Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
A lawyer representing Mesalands Community College requested dismissal of a former president’s whistleblower lawsuit, alleging its board of directors are not “officers of the State” and that the suit was filed in the wrong venue.
The college’s board of directors fired Mesalands President John Groesbeck in April after placing him on paid administrative leave for unstated reasons the previous month.
Groesbeck in July filed a lawsuit in Santa Fe County district court against Mesalands, alleging whistleblower violations and retaliation.
In the suit, Groesbeck stated he confronted the college’s foundation members, many whom also are on the board of trustees, during a March board meeting about allegations of improper distribution of federal grant funds, fraudulent property leases and improper appropriation of money to the Mesalands Dinosaur Museum. He also accused an official of overpayments to some faculty members.
Groesbeck was fired a few weeks later.
The New Mexico Higher Education Department said the Attorney General’s Office and Office of State Auditor are investigating Groesbeck’s claims.
In an Aug. 31 filing, M. Karen Kilgore of the Cuddy & McCarthy law firm that represents the college stated Groesbeck’s lawsuit should be dismissed because “neither Defendant nor its board of directors are ‘officers of the State’ as alleged by Plaintiff.”
Kilgore stated Mesalands is a public community college and not a state officer, and the venue for the lawsuit is “in the county where either the plaintiff or defendant … resides; or second, in the county where the … cause of action originated … or third, in any county in which the defendant or either of them may be found in the judicial district where the defendant resides.”
It further stated the college and its officers are in Quay County, not Santa Fe County.
Kilgore wrote the lawsuit should be dismissed and that responses to discovery motions in Groesbeck’s complaint should not be served.
Groesbeck hired the Kennedy, Hernandez & Associates law firm of Albuquerque to represent him the lawsuit.
The college’s vice president of academic affairs, Natalie Gillard, is serving as interim president for a second time in less than a decade.
Mesalands’ board of directors recently approved a presidential search committee to find Groesbeck’s replacement. Jim Streetman, chairman of the board, said he’d hoped to have a new president seated within a few months but acknowledged it could take longer.