Paris town clerk drafted to replace fired manager

PARIS ― At an emergency meeting of the Paris selectboard Thursday, June 25, Town Clerk Ann Pastore got an offer she couldn't refuse.

Literally.

Selectboard Chairman David Ivey won't let her say no.

At the hastily-called meeting, selectmen voted 4-1 to make Pastore the town's interim town manager, replacing Sharon Jackson, fired three days earlier by a 3-2 vote of the board.

Pastore knew the morning after the firing that she would be offered the job.  That led to speculation among town residents, upset over Jackson's dismissal, that the faction which ousted her — including Ivey and fellow selectmen Troy Ripley and Glen Young — were meeting in secret to make arrangements for the operation of town government in the post-Jackson era.

During an interview Friday, Ripley acknowledged selectmen are sharing data outside of meetings, such as information Ivey has gleaned from consultations with the Maine Municipal Association, but he insists no decision making is taking place.  Ivey offered Pastore the job, Ripley said, simply because her position as the number two person in the town office made her Jackson's natural successor.

Selectman Ray Glover did not appear to think so, however.  During Thursday's meeting, he requested a closed-door executive session to discuss Pastore's personnel file.  

Ripley and Ivey have questioned how Glover gained access to Pastore's personnel file, given that selectmen do not enjoy direct management oversight of town employees.  Glover said Friday that he never read Pastore's file, but as the former chairman, he was advised of its contents by Jackson.  Selectmen do have access to personnel files, Glover said, in part because they would adjudicate any appeal of disciplinary action by the town manager.

Selectmen were in executive session for 14 minutes to review Pastore's records.  When then returned all but Glover voted their confidence in her as interim town manager.

The next morning, citing concern that, given Glover's nay, she did not have the “full confidence” of the selectboard, Pastore announced she would decline the position.  She then took the rest of the day off, using comp hours banked during overtime work on election day.

Ivey said later that day that he had talked to Pastore and “calmed her down.”  She would accept the job come Monday, he said.  She just needed to “sleep on it,” said Ivey.

Pastore, for her part, said she'd already slept on it and went to work Monday still intent on turning down the offer to take on the town manager duties.

However, Ivey refused to let Pastore decline her battlefield promotion. 

On Tuesday, Ivey said once selectmen voted Pastore in as interim town manager they could not accept her resignation except at a public meeting.  Ivey said he has no intention of calling another emergency meeting, meaning Pastore must fulfill town manager duties in Paris at least until the next regularly scheduled session, set for 7 p.m. on Monday, July 13.

Pastore's role as town manager will largely be limited to putting out fires, fielding public concerns and signing checks.  Jackson remained at the town office for more than two hours after her firing, signing checks and other approved paperwork, and otherwise preparing for an orderly transition of power.

At the June 25 meeting, selectmen also divvied up among other employees the town manager duties not bestowed upon Pastore. 

Road Foreman Frank Danforth was named road commissioner.  Deputy tax collector Liz Knox stepped up to interim tax collector.  Finance clerk Sharon Gendreau General was called upon to be interim treasurer. Assistance Director Sheila Giroux had welfare director added to her duties. 

Verbally assailed by a citizen after the June 25 meeting over Jackson's firing, Ripley said he had confidence  the called-upon employees can successfully run Paris until a new town manager is hired.

On Friday, he repeated that assertion, recalling a saying from his days in the U. S. Army special services.

“The true test of any organization is its ability to function in the absence of its leaders,” he said.

Pastore, in particular, has been an acquaintance of his since childhood, said Ripley, expressing his full respect for her abilities.

Selectboard squabbles

Nearly nine days after Jackson's dismissal, selectmen continue to snipe over matters of procedure and protocol. 

Ripley continues to resent Glover's attempt to keep the board from entering executive session June 22 to review Jackson's contract.  He faults Glover for not announcing that Jackson had asked in writing for the review to be done in open session — a fact other selectmen were not aware of, he says — until after haranguing the board for nearly 15 minutes, demanding that someone, Young, Ripley or Ivey reveal why they wanted to review Jackson's contract.

The contract, Glover said, was a public document, and selectmen could not close the doors to the public unless they had matters to discuss which could damage Jackson's reputation, or invade her rights to privacy.

Ivey maintains that Glover's intent was to draw his rivals into reveling some complaint about Jackson.  Young, who made the motion to terminate Jackson, could not be reached for comment. However, Ivey and Ripley have held their guns, refusing to say anything about Jackson's job performance.  They continue to withhold all statements indicating why they voted to fire Jackson. 

To do so could put the town on the losing end of a wrongful termination suit, says Ivey.  Ripley will only say a majority of the selectboard acted on their their right under the contract, agreed to by Jackson, to terminate her without cause.

However, Ripley notes that Glover seemed to have far less concern for how an executive session might reflect on Pastore's reputation.  He also points out that, despite Glover's protests on June 22, selectmen went into executive session January 29^th under the exact same language “to review the town manager's contract.”  Jackson came out of that meeting with a five-year extension and a $5,900 raise.

