Selectmen Nix Town Employee Suspension

An appeal hearing was held for the second time in five months to determine whether a suspension should be levied on a town employee, but this time the Board of Selectmen decided against the disciplinary action.

The board members voted 3-2 to reduce a two-day unpaid suspension of Community Planner Elizabeth Wood to a written warning.

Board members Ross McLeod and Kathleen DiFruscia voted against the motion, as they didn't even want to see a written warning handed out.

McLeod was vocally in favor of Wood's appeal, calling the suspension "wholly without merit."

He also fired a hail storm at Wood's supervisor, Community Development Director Laura Scott, accusing her of setting her employee up for failure and trying to get her fired.

McLeod additionally stated that he wanted an investigation of Scott and her management ability, which was in coordination with Wood's closing argument calling for the end of what she referred to as Scott's "harassment."

Both McLeod and DiFruscia also voted to overturn a one-day suspension administered to Wood in late January, but were outvoted 3-2.

Wood called Scott's accusations both "false" and "fictional," saying that the quality of her work is above average and she meets all of her short-term and long-term deadlines

The root of the two-day disciplinary action by Scott came from five primary examples of what she called "unsatisfactory job performance" in a memo sent to Wood on May 14.

Those examples included Wood's handling of a ZBA Junkyard Certificate of Approval Application, a Workforce Housing Planning Board Application, a Small Wind Energy Application and the Canobie Lake/Cobbett's Pond Watershed Protection Ordinance.

In the junkyard example, Scott's biggest concern was that Wood did not provide the applicant, Patrick Lynch, with all of the materials in the first meeting.

Wood said that she did not want to overwhelm the applicant at the May 3 meeting, but that Lynch had all of the necessary information on May 16.

Scott argued that it would be more hectic for the applicant to not know the entire process of submitting a junkyard application, including the cost pieces.

"(It would be) more overwhelming thinking that he (Patrick Lynch) was going to go through this process and not knowing what the process is in its entirety," Scott said.

Wood called several witnesses to speak on her behalf, including Dennis Root, a friend of Lynch who has been present at every meeting involving the junkyard process. Root reinforced her professionalism while explaining that both he and Lynch were overwhelmed as it was by the information at the initial meeting with Wood.

Other witnesses included local engineer Karl Dubay, who said that he was uncomfortable with speaking but asserted that the process in the Community Development Department would work better if Wood and Scott worked as a team.

Also discussed at length was Wood's decision to advise an applicant to attend a Planning Board meeting and sit through two hours despite not being on the agenda. The purpose was for the board to interpret the Canobie Lake/Cobbett's Pond Protection Ordinance and provide the applicant with guidance.

Scott said in her memo that the decision to put the man, who was referred to as "Mr. Cluff," and the board in that situation was "totally inapppropriate." 

Selectmen Roger Hohenberger, Phil Lochiatto and Bruce Breton all agreed that advising the applicant to attend the meeting was a concern, but in his address to the public, Hohenberger said that it wasn't enough to warrant the suspension.

Wood defended the decision, saying that she simply told the applicant that it was a public meeting, and had warned him that he wouldn't be on the agenda so he would have to wait until the end.

Other negatives about Wood's job performance that Scott pointed out in the memo included managing her workload and not returning an email to an abutter for four days before emailing incorrect information. 

Hohenberger also saw the email as a problem, but said that it also wasn't enough to warrant a two-day suspension.

Robert Pliskin, developer for the Cricket Ridge workforce housing project, attacked Scott's handling of the application, saying that the first year-and-a-half of the project was nothing but "confusion, conflict, misdirection and incompetence."

Pliskin said that he went directly to Town Administrator Dave Sullivan, and the project was turned over to Wood following that meeting.

"Since (Wood) has been given it, the project has been micro-managed by Ms. Scott," Pliskin said.

Scott argued that she doesn't get involved with Wood's projects, and the only time she does is if there's a question or an issue where Wood needs her to be involved.

DiFruscia said that Scott should see an application as possessed by the department, and not an individual.

"It's not just yours or hers or someone else's (application)," DiFruscia said. It's about servicing the public. It's about servicing the people that come before the board."

When the board upheld Scott's one-day suspension in January, those in favor of the discipline saw the numerous warnings and written reprimands as a red flag against Wood.

With the two-day suspension being reduced, Wood has now seen five written reprimands since July 2011 and one verbal warning. to go along with the one-day suspension. 

An employee appealing a suspension has the choice of either a public or private hearing, but Wood has chosen the public route both times.