Newport will pay $30,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a former municipal employee who says his constitutional rights were violated when he was banned from all city property for a year.
The city also adopted a policy not to issue or enforce trespass orders for city property, unless there was a statewide procedure in place, according to the settlement.
“Forbidding someone from moving freely in a public space and participating in community life is in direct conflict with our most basic constitutional freedoms,” said Hillary Rich, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Vermont, which brought the case in 2023.
The city of Newport, in a statement included in the settlement, wrote that it “regrets that the events in this case led to Andrew Cappello being temporarily barred from City property and acknowledges that a different approach would have better served all concerned.”
The Newport Daily Express first reported the news.
The lawsuit stemmed from a 2021 incident where Cappello was at a public park chatting with friends. The longtime city employee had recently quit his job after conflicts with the city manager and public works director interfered with his work and personal life, the lawsuit alleges.
While Cappello was at the park, the public works director approached and told him to leave, the lawsuit says. After Cappello refused, a city police officer issued a trespass order barring Cappello from all public parks and city property for a year.
The notice didn’t have any information about why it was issued or information about how to contest it. Cappello tried appealing the order to the police chief and the mayor, but was denied, according to a press release from the ACLU of Vermont.
In a statement, Cappello said he was “thrilled” to be allowed back to Newport’s public spaces.
“I’m especially pleased to learn that town officials will no longer be issuing vague trespass notices that needlessly block people from visiting parks, beaches, and other public places in Newport,” Cappello said in the statement.
The ACLU of Vermont has raised concerns that towns across the state are regularly excluding people from public spaces. In 2023, the ACLU urged Rutland town to change its policies after discovering police had issued at least 10 orders restricting access to public property.
The ACLU has also voiced support for a Montpelier resident who was removed from a city council meeting and criminally charged, and in 2019 the organization settled a case with Burlington over its no-trespass ordinance.
