RICHFORD SELECTBOARD TRANSPARENCY IN QUESTION AS CITIZENS RAISE PROCEDURAL ISSUES
By Gregory J. Lamoureux
County Courier
RICHFORD: Transparency doesn’t seem to be shining under the leadership of the current Richford Selectboard. For several years, Northwest Access TV would record the meetings in Richford, as they do for almost all municipal meetings in the region. Those meetings would air on the public access channel for Comcast subscribers, and traditionally were posted online, through YouTube, for anyone to view as they wished.
That all changed in the fall of 2020, when leadership on the Selectboard asked Northwest Access TV to no longer record the board’s public meetings.
As a compromise, Northwest Access agreed not to post them to YouTube for the general public to view at their leisure, but continued to record them to air on the public access channel, available to only about 178 homes within the Village of Richford. For those who live outside the village, serviced by Comcast, they would either have to attend the meeting when it happened, or go without knowing what was said.
Of course, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people are trying to socially distance, attending a meeting in person is the last thing public health officials recommend, and when the Selectboard decided to hold their meetings remotely, the telephone number to the meetings were not readily available, and didn’t always work for the general public.
Chairperson Andy Derby said that in hindsight, with the pandemic, now might not have been the best time to request that video not be posted to YouTube, but he said the Board asked Northwest Access not to post the videos publicly because there were Town employees that felt uncomfortable being recoded in a public meeting.
Derby also said he had received comments from members of the public that they didn’t like attending the meetings knowing that they were being recorded, but they’d attend in person if they weren’t going online.
Derby later acknowledged that the attendance at the meetings hasn’t changed since they were no longer being posted online for the public to see.
During one of the meetings in December that wouldn’t be posted to YouTube, Richford Fire Chief, Andrew Pond, wrote a letter to the Selectboard, bringing up concerns about the condition of the building, while also addressing issues with the Richford Ambulance.
Pond requested that the letter be read to the selectboard during the December 21st meeting, but the Board opted not to read the letter, instead keeping the issues that were mentioned in it away from the public sphere.
Pond later explained to the County Courier that he would have attended the meeting in person, in fact he planned to attend in person, but he was obligated to respond to an Ambulance call just before the meeting began.
“I would have read it,” Derby said in a telephone interview this week with the County Courier, “I left it up to Sherry (Paquette) to read it if she wanted to, and she didn’t want to. I think she thought it was going to make her look bad, but you’ll have to ask her why she didn’t want to read it.”
The County Courier obtained a copy of the letter, in which Pond talks about problems with the Fire Department’s overhead doors and door openers. He addresses an issue where a belt broke that powered the overhead door opener, attached to a door that was frequently used on most Fire Department calls. Without the overhead door opener, a responder would have to manually open and close the doors to the building, slowing down the response to an emergency.
The Board had contacted Pond prior to the letter being written, saying that it was not acceptable to provide their own repair, citing a certification need to ensure the door would operate safely. Pond explained in the letter that he expected the Town would have an overhead door repair technician respond quicker, but after a week of waiting, he opted to remove a working belt from a different overhead door opener to utilize it on the broken opener.
Pond went on to say he expected the technician to inspect the door, and replace the belt on the door it was robbed from, but it didn’t appear the repair technician even looked at the doors on the Fire Department side of the building, even though the technician was doing a similar repair on the Ambulance side of the building.
Pond also addressed concerns of the way the Ambulance service was being run, “Now that I have been part of the Ambulance service and see what goes on, I feel that [the Selectboard needs] to take a step back and put yourselves in the shoes of the people that serve and pay taxes,” he wrote in the letter.
Pond said Richford’s leadership needs to stop referring to the Ambulance responders in two different categories, those who reside within Richford, and those who are “out-of-towners.”
“What I am seeing from my point of view is a lack of respect from a few certain individuals,” Pond wrote, describing squaler like tendencies from of the members of that squad.
“Windows are left open for the heat to go out the window when [the weather] is well below freezing,” Pond wrote of some of the behavior seen by Ambulance members, “This could also be the reason why we have run out of fuel in the emergency service building two times this year.”
As for Ambulance leadership, the organization has gone without an official director since at least October. During that time, Selectboard Chair, Andy Derby, has filled in.
When the selectboard voted to have Derby fill in, until the position could be filled by an experienced EMT, they did so with the understanding that it would be a temporary, stopgap measure to get the town over a hurdle. Instead, the Town has yet to advertise the position, has not hired anyone, and is continuing to pay Derby $20 per hour for about 15 hours each week.
When asked about the progress of hiring a director for the Ambulance Service, Derby said he really enjoyed doing it and considered keeping the job longer.
“To be honest with you, I enjoy doing it,” Derby said, “I like working with all the people that are on the crew, and it’s, you know, a lot to get involved with.”
Derby went on to say that he has considered approaching the selectboard about restructuring the position at the Ambulance. He said that a member of the board should become Director to better manage it.
“You know, the Selectboard manages it, but we never really knew what went on,” Derby said, “comparing it to, you know, the Town Highway, parks, playgrounds, cemeteries- I mean it’s just a lot here. There’s a lot more on the Ambulance side of things.”
