Following town clerk’s resignation, Chesterville board looks forward

CHESTERVILLE – Approximately 45 residents attended Thursday’s Select-board meeting, as the board sought to address rumors generated in the wake of the town clerk’s sudden resignation.

Former Town Clerk Heather Wheeler verbally resigned her position on Feb. 19, temporarily leaving Chesterville without the ability to process registrations, accept nomination papers and collect most taxes. In addition to town clerk, Wheeler served as the town’s tax collector, registrar of voters, E-911 addressing officer, welfare director and deputy treasurer.

By Friday, the town had reached out to nearby New Sharon, with that town agreeing to process Chesterville resident registrations. Meanwhile, New Sharon Town Clerk Pamela Griswold agreed to work two days a week at the Chesterville town office; the board appointed her on an interim basis Tuesday. Pat Gordon, who has more than three decades of experience as town clerk, agreed to come out of retirement to help out as well.

Between Griswold and Gordon, the new town clerk office hours are 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday; 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Thursday; and 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Friday. The town’s treasurer, Olive Couture, is in the office Wednesday and Friday, as well as 4 to 7 p.m. on Thursday.

Introduced at Thursday’s meeting, Griswold and Gordon got a big round of applause from those in attendance.

The Select-board, as constituted following the March elections, will be responsible for appointing the new, permanent town clerk, Chair Guy Iverson noted. Three seats on the board are up for reelection.

Iverson reported that town officials are now looking into the apparent deletion of data off of one of the town computers sometime in the past two weeks. Selectman Tiffany Estabrook described the action as an apparent resetting of the computer to its factory settings; as a result, the board is not certain what data may have been lost. The town office’s other computer was not impacted.

The board plans to take the computer to Staples in Augusta to retrieve any deleted data. In the long term, Iverson said that the board intends to review its computer equipment, which he described as “piecemeal” without proper backups. Estabrook suggested employing a server to backup town files every night.

The board is working to dispense with other issues that have arisen over the past few months. The Internal Revenue Service has been asked to give Chesterville a rebate for previously-assessed, and paid, penalties associated with an apparent failure to file timely payroll tax reports with the IRS in 2014 and 2015. Iverson noted that town officials had worked with a retired treasurer from Farmington for a month, generating a number of recommendations to improve the town’s financial practices.

Warrants relating to town expenditures are also being reviewed differently, Iverson said, with different selectmen reading each warrant out loud, checking the listed amount on the warrant and verifying the checks.

“We learned from what we did and what we didn’t do,” Iverson said.

The town is also negotiating with Transco Business Technologies, the company that provides the town’s photocopier/fax machine at the cost of $163 per month. Residents voted against ratifying a six-year, lease-purchase agreement at a special town meeting in September 2016, expressing frustration with the after-the-fact request for approval, halfway through the agreement’s lifespan. Multi-year contracts must be approved at town meeting.

The company offered to let the town purchase the copier outright for $1,600, with the selectmen countering with an offer of $500.

Iverson spent some time rebutting rumors he said had been heard around town over the past few weeks. These rumors ranged from the board restricting the amount of sand and salt that could be used on town roads, to Iverson unilaterally altering town office hours, to unadvertised modifications to the town clerk’s pay. None of the rumors were true, Iverson said, advising residents to “not let them wind you up.”

“The rumor mill is a very bad thing here,” Iverson said. He asked that residents with questions simply ask them outright.

Selectmen and some residents in attendance pointed to recent attempts to better qualify and define the roles and benefits or town staff as a possible source of friction. Iverson pointed to the equalization of vacation time for different positions, as an example. Selectmen are also working on new job descriptions with the assistance of Maine Municipal Association. Craig Stickney, a former selectman, noted that he was on the board in 2003 when an employee handbook was drafted. Since then, he said, he had heard of two other handbooks also in circulation.

Both town officials and those in the audience suggested that better communication between the board and town employees could help prevent future issues from developing.

The board appointed Rachel Haseltine to the Budget Committee, representing its fifth and final full-time member. The committee and Select-board will be meeting on Feb. 8 at 6 p.m. at the town office to begin discussions about the budget. The meeting is open to the public.