GEORGETOWN – In the ongoing battle over control of the town’s environmental agency, three members of the SelectBoard voted last week to oust the current chair because she would not commit to resign as chair.
The SelectBoard was trying to fill three vacant seats on the seven-member Conservation Commission (ConCom), but managed to fill only one with the former SelectBoard Chair Daryl LaMonica.
Chris Candia, who has served as the ConCom chair for a year, was voted off the commission, which regulates development that impacts wetlands and endangered species. Her re-appointment for a three-year new term was defeated by a three-to-one vote.
The vote appears to have created an even deeper division in the town’s top agency. But It may have been for naught.
Donald Stampfier, a resident, has filed a complaint with the state Attorney General that the Town Administrator in announcing the meeting created an Open Meeting violation. Ironically, SelectBoard member Michael Donahue said he voted against reappointing Candia because of Open Meeting Violations.
Stampfier asserted that “a revised agenda (for the SelectBoard meeting) was uploaded on the day of the meeting, June 23.” It is required to be posted at least 48 hours in advance.
In addition, the original agenda was uploaded without a zoom link, which is included on all agendas, he wrote.
“The Open Meeting Violation is the revised agenda did not give residents reasonable time to join the meeting,” Sampflier wrote. “Therefore, the meeting should have been postponed. Reasonable time was not provided.”
Asked how he would like to fix the problem, Stampfier said the SelectBoard should redo the meeting on July 14 and post the agenda 48 hours before including the Zoom link. That would mean taking the vote on Candia and other applicants for the ConCom again.
In the meeting last week, SelectBoard member Laura Repplier recused herself from voting on the three ConCom vacancies and left the meeting to wait in Town Administrator Orlando Pacheco’s office where she watched the vote on the Community TV channel.
When asked by the Town Common why she was not voting on the appointments, Repplier, a former member of the ConCom, declined to say. Asked again by email several days later, she did not respond.
Her recusal left the board with only four voting members, who were sharply divided.
A town’s SelectBoard does not decide who serves as chair of its boards and commissions. For Georgetown, the ConCom elects its own chair, which in his response to the Town Common a few days later he admitted he understood.
During the meeting, SelectdBoard member Rachel Bancroft, who serves as vice chair of the ConCom, explained that boards and commissions, not the Selecdoard, choose their chair.
Hoover asked Candia the same question three times — if she would resign as the ConCom chair. She told him that the election of the chair is determined by the board or commission.
In his response to the Town Common a few days after the meeting, Hoover wrote: “Never once did Chris take full responsibility for her answer and tell me what she thought, divorced from anything else. Her answer was always qualified. At first it appeared like Chris was avoiding answering my question by saying, ‘the future is always open.”
Hoover had told Candia in advance of the meeting that he would vote for her reappointment, according to sources close to the proceedings
“All Chris had to do was answer my question by saying – yes I would consider giving up the chair. I suspect she thought she did. For me, she did not. That is why I voted no,” Hoover wrote.
He voted to oust her with Doug Dawes and Donahoe, two frequent critics of the ConCom.
Dawes and Donahoe opposed reappointing Candia because of past Open Meeting Law violations, which were filed by a lone Georgetown resident and have since been resolved with the Attorney General. Dawes also said he had heard several years ago that developers and other companies felt they were not treated fairly in their applications to the ConCom.
Dawes, a Realtor, and Donahoe, a bank officer, have expressed support for more development in Georgetown. LaMonica, who was elected to the ConCom on a three-to-one vote.
Two other applicants for the ConCom did not get three votes. They included Debra Erickson, a music industry executive, who moved to Georgetown several years ago and got involved in the consideration by town boards of G. Mello Corporation’s construction of a 500-ton transfer station.
Also rejected was David Twiss, a former SelectBoard member and a bank commercial loan officer. He was defeated by a vote of two to two with Hoover and Bancroft voting no. Twiss argued that he could use his experience in town government to remedy issues like Open Meeting Violations.
Dawes and Donahue wanted to bring up an on-going ConCom case on Lakeshore Drive, but were barred from discussing it because it was heard in executive session and the minutes have not been released to the public. ♦
