District court denies Summary Judgment Motion filed by the Stafford Board of Education, Superintendent Therese Fishman and former Selectman Gordan Frassinelli Jr., in the case of Russo v. Stafford Board of Education, et al, Docket No. 3:07-cv-00378 -VLB.  The plaintiff, Patricia Russo, a former bus driver in Stafford, alleged that the defendants caused her removal from her position as a bus driver in retaliation for having exercised her First Amendment right to free speech.  Plaintiff’s counsel, Associate Nicole Rothgeb, explains that Ms. Russo engaged in constitutionally protected speech when she led a public and contentious dispute with the Stafford Board of Ed, school administrators and town officials during the 2004-2005 school year over health and safety issues related to the condition of school buildings and then when she became an outspoken opponent of certain political candidates who ran in the 2005 town election, most notably, defendant Frassinelli, and his running mate, Mark Fontanella, then-Secretary of the Board of Ed.  The plaintiff argued that the defendants’ reasons for removing her from serving as a driver in Stafford were pretextual and could only be decided by a jury.  As Judge Bryant noted in her decision, the case presents “sufficient facts to enable a reasonable jury to find that [defendants] Fishman and Frassinelli, in concert with the board, removed [the plaintiff] from her job because of her protected activity.”  Accordingly, the court denied the motion for summary judgment in its entirety and concluded that the individual defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity.