Selma Superintendent of Education Dr. Donald Jefferson is asking members of the Selma City Board of Education remove a letter of reprimand from his personnel file, repeal a request for more training and offer him an apology or, he will sue them.

During Tuesday’s board work session, Terry G. Davis, attorney for Jefferson, presented each member of the board with a letter, detailing the demands — rather the requests — made by his client.

Although the contents of the letter were not made public during the open meeting, Davis cited some of the letter’s contents, arguing certain board members acted beyond their authority in addressing Jefferson in the past.

He also said if steps were not taken by the board as a whole to retract “defamation of character” comments made against Jefferson in the next 10 days, the board could face a civil lawsuit.

“The circumstances are not so pleasant … I’m very familiar with this situation,” Davis said. “My firm has been retained by the superintendent to institute an immediate lawsuit, legal action, against initially Mr. (Holland) Powell and other appropriate members as determined later … for going beyond authority that you have.”

During a July 25 meeting, the board authorized a letter, calling for Jefferson to receive more training in human resource issues, be placed in the superintendent’s personnel file. At this meeting, the letter, which was drafted by Powell, was approved by a majority of the board, with Powell and board members Brenda Obomanu and Frank Chestnut Jr. voting in favor. Board president Henry Hicks and Dr. Udo Ufomadu voted against accepting the letter.

The human resource training called for in the letter was in response to a pending legal matter the board was facing involving the recent termination of a system employee.

With no regards to the issue, Davis said, Powell used the opportunity to jump on Jefferson.

Jefferson, Davis said, demands the letter be removed from his file.

“I represent teachers, school boards and so I know the law,” Davis said. “Mr. Powell is not a lawyer, he likes to cite the law quite a bit … and he’s mistaken several things here that people seem to be taking as fact. I’m glad I got to hear exactly what the superintendent had been explaining to me.”

Davis said the Alabama Association of School Boards had recently informed the board about its roles and responsibilities.

“My letter says you (Powell) have no more authority than any other board member here … you don’t have the right to be out in the system doing the superintendent’s job,” Davis said.

Board members, such as Obomanu and Chestnut also showed their concern about Davis’ comments.

“We are his (Jefferson) boss,” Obomanu said while pointing to the document. “We employ him to run the system.”

Davis’ said if the board did not take action, a potential lawsuit could be filed.

Repeated attempts by the Times-Journal to contact Davis on further comments about the pending suit, such as timeline of filing and damages sought, were unsuccessful.

When contacted for additional comments, Jefferson directed questions to his attorney.