Jean Perry, Neighb News Correspondent
Fairhaven Selectboard Chairperson Daniel Freitas said during the board’s 4/12 meeting that he did not understand why Selectboard member Bob Espindola wants to initiate a new town administrator search instead of simply appointing the current interim town administrator, Finance Director/Treasurer/Collector Wendy Graves.
Once Selectboard member Keith Silvia left the room due to a conflict of interest, the board took up the matter after weeks of inaction after Mr. Freitas did not attend the board’s last meeting on 3/23. Mr. Freitas began by saying that Ms. Graves has been acting as interim TA for three months and, since he has not heard any complaints about her performance, he needed Mr. Espindola to explain why the board should not appoint Ms. Graves.
“I don’t see where the problem lies,” said Mr. Freitas, adding that a second TA search would be a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Mr. Espindola said the board had received “several dozen” emails from the public expressing disagreement over Mr. Freitas and Mr. Silvia’s side-stepping of the TA hiring process by including Ms. Graves as a fourth candidate after the TA Screening Committee’s final decision to exclude her as a finalist.
Ms. Graves was interviewed on 3/11, three weeks after interviews of the three finalists chosen by TA Screening Committee. Mr. Silvia recused himself after an eleventh-hour realization of a conflict of interest, which led to a stalemate between Mr. Freitas, who wanted Ms. Graves, and Mr. Espindola, who preferred Jennifer Callahan, the current town manager of Oxford (see the 3/18/21 Neighb News).
“People were appalled,” said Mr. Espindola, about how the TA hiring process unfolded.
Mr. Freitas discounted the significance of the emails because they all said “basically the same thing” and were likely “set up by somebody” and therefore could not represent any legitimate concerns. He alleged that there was a rumor that the TA Screening Committee never chose Ms. Graves as a finalist, but having served as a (self-appointed) member on that committee, Mr. Freitas said the approved executive session minutes would prove that Ms. Graves was originally one of the three finalists. He said the committee later rescinded its vote for Ms. Graves after the Neighb News published an article about Ms. Graves’ prior work history, which included several resignations and Department of Revenue reports implicating financial mismanagement and incompetency (see the 1/14/21 Neighb News).
Mr. Freitas also noted that said Neighb News article featured detrimental information about Ms. Graves’s job performance in Fairhaven that was not readily available for public review. He repeated his mistaken assumption that someone had given Ms. Graves’s confidential personnel file to the Neighb News. He said the board would continue to investigate who was responsible for sharing the information with the newspaper but conceded that they would likely never find out.
As for the ensuing emails from the public, which Mr. Espindola said should be posted to the Town’s website for all to read, Mr. Freitas said he found them “unfair” in how some people accused him and Mr. Silvia of being “bad guys” and Ms. Graves unqualified for the job.
Mr. Espindola said he found Mr. Freitas’s response to the public’s emails and concerns “highly insulting,” but Mr. Freitas, “not trying to be a jerk,” maintained his suspicion of so many emails “saying the same thing.”
Mr. Espindola specified that the emails were from unrelated people expressing disappointment, dissatisfaction with the side-stepping of the TA search process and the resulting waste of time and money, and the disrespect shown to the search committee and its chosen finalists.
Mr. Freitas said every email called for restarting the TA search process, furthering his suspicion.
“We’re in a stalemate,” said Mr. Espindola. “We owe it to the community to work together, you and I, to solve the problem.”
The town has an interim TA, but it still needs a permanent TA, he continued, and Mr. Freitas interrupted him to again ask him what would be wrong with choosing Ms. Graves. Mr. Espindola said if Mr. Freitas kept interrupting him, then he would cease the discussion and go straight to a motion.
Mr. Espindola continued, “We had a process—”
“I was part of the process, and I know how the process went,” Mr. Freitas said, interrupting again.
But Mr. Freitas did not follow the process, said Mr. Espindola, and he read through his motion to restart the TA search process with measures in place to ensure a “fair process” this time.
First, he called for soliciting quotes from Community Paradigm Associates, the consultant the town hired for the previous search, and another consultant, the Collins Center for Public Management. He later said a new TA search might cost slightly less if the town uses the same position statement it did last time. Next, he called for seven volunteers to serve on a new TA Search Committee — one from the same three committees as before (School Committee, Planning Board, and Finance Committee), the town moderator who would act as the chair of the committee, one at-large member from the community, and two Selectboard appointees from the community, with no Selectboard member allowed to sit on the committee this time.
His motion included a three-day public posting for letters of interest in serving on the committee, which the Selectboard would rank before an appointment. He added that the screening committee would forward at least two but no more than four finalists. And should there be another stalemate, the two Selectboard’s choices would be forwarded to the screening committee for a final vote during an open session to break the tie.
“That is a process that I believe will get us out of a stalemate position,” said Mr. Espindola. It will cost money, he said, but it is the “only fair way to do this.”
Mr. Freitas, again, wondered why Ms. Graves should not just be appointed since she is apparently doing a “great job.”
He said he would agree to solicit bids for a consultant but said he would not be inclined to use Community Paradigm Associates again, alluding to some perceived notion that the firm had worked with at least one of the candidates in the past, which should have been disclosed. He alleged that it was, perhaps, why “some of these candidates were pushed ahead.”
Ultimately, Mr. Freitas seconded Mr. Espindola’s motion to authorize Ms. Graves to solicit bids from the two firms.
He then revisited how the Neighb News wrote an article that he maintains resulted in Ms. Graves losing her status as a finalist for the job and how he plans to find out how the newspaper received the information.
“The town and the townspeople would love to know how that happened,” he said. To whoever was responsible for leaking the documents to the Neighb News, he said, “That’s wrong.”
Also during the meeting, Susan Loo from the Rogers School Re-Use Committee presented the board with a “very serious inquiry” from the Southeastern Massachusetts Educational Collaborative (SMEC), which is interested in renovating and leasing the 1960s addition of the Rogers School building.
Ms. Loo said SMEC toured the building and was “thrilled with the space available,” offering to lease the building to service programs for about 40 students and rehabilitate the bathrooms and do other work such as painting and electrical wiring. Other aspects that need work include a new roof and asbestos removal, and the board voted to enter into negotiations with SMEC about impending costs and who would pay for what.
Mr. Espindola noted that SMEC’s goal to have the building ready for use by September presents a tight timetable and expressed concern about what leasing the building to SMEC would mean for any future proposals that could come in for the main historical school building. He did vote in favor of allowing for an assessment of the costs and possible ensuing negotiations.
Also at the meeting, Mr. Silvia nominated Mr. Freitas to serve another year as chairperson during the annual reorganization of the board. The motion passed 2–1, with Mr. Espindola in opposition. Mr. Silvia then nominated Mr. Espindola to serve again as vice-chairperson, which passed 3-0.
The board selected its preference for the outside display for the restored Paul Revere bell from the old Oxford school, which will be on display on the Town Hall lawn near the flagpole, presumably by the end of the summer.
The board also approved a list of 45 Fairhaven properties seized for unpaid taxes to auction off at a date yet to be determined. The board awarded the auctioneer bid to Zekos Group. The Town will advertise for the auction once a date is set.
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