When the County Courier questioned Derby the position was only intended to be temporary, until a new director could be hired, his tone completely changed.
“Trust me, I’m here at 6:38 tonight, and I’m sitting down here doing Ambulance paperwork. I would love somebody to be able to do this job, but [the Selectboard’s] feeling is that, you know, there is just so much to restructure here. You can’t just advertise and hire someone the next day.”
Still, more than four months after the selectboard knew they would be needing to find a new director to lead the Ambulance, the Town of Richford has yet to advertise the position.
Perhaps that’s what Pond was referring to when he closed the letter, “I feel with the right knowledgeable people leading this organization, that this could be one of the top ambulance services in the community but it will take time and effort to get us there.”
The County Courier reached out to Pond to get his feeling on the letter, at which point we learned Pond now has ambitions to become a member of the Selectboard, come Town Meeting in March.
Pond said he decided to run for the two-year position after witnessing first hand the lack of leadership within some members of the Richford Selectboard.
“I’d be happy to stay in the position I’m in, as Fire Chief,” Pond said, “I don’t agree with some of the things that have gone on, and that’s what has spurred me to run.”
Pond said he has chosen to run for the two-year term, currently filled by Jacques Dezotelle. A second seat is up for grabs, with a filing deadline on Monday. To date nobody has filed to run for that position.
As for Derby, he said he has yet to decide if he wants to run for re-election.
In researching the transparency issues with the Richford Selectboard, the County Courier stumbled over two other issues of similar note.
On January 4th, the Richford Selectboard held another meeting via Zoom. Attempting to connect to that meeting, the County Courier remained on hold for more than 45 minutes, waiting to be officially “admitted” to what is supposed to be a publicly accessible meeting.
The County Courier was never admitted to the meeting by the Selectboard, however we are told by those who were on the call that there was extensive discussion about a December 21st records request made by the County Courier. By the time the meeting was taking place, 14 days had elapsed. By law, records requests are required to be fulfilled within three days, unless there are extenuating circumstances, and then they have ten days, but must contact the requester.
Derby said the Town has stumbled over issues adapting to Zoom.
Initially, the Town of Richford had signed up for a free zoom account. This allows users to connect to a meeting for up to 30 minutes, but after 30 minutes, a new meeting would have to be created.
Derby said the Town couldn’t get a different Zoom account because there were too many other people trying to sign up for Zoom accounts- instead they waited until December before they began subscribing to a paid Zoom account. The paid account allows users to connect for hours at a time without being disconnected.
“So out of the gate, we couldn’t get a zoom account because there was so many people that were trying to sign up for Zoom that we just couldn’t get an account,” Derby said.
This meant that every 30 minutes, a new meeting would have to be established, and the invite would have to be re-emailed to all attendees to re-connect to the next portion of the meeting.
As for not being allowed into the public meeting, Derby said that on January 4th he had given the “host” privileges to a guest so they could share their screen with the group. That guest didn’t continue to admit attendees, and Derby didn’t realize there were more people that wanted to participate.
Similarly, Northwest Access was not admitted into the meeting (virtually), and has no recording of what transpired.
In that period of time, Selectperson Linda Collins was the only member to follow through on the request for public records, including emails to and from the selectboard members.
The County Courier finally received another set of records from Selectboard Chair, Andy Derby, on January 15th, 26 days after the request was made, but to date, the other three selectboard members have ignored the request for records.
Derby told the County Courier in an email that the Town itself doesn’t have any recordings of the meetings, including the January 4th meeting, where members of the public also found themselves unable to access the meeting.
The County Courier requested, through Derby, to be added to a list of people who are notified of the Zoom call information prior to each meeting. Monday’s Zoom call information was never sent by Derby, instead it was sent by Linda Collins, who has proven to be the only board member open to discussing Town issues.
Derby, addressing the lack of access to the January 4th meeting, noting that others also had problems accessing the meeting.
“Sorry the last meeting I wasn’t the host?” Derby wrote (Yes, he included the question mark), “But we did have others complain saying they had trouble getting into the meeting room. None of us are very good with Zoom hoping it’s a thing of the past real soon.”
A third transparency issue arose while the County Courier looked into the inner workings of the current Richford Selectboard.
Richford resident Carl Wetherby became concerned about the way the Town was dealing with two properties it had in its possession. One of those properties, located on Troy Street, had a home on it that was in disrepair. The property was transferred to the Town of Richford, which planned to find a buyer for the property.
Wetherby said the property was never listed for sale in a public location, and the general public was not given the opportunity to put a bid in on the property. Instead, Derby made a verbal agreement to give it to Jody Guilmette, who would later tear down the dilapidated building.
Derby contended that the transfer of the property went completely differently. He said that Guilmette approached him, and that began the ball rolling. He also said he believed the Town had advertised the property for everyone to have an equal playing field to buy it if they wished.
“He approached me, and I’m positive that he talked with Scott as well,” Derby said, contending that the selectboard even approached the Town’s attorney to ensure that the transfer of ownership was done by the letter of the law.
Regardless, the property was ultimately razed at some point over the summer by Guilmette, but the property, to date, has yet to be transferred to a new owner.
