Lawrence School Committee preparing for Laboy deadline
LAWRENCE — School Committee members plan to meet in executive session before their Nov. 19 meeting to discuss how to proceed if suspended Superintendent Wilfredo Laboy continues to defy a committee request to resign.
The committee has not received a response from Laboy or from his attorney Scott Gleason since giving him a Nov. 20 deadline to step down from his $200,000-a-year job or face action by the committee to remove him.
"I don't think he's going to comply," member James Vittorioso said last night, calling on his colleagues to schedule an emergency session on Laboy during the Thanksgiving holiday week.
"It's guts poker and I'm not afraid to play guts poker," he said.
Vice Chairman Greg Morris said the committee should hold the closed door talks with Committee attorney Naomi Stonberg just before its next meeting instead of Thanksgiving week. The session would be strictly strategy talk, he said.
Laboy, 58, of Methuen, was suspended indefinitely in late June when the Essex County District Attorney's Office launched a criminal probe of alleged financial wrongdoing.
He was initially placed on paid administrative leave, but has been using accrued vacation pay since late August.
Vittorioso wants the committee to take action as soon as possible, independent of the ongoing criminal probe.
"I'm hearing we're chickens with our heads cut off," Vittorioso told his colleagues.
If Laboy returns to his job, Vittorioso vowed "I will not sit at the table with him."
"I'll join Mrs. Milone," he said, referring to a separate table in front of the committee table where recording secretary Joan Milone sits.
