Oyster Bay-East Norwich Publicly Funded Attorney Barks at Parent to Sit Down

While being compensated with public tax dollars to advise the Oyster Bay-East Norwich Board of Education, attorney Maryann Sadowski of Ingerman Smith LLP took it upon herself to repeatedly order a parent to “sit down” during the public comment portion of a BOE meeting. Despite the parent still being within their allotted three-minute speaking period, Sadowski interrupted and barked at the speaker not once, but three separate times. This occurred while Sadowski was actively advising the board on district matters, raising serious concerns about the misuse of taxpayer-funded legal counsel to suppress parental speech, silence dissent, and undermine public participation in a government meeting.

When Sadowski, a publicly funded attorney, uses her position to suppress the lawful speech of a concerned parent, it crosses a line from legal advocacy into unconstitutional and unethical behavior.

With at least three attorneys on rotation, Maryann Sadowski, Chris Venator and Christopher Gavin of Ingerman Smith LLP billed the district thousands of taxpayer dollars to draft a restriction letter that unlawfully banned the same parent from school grounds at all times. The letter failed to cite any legal authority, did not include an expiration date, omitted any prior warning or due process, and denied the parent an opportunity to respond or appeal.

The same letter requires the parent to formally obtain written permission from the districts Superintendent, Dr. Francesco Ianni, to attend public Board of Education meetings. This violates New York’s Open Meetings Law (Public Officers Law §103 et seq.), the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and the New York State Constitution’s guarantees of open government and public participation.