The attorney representing a group of plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Mayor Butch Berry and several other city officials in connection with the City Advertising and Promotion Commission has asked a judge to schedule a three-week trial as soon as possible.
In a motion filed July 27 in Carroll County Circuit Court, attorney Tim Parker of Eureka Springs asks Judge Scott Jackson to set trial dates as well as deadlines for discovery and depositions as well as submission of evidence and witness lists, motions and jury instructions.
“Plaintiffs anticipate that it will take three (3) weeks to try this case given the number of witnesses, exhibits, claims and issues,” Parker writes in the motion. “… The Plaintiffs request the earliest possible dates for the trial of this matter.”
Parker filed the lawsuit in March 2021 on behalf of former CAPC events coordinator Tracy Johnson, former finance director Rick Bright, former interim director Gina Rambo, former group sales coordinator Karen Pryor and former commissioner Greg Moon.
Bright and Pryor were still employed by the CAPC when the suit was filed but both later left their positions. Rambo was demoted from the interim director position and later fired in February 2021. Jackson ruled later in 2021 that the commission had no authority to vacate Moon’s seat, as it had done in January 2021, and he rejoined the commission but later resigned.
Defendants in the suit are Berry; CAPC commissioners Patrick Burnett, Jeff Carter, James DeVito and Carol Wright; city council members Melissa Greene and Harry Meyer, both of whom were CAPC commissioners at the time the suit was filed; Kim Stryker, Berry’s administrative assistant; former CAPC executive director Lacey Ekberg; the city; and an insurance company that provides a policy to the city. A second insurance company was dismissed from the suit in January.
Parker filed a supplemental complaint on Johnson’s behalf on April 5, contending that Berry had slandered Johnson and defamed her character by accusing her of embezzlement. He filed an amended complaint in June adding Ekberg as a defendant.
The amended complaint seeks a total of $37 million in compensatory and punitive damages. It also asks that Rambo and Johnson be reinstated to their positions with the CAPC.
