GEORGETOWN – The town’s Conservation Commission (ConCom) is looking for an agent to replace Michele Grenier, who was fired in April in a disputed action by Town Administrator Orlando Pacheco.
The ConCom formed a hiring subcommittee to recruit and interview candidates for the conservation agent position before Pacheco, with questionable authority under state and town law, hired John Lopez, a conservation agent for the town of Rockport, as an interim consultant.
This month the ConCom met in a special meeting, made available to the public on Zoom and Georgetown Community TV, to consider the hiring of Lopez for only the month of June to process the large amount of paperwork required of the commission.
To keep the ConCom processes moving, the commission voted three to zero to hire Lopez with chair Rachel Therrien and member Nick Lawler abstaining.
The commission plays a vital role in governing residential and commercial construction that impacts town wetlands, waterways and endangered species.
According to commission members, Lopez has said he does not want to continue as the interim consultant for Georgetown after June 30.
During June, Lopez has appeared at two ConCom meetings, but did not speak in the first meeting and did not identify himself on the second meeting.
The agent tried to schedule a site-visit involving an applicant that is proposing to install an above-ground pool uphill from Rock Pond without approval from the commission or notification to the commission chair. As the agent, he may visit sites being reviewed by the commission, but only the commission can authorize a site visit by commissioners, which has not happened regarding the pool.
In firing Grenier, Pacheco also did not get authorization from the SelectBoard, as required by town bylaw. He accused her in a termination letter of withholding a transcript of a recording of her conversations with commission members when she told them that a ConCom meeting was postponed for a lack of a voting quorum. Grenier denied hiding the transcript from Town Clerk Kerri McManus.
The administrator also accused her of “behavior unbecoming a town employee” for criticizing him for “not doing his f… job.” [He used all the letters of the word in his termination notice to the agent.] She criticized the administrator for not distributing computer software to the staff to allow them to work from home during last winter’s ice storms.
Although Pacheco listed these reasons in her termination letter, he told The Town Common that he did not fire Grenier for criticizing his job performance.
Grenier’s attorney has initially asked the town to pay her a year’s salary of $65,000 or face a law suit for wrongful termination.
In a report by The Town Common last week, the town spent several thousand dollars in legal fees strategizing how the SelectBoard and Pacheco should handle an open meeting law complaint by SelectBoard member Mike Donahue regarding this issue.
The SelectBoard has not met in public to discuss the administrator’s firing of Grenier, as requested by Donahue. Last week the board voted 3 to 1 [member Robert Hoover was not present, as he “will be out of the office for 30 days starting from May 20”] to approve a letter drafted by KP Law on behalf of the town to forward to the state requesting the state deny Donahue’s complaint. See accompanying story in this edition.