Glover says the difference is that, identical motion language aside, in January selectmen planned to negotiate a new contract while in June, the call was to review an existing contract. 

Glover also says he simply had someone else in the town office in mind for the interim town manager role.  Ivey questions why Glover did not simply nominate that person.

Ivey and Ripley also fault Glover for not offering the benefit of his long municipal tenure — including 16 years as a selectman preceded by 20 on the planning board — during the transition.  Glover says he's held his tongue because Ivey “hasn't asked” for his opinion.

Instead, Glover has dedicated himself to acting as traffic cop, pointing out every wrong move made by the board majority.  To start with, he says, the June 25 emergency meeting was not permissible because Ivey had not given a full 48-hours' notice to all selectmen, nor had he provided an advance agenda.

However, despite concern voiced from some quarters, Glover denies the town should have shut down during the transition.  He agrees with Paris Hill residents Jack and Kathleen Richardson, who say the town should not collect any tax payments until a recommitment is accomplished. 

The recommitment simply draws an line of accountability, for auditing purposes, between Jackson and her successor.  Payments should not be accepted “by the letter of the law,” says Glover, but given that interims have been named and a succession is planned, he doubts any judge would go so far as to make Paris return any payments.

What's to come?

Ivey says the selectboard will discuss and possibly vote on a town manager search process at its next meeting. 

At the June 25 meeting, about 25 people were turned away after the municipal meeting room filled to capacity.  However, that was a special meeting with a limited agenda.  Because the July 13 meeting is a regularly scheduled session, at which selectmen routinely take “citizen comments,” it could move to the fire station if subject to a similar turnout.

Sources in the town office, and on the selectboard, say the leading candidate to succeed Jackson could be Paris' town assessor John Brushwein.

All agree Brushwein has done a bang-up job as assessor.  Although that and code enforcement are his primary areas of expertise, Brushwein reportedly served stints as town manager during his 20-year tenure on Mount Desert Island.

Brushwein cannot serve as interim town manager, however, because, as assessor, he'd end up having to report to himself, a no-no on any corporate flow chart.

Still, Brushwein appears to be in line for a promotion even if he does not get the nod for town manager.

Former selectmen Gerald Kilgore said in a Thursday interview that CEO Gerry Samson, of Buckfield, is serving only until Brushwein straightens out the property valuation mess inherited from his predecessor.  Samson retired recently as the Lisbon CEO.

Political intrigue

According to Kilgore, and corroborated by Glover, Jackson had a plan in place before her firing to reduce the hours of previous CEO Claude Rounds once Brushwein was done his assessing fix.  If Rounds had resigned in protest, Brushwein would have been given both jobs.

That might have come as welcome news to Ivey, Ripley and Young, had they known about it.  Ivey and Ripley deny knowledge of any plan to oust Rounds, who resigned of his own accord earlier this month to take a job in Lewiston.

Although most agree Rounds knew the books backwards, he drew the ire of many, including Young, who actively campaigned for office in 2007 on an anti-Rounds platform.  Accused of being overbearing, Rounds drew the threat of at least one lawsuit during his four-year tenure in Paris.

Kilgore says he agreed with that assessment. 

“I told Sharon, he's going to take us down,” he says.

Kilgore chose not to run for re-election to a sixth term after his aunt, former selectman Barbara Payne advised him of Rick McAlister's interest in the job.

Kilgore said Thursday that he took out nomination papers because, like McAlister, Ripley pledged not to run if he did.  Recognizing that a Ripley win would tip the balance of power on the selectboard, Kilgore said he hoped his taking out papers would block Ripley's candidacy.

Ripley denies ever promising not to run if Kilgore did.  He also denies Kilgore's claim that he called a half-hour before deadline to ask if Kilgore still planned to turn in his papers. 

Kilgore says he turned in his papers because he told Ripley he would. However, because he had no intention of running, and made no effort to collect signatures, his papers contained just four names, all from people who came to his home expressly to sign, says Kilgore.

However, the ruse did not work.  Ripley did turn in his nomination papers and, because he made no initial effort to say otherwise, Kilgore looked for a time like he had been unable to collect enough signatures to get on the ballot.

Based on the action taken by Ripley at his very first meeting, Kilgore now expresses deep regret, saying he wishes he had run, or had at least campaigned harder for McAlister.

In the meantime, the next year leading up to the end of terms for Ivey and Young promise to be nothing, if not interesting.

Ivey is now in the catbird seat as board chairman, having seemingly accomplished all of his goals when he ran for office in 2007, in tandem with Young as protest candidates to the Jackson administration.

Moments after Jackson's firing, the Rev. Anne Stanley explained in the town office parking lot what she had heard Ivey say back in 2007.

“He [Ivey] stood right in my driveway and said he had three goals,” Rev. Stanley recalled.  “He said he wanted to get rid of Gerald Kilgore, to get rig of Claude Rounds and to get rid of Sharon Jackson.”