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Fired Airport Manager Sues for Her Job
Updated: Friday, 09 Dec 2011, 1:32 PM EST
Published : Thursday, 08 Dec 2011, 7:06 PM EST
myFOXdetroit.com - DETROIT (WJBK) -- Ousted Detroit Metro Airport Manager Turkia Mullin is suing to get her job back, saying she was fired illegally.
The Wayne County Airport Authority Board fired Mullin Oct. 31 after meeting in a 90-minute closed-door session.
Now Mullin has filed suit, saying the board violated the state’s Open Meetings Act, making her firing illegal.
“They had no cause to terminate her contract. They were doing it to hide from the public the fact that they may have wanted her out for their own personal reasons or for their own strategic reasons. But there was no cause to terminate her contract,” Mullins’ lawyer Raymond Sterling said.
Sterling believes Mullin is entitled to back pay and to have the firing reversed.
Fox 2 Legal Analyst Charlie Langton thinks the case may have merit. “Turkia Mullin absolutely has the right, if she’s going to be fired, they have to do it in open session and a reason has to be given. Here, the board went in the back room, they closed themselves off, and they came back and they said ‘she’s fired.’ We don’t know why, we don’t know the reason, and she has an absolute right to know why she’s being fired.”
Fox 2 has uncovered a past history of questionable real estate deals involving Mullin and cozy relationships between highly-paid county officials. The FBI is investigating.
But Langton says she can’t be fired for that. “The board’s going to have to come up with a reason that she did something wrong, something willful … committed some misconduct in the time that she worked for the airport board.”
Mullin came under fire for taking a $200,000 severance payment when she voluntarily left her county job to become airport CEO. After the scandal, she gave the money back. “There was, frankly, no reason for her to give that money back, and we’ll be addressing that at a later time,” Sterling said.
It’s up to the airport board to decide what happens next. Another meeting could be held, one that’s open to the public.
There will also likely be another lawsuit over the $700,000 the county still owes Mullin under her contract.
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