A tentative out-of-court agreement has been reached in a lawsuit that had been brought earlier this year against Venango County and the three county commissioners by a former department head.
Marie Plumer, who filed the lawsuit, was the Venango County Human Services administrator from 2020 until Sept. 26, 2022, when her employment with the county was terminated following a disagreement between her and the commissioners over moving a homeless shelter program she oversaw to another location.
The location was owned by a close friend of commissioner Albert Abramovic, according to the lawsuit.
Venango County and commissioners Abramovic, Sam Breene and Mike Dulaney in their individual capacity are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Breene and Dulaney are only named in the lawsuit as approving Plumer’s dismissal and it is claimed in the suit that they “knew of Abramovic’s animus towards Plumer” when they did so.
In response, the county argued that Plumer’s speech was not spoken in her capacity as a citizen but in her capacity as a government employee doing her job, which is not protected speech under the First Amendment, according to a brief in support of a motion to dismiss the lawsuit that was filed in July.
The brief adds that the federal court, where the lawsuit was filed, should “decline to exercise jurisdiction” over the claim that the county violated a state whistleblower law, something the brief says should be examined by a state court.
During the summer, the commissioners and Plumer opted to pursue alternative dispute resolution, a request that was granted by Judge Susan Paradise Baxter of the Western District Court of Pennsylvania who is hearing the case, according to court documents.
According to an order issued by Baxter on Sept. 21, “The Court has been notified that an agreement has been reached to conclude this action” and so the lawsuit is considered “administratively closed.”
Attorneys for the commissioners and Plumer have been ordered to file a “joint Stipulation of Dismissal” by Nov. 20 and if that is not done, Plumer’s attorney is required to “file a written status report updating the Court on the progress made toward effectuating the settlement,” the Sept. 21 court order continued.
Details of the case
Plumer filed her initial lawsuit March 24, which included several allegations of wrongdoing by the commissioners, primarily Abramovic, according to court documents.
On May 30, the commissioners responded with a request that the suit be dismissed and a 27-page brief responding to the allegations and supporting the dismissal of the suit, according to court documents.
In response on June 23, Plumer filed an amended lawsuit that omitted two of the three claims made in the original lawsuit, the court documents say.
The amended lawsuit details a disagreement between Plumer and the commissioners regarding moving the county’s Bridge Housing Program to a different location, and the lawsuit says the disagreement ultimately resulted in Plumer’s dismissal from her job at the county.
The Bridge Housing Program, which provided “temporary housing to the homeless,” was located in a building on the 1200 block of Liberty Street in Franklin that the county had purchased in 2015 or 2016 using state and federal funds and turned over to a non-profit to run as a shelter, the lawsuit says.
In the fall of 2021, according to the lawsuit, the commissioners voiced concerns about having the shelter clientele living in the building on Liberty Street and so they chose to terminate the funding and move the shelter program to another location.
The commissioners rejected several locations Plumer proposed and “instead, Abramovic directed Plumer to focus her efforts on leasing a building on Grant Street…owned by a for-profit, limited liability company belonging to Abramovic’s close friend” that would cost the county $4,200 a month to lease for the first year, with yearly increases over the five-year lease, the lawsuit says.
In May 2022, Plumer called a local real estate agent to appraise the value of the building on Grant Street and the real estate agent told Plumer that “whoever proposed this building was robbing the county,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit goes on to say that in May or June of 2022, the man who owned the building on Grant Street “revealed to Plumer that Abramovic offered to relocate the (Bridge Housing Program) to the Grant building while the two were drinking around a campfire earlier in the year.”
When Plumer raised concerns about the Grant Street building to the commissioners, including Abramovic, “Abramovic repeatedly instructed Plumer that setting lease terms and compliance with regulatory requirements…was the Commissioners job, not hers…Abramovic further commented that the Grant Building lease…was a ‘done deal,’ the terms would not change, and that Plumer should not make him “look like an (expletive),” the lawsuit says.
Plumer raised concerns to county solicitor Rich Winkler and county Human Resources director Justin Wolfe that “the County had wastefully and needlessly abandoned the Liberty Building and ignored reasonable alternatives, and that Abramovic made a backroom deal to pay a non-fair market value lease rate to a close personal friend,” according to the lawsuit.
It is believed both relayed Plumer’s objections to the commissioners, the lawsuit says.
“Thereafter, Abramovic became increasingly hostile, started scrutinizing Plumer and began to push her to effectuate his existing deal on the Grant Building,” according to the lawsuit.
On Sept. 26, 2022, Wolfe and county labor solicitor Stephanie Fera came to Plumer’s office and told Plumer the commissioners had “lost confidence in her” and said she could resign or be dismissed, the lawsuit says.
Her employment with the county was terminated, according to the lawsuit.
The deal for the Grant Street property was then “swiftly enacted in October of 2022,” the lawsuit says.
In response to the amended lawsuit, the commissioners filed another request for the lawsuit to be dismissed and a 15-page brief responding to the allegations and supporting the dismissal on July 7, according to court documents.
The brief does not deny the allegations raised by Plumer but instead lays out a legal argument that her objections to moving the homeless shelter do not constitute speech as a citizen protected under the First Amendment.
Rather, according to the brief, she was speaking as a government employee using knowledge she had as a result of her job, which according to the law is not considered protected speech and so the suit should be dismissed as the county did not violate her First Amendment rights.
Abramovic and Breene were both re-elected to four-year terms as commissioners in Tuesday’s general election — Abramovic for a third term and Breene for a second term.
Dulaney did not seek re-election.
