MARIETTA - Cobb school board member Dr. John Crooks is asking the district to reimburse him for legal fees he incurred during the unsuccessful effort to recall him.

In a letter dated June 30, Crooks officially requested that board Chairwoman Lynnda Crowder-Eagle place an item on the agenda for Thursday night's board meeting to ask the board to vote on a reimbursement of $41,000. Crowder-Eagle confirmed that a vote for Crooks' reimbursement has been set for Thursday. She said Crooks will not be allowed to vote.

In his letter, Crooks cites board administrative rule EIB, which says that if a board member or district employee incurs legal expenses while doing their job, the district will pay for those expenses.

Crooks said he is simply asking for his money back in accordance with the administrative rule. He claims that the money will not come from the district's general fund, but from a self-insurance fund - money the district sets aside each year for insurance purposes.

Although he said he was sorry that the lawsuit might cost the district and taxpayers money, he claims the cost is not his fault and thinks that east Cobb mom Carrie Nicholas-Welkis, who led the recall efforts, should be held accountable as well.

"Here's the interesting part of it, is that no one's holding her accountable about the amount of money. In my opinion, she caused the county taxpayers to spend on a failed attempt," Crooks said.

"The burden of proof is not on me, the burden of proof is on her and, you know what, she didn't even turn in her names - to the district, to the county, no one," he said regarding signatures needed to put the recall on a ballot. "How does any taxpayer out here know she collected any names? Nobody knows. All we know is she didn't turn in any names. That is fact."

Nicholas-Welkis said Monday that she thinks it's "absurd" Crooks would ask for a reimbursement, and said it's "disgusting" for him to say that she should be responsible for his actions.

"He's quite cocky to make a statement like that when he's the one that technically broke the law," Nicholas-Welkis said. "I have put in money - my family has put in over $10,000 in legal fees because of this board's ineptitude."

While legal fees for the recall efforts alone cost Nicholas-Welkis about $6,000, she said, she has received about $1,800 in donations. She said she plans to be at Thursday night's meeting to read the judge's ruling regarding the recall efforts during board comment, which starts at 7 p.m.

The efforts to remove Crooks from office began after a July 2009 school board meeting, when the Post 6 board member called for a vote to allow a 150-foot cell tower to be built at Eastvalley Elementary School, a proposal many parents and residents opposed as an unsafe eyesore. Crooks placed the cell tower matter on the board's agenda the day of the July meeting. Several families, including Dr. Rick Welkis, Nicholas-Welkis' husband, then filed suit against the school district, arguing that the board violated state Open Meetings Act by failing to give proper notice of the vote. Nicholas-Welkis led the recall effort, arguing that Crooks intentionally misled the public by not giving notice of the vote.

Crooks blames the district's attorney, Glenn Brock, for allowing him to place the cell tower vote on the agenda the day of the meeting. He said he asked Dr. John Abraham, the board chairman at the time, about putting the item on the agenda and, on a break during the July 2009 meeting, Brock gave him and Abraham the OK to vote on it that night. Crooks also claims that his fellow board members, who voted unanimously to place the item on the agenda, are just as much at fault as he is.

"I would say that everyone who voted to put it back on the agenda is equally responsible," Crooks told the Journal. "Because no action in and of itself, outside of the board, is binding."

Nevertheless, Crooks said Monday it was his understanding that the recall effort was not necessarily about the vote, but about a voicemail he left for a constituent saying he would not place the cell tower on the agenda until the August 2009 meeting. While Crooks does admit to leaving the voicemail, he says he forgot what he had told the constituent about the timeline for the cell tower vote.

"I think you've got good people who are trying to do good things for kids," Crooks said. "And I think when you leave a phone message in April, sometimes you forget the exact conversations of literally hundreds of phone calls that you return. Like I've said from the very beginning, my intention was never to deceive anyone, mine was to do what I could do for the best of those children. And at the end of the day, I think providing a revenue stream for a school in these economic times is a very good thing."

Also on Thursday, Crowder-Eagle said that the board plans to begin discussions about its plans to hire a new superintendent. At the board's June 24 meeting, Superintendent Fred Sanderson announced he will retire after his contract is up in June 2011.

"Basically we're just in the very first stages of talking about what kind of attributes we're going to look for and talk about whether we want to post the position nationally, just very preliminary discussion, there's no timeline or anything," Crowder-Eagle said.

Although the board has not yet made any plans to hire a search firm, the board chairwoman said she has been contacted by about four firms.

When asked if she thought the current board would hire a new person to the top job, instead of waiting for the new board to be placed in January, Crowder-Eagle said she believes it is the current board's responsibility to begin the search process.

"Right now, we are the board and that is one of the responsibilities of the board," she said. "I think we have time to talk and we should know who those new people are and we can certainly get the opinion of the new people coming on board."