Agreement reached in Web site lawsuit
By:KATIE O'CONNOR , Times Herald Staff 07/02/2003
NORRISTOWN - Mayor Ted LeBlanc and the borough have agreed to settle
part of the lawsuit against Global Color Design Inc. and its
principal, Drew Salamone, in connection with a Web site the company
operates at www.norristown.com.
"We have agreed to a settlement on the Web site issues," LeBlanc said.
"I can still pursue the defamation charges in state court, but I
haven't decided if I'm going to do that."
The lawsuit, filed in April, alleged the commercial Web site illegally
mimicked the borough's official site at www. norristown.org.
After the suit was filed, Salamone made changes to the site to ensure
visitors would not mistake his site for the official borough site.
"These changes did not require a lawsuit," Salamone said, "just a
phone call."
Originally, the homepage had a photo of the mayor surrounded by "Mayor
Ted LeBlanc welcomes you!" according to the suit. Currently, the site
has a disclaimer reading, "This is not the official Norristown Borough
Web site." The disclaimer also has a link to www.norristown.org.
Also, the lawsuit alleged the company and Salamone permitted "John and
Jane Does" to post libelous statements about the mayor, borough
Administrator Anthony Biondi and other officials on its bulletin
board.
LeBlanc explained the borough administration's reputation may have
been damaged by comments posted on the www.norristown.com bulletin
board by anonymous users.
"I'm still mad about that," he said.
According to Salamone, he does not have information on the "Jane and
John Does" who posted alleged defamatory comments on the site's
bulletin board.
Bulletin board/chat room participants will have to provide
registration information, which at a minimum will include the
registrant's return e-mail address, according to the settlement.
Borough Council adopted a resolution Tuesday that formally asked the
mayor to remove the borough's name from the suit.
"Why continue to waste taxpayer money on more and more legal fees,
when things can be settled in a cooperative manner?" council President
Olivia Brady asked.
Salamone said he is happy about the settlement agreement and believes
the resolution "helped to expedite the mayor's decision on settling or
not.
"If he had been forced to remove the borough from the lawsuit, then he
would have to foot the bill for his legal representation himself,"
Salamone said. "If he settled before the resolution was passed, he
could still use borough funds to pay for attorney fees up until that
point.
"Believe me, it was no coincidence," Salamone added.
However, according to LeBlanc, the resolution had nothing to do with
the settlement agreement.
"That resolution is not enforceable," he said. "We've been working on
a settlement since this case was filed."
LeBlanc said he has not seen the final version of the settlement
agreement and that the attorneys involved have verbally agreed to the
settlement conditions.
Katie O'Connor can be reached at koconnor@no-spam and
610-272-2500, ext. 204.