The City of Marshall is facing a wrongful termination lawsuit brought by its former manager of planning and code enforcement.

A lawsuit filed Tuesday, Oct. 7 by Sheerie Norman accuses the city of terminating her in retaliation for her attempts to enforce city codes, ordinances, and procedures. Norman had worked for the city for 30 years, before she and code enforcement officer Aaron Gibson had their positions eliminated May 14.

In her 16-page filing with several names redacted from the publicly available version, Norman claims that the city’s move to dismiss her stemmed from her work on two projects, including the proposed Meadows at Harvest Creek subdivision. Norman said that she had been pressured to expedite or ignore required timelines for the plat’s approval process last fall. Despite the plat not receiving final approval, an open house about the subdivision took place in early December, after which Norman claimed that she had then been, “intentionally excluded and left out of conversations and meetings.” She says that when asked to consider another plat proposal in April, she was pressured to again expedite the process and overlook code requirements, including minimum front-yard sizes.

Later in the lawsuit, Norman claims she and an inspector had been told in March to no longer issue stop-work orders after a disagreement developed on whether permits had been issued for a project to construct a hoop grain storage building. Norman described the action as a retaliatory withholding of work. Norman is seeking compensatory damages under Missouri’s whistleblower statute, including back pay and retirement benefits. A hearing date has not been set.

KMMO News reached out to the City of Marshall for comment. A representative said the city could not comment, citing the situation as a legal matter.