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The town's appeal, which challenges an Aug. 1 ruling by Hurley Town Justice John E. Parker, will be heard Oct. 31 in Ulster County Court.
Rochester Supervisor Pam Duke said in a prepared statement that no apparent principles of law support Parker's ruling.
"Frankly, we were quite surprised by the lay court's ruling in Ms. Mihailescu's favor and were unable to find any applicable principles of law that would have supported such a ruling," Duke wrote.
Mihailescu drove her car into a 1998 Toyota Tacoma in the Town Hall parking lot on Jan. 24 after being accused, during an interview for a seat on the town's Historic Preservation Committee, of having ties to adult Web sites.
During the interview, town officials showed Mihailescu information from the Internet that they said supported their claim. Mihailescu denied being involved with the sites, and town officials acknowledge the allegedly supporting materials have been destroyed in the months since.
The town also has declined to identify the three people who it said initially supplied them with information about Mihailescu's alleged ties to the Web sites.
Mihailescu has not been accused of actually appearing on any adult sites, only of being connected to them.
In its appeal of the $822 award, the town contends Mihailescu did not make a case for being emotionally distressed at the time of the accident.
The town also said Mihailescu should be held responsible for the crash.
"In consultation with our insurance carrier and legal counsel, we have decided to appeal the ruling as the message it sends, if left unchallenged, is one that asserts that people are not responsible for their own actions when driving a car and causing damage to other people's property," Duke wrote. " We believe that the lay court's decision was flawed, and will seek to have it overturned."
Regarding the questioning of Mihailescu about the adult Web sites, the town states in its appeal that board members were "doing no more than performing (their) duty to select a candidate who would not cause any embarrassment to the town."
Citing previous court rulings, the town contends there "must still be freedom to express an unflattering opinion" during proceedings as interviews.
Mihailescu, who now is running for a Town Board seat on the Republican line, says the board's appeal is an attempt at intimidation.
She also says the board went too far during the Historic Preservation Committee in accusing her of unproven ties to adult Web sites.
"I was just going to an interview with elected officials for a volunteer town position, and nothing could have prepared me for the shocking, unchecked and unproved porno accusations I was faced with," she said.
