Posted on 02/27/2003 5:54:43 AM PST by Behind Liberal Lines
Stanley Dean, who was defeated in his bid for the presidency of the Syracuse-Onondaga County NAACP, filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the election results.
In the lawsuit, filed in state Supreme Court, Dean said Preston Fagan, the group's president, was not a member in good standing when the elections were held, in November. Fagan defeated Dean 61-59 for the post.
The lawsuit
comes nearly a week after the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People upheld the election results.
In addition to the NAACP, the lawsuit named Donna Reese, Fagan's predecessor; Peter Graham, the former chapter secretary; and Terry Woodfork, chairman of the election supervisory committee. Those three officials were in office when the elections were held, according to the lawsuit.
Dean maintained that Fagan was ineligible to run for president because he was delinquent on his life membership dues from October 1996 to September 2002. Dean also questioned the membership status of several other people who supervised the elections.
Dean and his lawyer, Kevin Kuehner, said they want a judge to force the NAACP to follow its own rules. They argue Fagan's delinquency violates the NAACP's requirement that members must be in good standing for 180 days before they run for office.
"There's no dispute
that he's a member and that he was a member at the time of the election, but does that meet the requirement as a member in good standing at the time of the election?" Kuehner asked.
Dean said Fagan should be removed from office.
The national's NAACP's 64-member board said all except one of the disputed memberships were valid.
Fagan said he signed up for a life NAACP membership in 1986 and had paid his dues in full by 1996. At the time, the life membership fee was $500, which could be paid in full or $50 a year for 10 years. The life membership fee is now $750.
According to Fagan, the NAACP local records were inconsistent with the national records. The local records showed he had paid his dues in full, but that was not reflected in the national records, he said.
Fagan said the lawsuit is baseless and that Dean has taken the issue "a little too far."
"We have our differences, we have our fallouts, but it's rarely that we take one of our own to court," he said
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