A former Tisbury planning official is claiming that the town retaliated against her for reporting illegal activity by the building department. 

Former planning board administrator Amy Upton filed a lawsuit in Dukes County Superior Court late last month against several town officials, saying that she was reprimanded and eventually pushed out of her job for highlighting alleged permitting issues at a controversial property in town.

The lawsuit highlights recent tensions between the town’s planning board and the select board over how the town should conduct its business and who oversees which employees.

The lawsuit names the town, Tisbury town administrator Joseph LaCivita, building inspector Greg Monka, and select board members John Cahill and Roy Cutrer as defendants. 

Ms. Upton is asking the court to award her damages for the alleged retaliation, wrongful termination and discrimination. 

Ms. Upton’s concerns over the town’s permitting process started in 2024, when residents complained about work being performed at properties owned by developer Xerxes Aghassipour. Ms. Upton believed that Mr. Aghassipour should have applied for a special permit for a controversial nine-bedroom home on Spring street.

But building inspector Gregory Monka had checked a box stating that the planning board’s reviews for the home had been completed, allowing the project to move forward, according to the suit. 

Ms. Upton brought her concerns about the permitting process to the planning board and to the town administrator at the time, Jay Grande, who has since left Vineyard municipal government. 

“Though the Planning Board took the matter seriously and began to investigate how their regulatory authority had been sidestepped, Grande essentially told Ms. Upton to keep her head down regarding the developer’s projects and that ‘time is of the essence’ in getting the projects completed,” Ms. Upton’s attorney Casey Dobel wrote in the 13-page lawsuit. 

In June 2024, The planning board asked Ms. Upton to send a letter to Mr. Monka requesting that he refer one of Mr. Aghassipour’s projects to the planning board for review. Mr. Monka, according to the lawsuit, refused multiple requests from Ms. Upton and told her she could not speak to members of the building department without his permission.

Ms. Upton also claimed that Mr. Monka would alter forms to circumvent the planning board’s authority and expedite projects for Mr. Aghassipour.

Mr. Monka did not return a request for comment on the allegations. 

By July 2024, Ms. Upton drafted an appeal to the zoning board on Mr. Monka’s granted permits. While that was going on, she alleges that Mr. Monka, Mr. Grande, Mr. Aghassipour, along with an inspector and the town attorney met at one of Mr. Aghassipour’s properties to discuss the developer’s projects. 

At the time, Ms. Upton texted the town clerk about her disgust over the meeting, going on to call it a “circle jerk.” 

The texts from her private phone became public after a records request from Mr. Aghassipour, and Ms. Upton was placed on administrative leave while an investigation took place into her conduct around the text. The texts also spurred a lawsuit against Ms. Upton and the town that has since been dismissed. 

Ms. Upton was allowed to return to work after about a month, but she continued to be disrespected by town staff, she claimed in the lawsuit. 

By December 2024, Ms. Upton sent a request to human resources asking for an independent investigation into a hostile work environment, which was negatively impacting her health.

After Mr. Grande left the town for a job with Sourati Engineering, Joseph LaCivita took over, but the strained relationship between town administration and the planning board continued, according to the suit. 

In October of 2025, Mr. LaCivita, who did not respond to a request for comment, notified Ms. Upton of a change in the chain of command. Instead of reporting to the planning board chair, she would be supervised by Mr. Monka, who she had previously reported for misconduct. 

Ms. Upton and the planning board protested the change, and she was later suspended several times for working unapproved overtime. In one of the suspensions, Ms. Upton claimed that Mr. Monka’s alteration of a time card was what caused the infraction. 

Tensions later arose between Ms. Upton and planning board chair Casey Hayward, and Ms. Upton requested an investigation into the chair’s conduct. 

After that investigation, Ms. Upton was placed on indefinite suspension in March 2026. This sparked more meetings between the planning board and the select board, with the planning board calling for the previous chain of command to be restored. 

The select board voted to schedule a hearing in May to determine a discipline for Ms. Upton after the alleged violations. With that vote, Ms. Upton submitted a letter of resignation under protest, according to the lawsuit. 

Ms. Upton has struggled to secure another job and has experienced health issues related to stress from the hostile work environment, according to the lawsuit. 

The town is still hammering out who the planning board administrator reports to, which, according to Ms. Upton, was evidence that the town’s own actions are what caused the issues.

“It is clear from the ongoing issues in the Town of Tisbury and from the stalemate that the town and its Planning Board are currently in that Ms. Upton was not the problem; the Town’s management is,” Ms. Upton’s lawyer wrote. 

John Cahill and Roy Cutrer, two members of the select board named in the suit, declined to comment. 

The town has yet to respond to the allegations in court and an initial hearing has not yet been set.