Gallo on Barrett Settlement: ‘I Just Don’t Understand This At All’

Kay Gallo said the decision to settle with Dianne Barrett opens a can of worms that will cost District 86 in the long run by encouraging litigious residents to stick out any legal battles despite judges’ rulings.

“If they don’t like the answer, they can keep suing and filing appeals and then eventually this board will say, ‘OK, it comes down to the bottom line and we’re going to settle this with you,’” Gallo said the morning after the 3-2 vote to settle was made.

“I just feel that this is setting a very dangerous precedent,” she said shortly after.

The vote to settle with Barrett, the former board member who since 2010 has fought the district in court over board members’ rights to student records after she was denied unredacted copies of certain special-education-related documents in 2009, came late Monday night after a committee of the whole meeting and ensuing closed session. 

Though Gallo and Jennifer Planson voted against the settlement agreement, the votes of Ed Corcoran, Board President Claudia Manley and Richard Skoda were enough to approve.

Victor Casini and Michael Kuhn were absent for the vote.

“It makes me wonder what the true motive is in the settlement,” Gallo said, referencing the board majority that includes the three members of the Friends for District 86 slate that took three of four open seats in last spring’s election. “They say it’s to curtail the expenses. I think it has nothing to do with what’s right or just. I think it just comes down to the bottom line.”

READ: Barrett Settlement Gives Board Members Easier Access to D86 Records, Buildings

Both Gallo and Planson said the fact that the case had been dismissed by DuPage County judges twice, most recently in July, should have indicated that the board should not settle.

“The whole thing has been a huge disappointment because it’s unnecessary,” Planson said of the settlement.

Gallo said, “I just don’t understand this at all.”

Planson said she believes politics played a role in the decision to settle. Barrett, a common voting partner of Skoda's on the last board, submitted a letter to the editor supporting the three Friends for District 86 candidates, as well as Roger Kempa, in the March 21 edition of The Doings.

“They pretty much said they would resolve this issue in their campaign,” Planson said of the Friends slate.

Corcoran dismissed that notion. He said his decision was mostly a fiscal one, not wanting the district to continue paying legal fees as Barrett's appeals continued.

The Barrett settlement still needs to be approved by the court to become official.

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