Mayor rejects Buzzy’s offer to settle

LYNN – Embattled English High School Head Basketball Coach Gordon “Buzzy” Barton should not expect a speedy resolution to his discrimination lawsuit against Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr., who rejected a settlement offer from the coach’s attorneys Monday.In accordance with state law, which requires a settlement offer be extended before lawsuits of this kind go to trial, lawyers sent a written proposal to Clancy dated Dec. 21, offering to drop the suit if Clancy agrees to, among other things, pay Barton $76,000 in emotional distress and punitive damages.”It took me back to my text books, reading about World War II and the Battle of the Bulge,” Clancy said. “When they were fighting in the City of Bastone, and the German commander asked the allied forces to surrender, I am going to paraphrase General (Anthony McAuliffe), who just said ?nuts.’ It is nuts.”The settlement would have also required Clancy to cover all of Barton’s legal fees, reinstate the coach as Commissioner of the Parks Commission, reinstate Barton’s sister, Patricia Barton as Chairperson of the Lynn Housing Authority and issue a public apology for disparaging remarks he made about Barton in a series of letters to Superintendent Nicholas Kostan and English Principal Andrew Fila.Clancy said he did not engage in any sort of negotiations with Barton’s legal team before the settlement was offered, and indicated he had no intention of backing down in this case, which, barring another settlement offer, will go before a judge sometime in 2008.”Anyone who looks at this case, if it is for the purpose of settlement, would say this is nuts,” he said. “We are just rejecting this settlement, we have to.”Clancy pointed to the $76,000 in emotional distress as a particularly troubling request, noting that Barton is still collecting disability from the city due to a back injury suffered when he was working for the Fire Department, and he is still a member of the Lynn Retirement Board.Clancy also argued that appointments to the Parks Commission and Housing Authority are at his discretion, and not reinstating Barton or his sister were not cases of discrimination.”All of those appointments are within the discretion of the mayor, that’s how (Barton) got there in the first place,” he said. “There was no case of any discrimination.”Barton’s attorney Harold Lichten said Monday that the settlement was only extended because the law required them to do so, and he “did not hold out hope” that Clancy would agree to the conditions.”I would not put too much stock in that settlement offer,” he said. “We are supposed to make a required settlement offer before the case goes to trial, by law, so that is what this is.”Lichten said now that Clancy has rejected the offer, the next step is a conference with the court on Jan. 3, and he hopes to see the case go to trial by spring or summer of 2008.Barton filed suit against Clancy in May of this year, seeking compensatory damages for emotional distress from Clancy, who he claims violated both state and federal civil rights laws, as well as common law, during a series of run-ins with Barton over the past seven years.The most recent incident came when Clancy issued an angry letter to Superintendent of Schools Nicholas Kostan, attacking Kostan’s decision to approve Barton’s appointment as English basketball coach despite Clancy’s concerns about Barton’s disability pension from the city.Clancy first opposed Barton’s appointment as coach in a November 2006 letter to Fila, who had named Barton to that position against Clancy’s wishes.But the lawsuit alleged Clancy had been discriminating against Barton for some time before the coaching controversy started, alleging that Clancy was retaliating against Barton for speaking out on “a number of issues of public concern,” while working as president of the Lynn Firefighter’s Union.