From the Rapid City Journal continues the odd tale of the Sasso lawsuit. It was dropped, but new information reflecting poorly on alderman comes to light.
Sasso’s lawyers threatened to file a federal lawsuit and a complaint under the Rapid City Code of Conduct for Elected Officials unless the city paid Sasso $855,000 by Dec. 24.
“Wright’s response to Sasso’s column appearing in the Rapid City Journal was so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bound of decency,” the letter said. “His behavior is atrocious and intolerable in a civilized community such as Rapid City.”
Then, this past Wednesday, Sasso said in a written statement provided to the Journal that he had dropped the lawsuit threat. The decision came less than two weeks after his letter to the city.
and…
City Attorney Joel Landeen subsequently told the Journal that evidence had arisen of termination documents that were prepared against Sasso before his column was published.
“It destroyed their case,” Landeen said.
and…
In the letter, Nooney apparently recounted what he described as a “rather bizarre” lunch conversation he had with Wright. According to Nooney’s letter, Wright told Black Hills Works that it should not employ people like Sasso.
“For what it is worth,” the Nooney letter said, “Wright shared with me that very few people were aware of his ‘ability to get Sasso fired…'”
Kooiker, who was ousted from office in June, shared the information from Nooney’s letter with Sasso, who has claimed that Black Hills Works gave him no other reason for his firing. The letter’s contents made Sasso suspect that Wright was the cause of the firing, and Sasso’s attorneys quoted from the Nooney letter in their letter to the city.
and…
Whether or not Wright caused Sasso’s firing, Sasso continues to believe that Wright clearly sought to cause it.
“Whether his actions were the basis for my termination is not the point any longer,” Sasso wrote in his statement to the Journal, “but the issue remains as to the appropriateness of a City Council member attempting to get a person fired for exercising his right to freedom of speech.”
When a politician is so thin-skinned that they can’t take public criticism without seeking retaliatory action, they don’t have a political problem. They have an ego problem.
Never a dull moment in Rapid City local politics.