similar to the original claims in LaJaunie's first petition: violations of the state open meetings law during the March meeting and failure to follow their own policies and procedures regarding school closures.
The alleged violations of the open meetings law include a rolling quorum prior to the March meeting; illegal limitation of the length of citizen comments; illegal refusal to allow all citizens to comment; and the holding of "side-bar" conversations during the meeting which included deliberation regarding the issue.
The Lafayette School Board can't limit public comment because the law only allows that for systems that include a city that's larger than 400,000 people, the petition alleges.
"Despite the foregoing provisions of law, the Board adopted Policy BCBI which provides, in pertinent part, that public "comments are to be no longer than three (3) minutes" and provides that the public comment period can be further shortened "at the discretion of the School Board President," the Petition states. "Those provisions of Policy BCBI quoted in the preceding paragraph are inconsistent with the Open Meetings Law."
The petition also requests that the court order the board to follow the law for all future meetings.
"The Board's violation of the Open Meetings Law evidences a fundamental lack of understanding of the law as applied to school boards, and accordingly, an injunction should be issued in due course directing the Board to strictly adhere to and abide by the Open Meetings Law at its future meetings," the petition states.
The petition also says the board ignored it's own administrative rule, in place since 2016, that directs how students affected by rezoning or closures are handled. You can read that rule in this story.
Also this week, we reported the following:
Last week, the Lafayette Parish School Board rescinded their vote to close Comeaux High, and proceeded to schedule a public hearing on the topic - which ostensibly would cure issues raised by a citizen who sued them over the issue.
But on Friday just after 5 p.m., they canceled that hearing. KATC Investigates has learned that Friday morning, LPSS got a letter from the judge in the case, reminding them that any actions regarding Comeaux would be in violation of her preliminary injunction and her orders.
"Judge Garrett would also like you all to be reminded that any future hearings in regard to Ovey Comeaux shall be a direct violation of the Order issued on Monday, April 13," the email from Judge Valerie Gotch Garrett's staff attorney states.
The letter also notes that, because Garrett had not yet received a proposed order, she was filing her own preliminary injunction, which she did, along with a transcript of her statement in court, which includes this statement:
But, after that hearing, the board rescinded it's Comeaux vote, then discussed setting a hearing as is required in the administrative rule that became the basis of a citizen's lawsuit that seeks to halt the closure of Comeaux. To read about that, click here and here.
Then the board, without clear explanation, cancelled that hearing on Friday. To read about that, click here.
Here's a copy of the judge's preliminary injunction, which she said she was filing so there would be "a clear record."
