Pay me, or see me in court.

Those are the sentiments expressed in a March 30 letter from Ernest Yarborough to Charles Boykin, attorney for the Fairfield County School District.

Yarborough is seeking $17,000 in compensation from the district for his efforts to defeat H.4431 and H.4432, a pair of bills introduced in January by Sen. Creighton Coleman and Rep. Boyd Brown.

The bills, which overcame a gubernatorial veto in March, take fiscal responsibilities away from the school board and place them in the hands of an independent finance committee. The bills also create two new seats on the board. Both bills are currently under review by the U.S. Department of Justice for any potential conflict with the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

“That’s my ultimatum,” Yarborough said. “They either tell me which of these three options they’re going to take, or I’m going to file suit.”

Yarborough has asked that the district either pay what he feel he is due, go before a mediator or take the matter to court. He has given a deadline of noon, April 6.

While he admits there was never any agreement in writing, Yarborough said the actions of the majority of the school board indicated to him that he was to go to work at once and that the details would be worked out at a later date.

Annie McDaniel, chairwoman of the school board, said last week that the district had no intentions of paying, but other board members suspect otherwise.

“He wasn’t a registered lobbyist. We, as a school district, didn’t register anyone as a lobbyist,” said board member Danielle Miller. “But I think they’re going to pay him. I think the game all along has been to pay him.”

Board member Polly Parker said she thinks Yarborough may have a legitimate claim, given the confusion surrounding the Jan. 26 board meeting when the board voted 4-3 to consider hiring him.

“He’s going to get money out of them,” she said. “The way they [the four-member majority] acted, he probably has a leg to stand on, legally.”

Yarborough has since taken the issue a step further and is calling for McDaniel’s resignation.

“Annie McDaniel is a large part of the problem with this school board. She needs to resign because she has no integrity,” Yarborough said. “She was one of the board members who came to me and begged me to take this on. And then when she took a little heat, she threw me into the oven.”

The board came under the scrutiny of local media outlets following the Yarborough decision in January when the question of his criminal record came to light.

Yarborough was disbarred in 2008 following a conviction for obstruction of justice for offering an alleged victim $500 to drop charges against his client. He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, suspended on the service of six months, two years probation, and payment of $1,000 in costs and assessments.

Yarborough said McDaniel “flat out lied on WIS-TV” when she claimed to have been unaware of his background.

“When I was at Kirkland Correctional, there was more honor among the inmates than there is in Annie McDaniel,” he said.

Numerous phone calls to McDaniel seeking her view on this story were not returned.

The letter states, in part:

“. . . the Board voted 4-3 to consider hiring ‘Yarborough’ with the authority given to the Executive Committee to finalize the details. At no time did the full board ever agree to withdraw this authority from the Executive Committee. At no time did the Executive Committee or the Board inform me that the ‘bets’ were off. To that end, I reasonably relied upon the board, made substantial and detrimental changes to my work obligations, and accepted the awesome burden of working on behalf of the Board and the citizens of Fairfield County. At not time did I ever agree to work for free. Because of the nature of the matter that we were dealing with, I had to move fast. In sum, Charles, I am asserting, in part, that the Board is financially liable to me under the theory of promissory estoppel or implied contract.”