Beaufort Co. school board member sues district, colleagues, alleging ‘smear campaign’
Beaufort County school board member William Smith has sued the school district, the Board of Education and various board members and school officials, alleging they slandered him and conducted “a concerted smear campaign” in 2019 after employees filed complaints against him.
The lawsuit specifically names school board chair Christina Gwozdz, board member Richard Geier, former interim superintendent Herbert Berg, district chief of security David Grissom and 10 unknown “DOE” defendants.
Filed by Hilton Head attorney and municipal court judge Maureen Coffey, the suit claims that the handling of the employee complaints and a subsequent, seemingly illegal concealed weapon permit check done by Grissom at Berg’s request amounts to a smear campaign against Smith.
Smith, who represents St. Helena and Lady’s Island in District 3, is alleging slander, libel, conspiracy, emotional distress and invasion of privacy.
He’s asking for actual and punitive damages, plus attorney costs and interest. The lawsuit does not specify an amount.
“This case is a stark reminder that unfair and unlawful governmental activity is not limited to players on the national stage,” the suit reads. “Local government is equally adept at resorting to unseemly tactics to quash an opposing voice.”
The lawsuit also reveals new details of the employee complaints against Smith, including the way they were resolved.
Smith demanded a jury trial in the June 7 suit. According to Beaufort County’s 14th Circuit Public Index, the suit is slated for alternative dispute resolution on Jan. 3, 2022.
What led to this?
In June 2019, at least four district employees made formal or informal complaints to the district, claiming that Smith “created a hostile work environment” by making unannounced visits to their offices, records obtained by the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette show.
In the suit, Smith said the 2019 complainants “were encouraged, coached, instructed or coerced” by Berg, Grissom and/or other district employees “in a thinly-veiled attempt to chill Plaintiff’s opposition” to the $345 million 2019 school bond referendum and other district and school board decisions “as a means of retribution against his activism.”
The board and district never revealed that Smith was the subject of the complaints or what the complaints said. Both of those details were obtained and made public by The Packet and Gazette.
The school board voted to hire a lawyer — Andrea White of Columbia-based firm Story & White — after a closed session to address the complaints at its June 25 meeting.
Prior to that meeting, then-superintendent Berg requested extra police presence for the meeting, and ordered Grissom, the district security chief, to run a concealed weapon permit check on Smith. According to state law, Grissom should not have been able to confirm that Smith had or didn’t have a permit, as he is not a law enforcement officer.
While Grissom reported to Berg that Smith did not have a concealed weapon permit, Smith told the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette that he did have a permit at the time of the check.
In August, the board voted to “accept the recommendation presented by its legal counsel in reference to the grievances that were filed regarding the board.”
According to Smith’s lawsuit, the Board ultimately decided not to take action against him, “nor did the Board express its disapproval of his alleged actions in connection with the complaints.” This is the first time the public has heard how those complaints were resolved.
In total, White’s firm billed the district for more than $16,000 for its work on the grievances.
In September 2020, one of the employees who previously filed two complaints against Smith filed another complaint after he helped a teacher set up their office at a district high school, according to the suit.
In October 2020, board member Geier moved to publicly reprimand Smith, stating that he had disrupted “the day-to-day operations of schools” and visited schools in his official capacity without notifying principals he was coming — both of which are board policy violations.
“Unfortunately, we’ve had multiple violations of this policy over a year ago, and we did not make our displeasure obviously known, because it’s happened again,” Geier said at the board’s Oct. 6, 2020 meeting.
The board voted 6-3-1 to reprimand Smith, who claimed in the suit that Geier’s assertion of multiple violations was false and that he had not learned he was the subject of those complaints until that Oct. 6 meeting.
In April, Smith was asked to leave a school board meeting during closed session. At the end of that session, the board voted 10-0 to rehire Andrea White as an attorney.
At the meeting, Gwozdz declined to comment on why Smith was asked to leave the meeting or why White was hired.
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated where the school board’s vote to hire Andrea White in 2019 took place. The vote took place in a public school board meeting after a closed session discussion.
This story was originally published June 21, 2021 at 3:18 PM.