February 1, 2018 • The Essex Reporter • 1
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{ Thursday, February 1, 2018 }
Town hired private investigator, shelled out over $10k in legal fees Invoices reveal allegations sparked investigations in both town and village By COLIN FLANDERS The town of Essex paid for a private investigator to probe a complaint against an employee just days after the village kicked off its own personnel-related inquiry, according to legal invoices obtained by The Reporter. The documents reveal a synchronized response to still-undisclosed allegations that surfaced last November. But unlike
TOWN MEETING DAY
Selectboard set for shakeup By COLIN FLANDERS
their village counterparts, town officials haven’t discussed their investigation publicly, nor have they explained how the town has racked up over $10,000 in legal fees on the matter. Selectboard Max Levy said he’s unaware of any recent legal issue costing that much. He declined multiple interview requests, writing in emails that he can’t comment on personnel matters, and said he hoped The Reporter’s request for legal invoices answered any questions. The town shared invoices the next day with descriptions of the attorneys’ work redacted – albeit improperly – that allowed the Reporter to glean some details about the investigation. On November 17, two days after the
village contacted an outside attorney for its own investigation, the town’s law firm signed a contract with a New Hampshirebased private investigator Bill Burgess. Earlier that day, town attorney Bill Ellis met with Levy and two village officials: attorney Dave Barra and president George Tyler. Asked a few weeks ago, Levy brushed off that meeting as a regular rendezvous for consolidation updates, explaining the personnel matter would have been one of several conversation topics. But the email exchange in which officials discussed meeting times had the subject line “personnel matter,” correspondence obtained in a records request shows. To date, the town and village have with-
held the nature of the allegations and the name of the accused. The village trustees also refused to name which policy they consulted in handling the matter, and municipal manager Pat Scheidel denied a request for the investigative report. Trustees consider the matter closed. An October invoice, however, shows a town attorney spoke with Scheidel about a “potential hostile work environment complaint” on October 24 — two weeks before town and village lawyers began working on the matter. In an email Tuesday morning, Levy said Scheidel’s office takes “formal and informal complaints very seriously and handles them accordingly.” Scheidel didn’t
From the archives Essex woman finds dated documents during home remodel
Three candidates are vying for a single seat on the Essex Selectboard this Town Meeting Day, including one incumbent — just not the one you’d expect. Selectwoman Sue Cook confirmed Monday she will not seek re-election after filling in for the final two years of former selectman Brad Luck’s term. Meanwhile, trustee Elaine Haney Sopchak is eying a leap to the town’s governing board while planning to still run for re-election in the village. She will face challengers Timothy K. Farr and RaMona Sheppard. Cook said her decision to step away comes with other volunteer opportunities on the horizon. She called her service a valuable experience and felt she added some structure and discipline to the board, lending a perspective that hasn’t always been represented. And she hoped the community had benefitted from her contributions. “It’s just basically come down to what I want to put my time and energy toward,” she said.
By MICHAELA HALNON
See TMD, page 3
Wrenner creates website on regional dispatch By COLIN FLANDERS An Essex elected official hopes to be the go-to source for what she calls an objective look at the current plan to create a regional dispatch center in Chittenden County. Selectwoman Irene Wrenner has published a website — www.chitcountydispatch.org — to help inform voters on the pros and cons of a regional hub. The proposal doesn’t include Essex, since the selectboard chose to not approve the agreement in December. Still, Wrenner said she felt obligated to share some of what she’d learned after attending 10 study committee meetings last year. “When something like this goes to the voters, the voters who’ve not been paying close enough attention have trouble parsing what is the basic issue and what are the fundamental upsides and downsides,” Wrenner said. Some of that challenge stems from the difficulty of decision makers — in this case, the joint study commitSee DISPATCH, page 2
See INVESTIGATION, page 2
PHOTO BY MICHAELA HALNON
Essex resident Rolenda Corrow found this 1915 Essex Junction Graded School District report behind a corner hutch in her home.
Rolenda Corrow knew her house was old — 128 years old, actually, if her research is correct. So when she and her husband decided to remodel the place they’ve called home for more than 20 years, Corrow did her best to keep the integrity of the house in place. She scoured yard sales and antique shops for just the right furniture pieces, often favoring objects that prompted memories of fixtures from her childhood. Corrow was also more than willing to keep some furniture that came with the house when they purchased it. When she decided to move a massive wooden corner hutch from the back of the house to the front entry 11 years ago, she found some unusual papers stuffed behind. “I thought that was really neat,” Corrow said. “I really believe it was in that time era that it happened to fall back there.” An annual report from the Essex Jct. Graded School District is dated June 19, 1915. The green cover, still in remarkably pristine condition, bears the mark of C. K. Drury: “The Essex Junction Printer.” Inside, the year’s expenses are itemized. Teachers’ salaries totaled a combined $6,224.50, and the superintendent took home $257.42 in annual pay. New furniture cost the district $38.90, and school officials spent $140.43 on all new textbooks. The district paid $621.91 on water, fuel and “lights” and shelled out $119.29 for “repairs.” All told, the expenditures came to $9041.01, according to the pamphlet. On the inside cover, someone performed a bit of quick arithmetic in light pencil strokes, perhaps confirming the provided calculations were indeed correct, Corrow surmised. With a laugh, Corrow said discovering the pamphlet has prompted her to think twice about tossing her own budget information after the vote each year. See ARCHIVES, page 3
Community forum educates parents about addiction, prevention and tough conversations By COLIN FLANDERS A community forum hosted by Rep. Lori Houghton last week highlighted the opioid epidemic and offered parents some suggestions on how to help their children avoid substance abuse issues. Houghton was inspired to host the gathering after a recent meeting at the University of Vermont Medical Center, where a handful of people stood and shared their personal stories about how substance abuse disorders have affected their lives.
“I realized in that moment this disease is very much like high-blood pressure and diabetes and cancer,” Houghton said. “It has no barriers to entry. It affects every race, gender, social position and community throughout the country.” Almost one in 10 adults have a substance abuse disorder, and after the highly-potent drug fentanyl hit the scene around 2013, overdose deaths are on the rise: More than 64,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2016 alone, said Dr. Sanchit Maruti, medical director of UVMMC’s addiction
treatment program. “If you can imagine: We’re having the entire Vietnam War, every year,” Maruti said. “This is truly, of our generation, an epidemic.” Meanwhile, 90 percent of those diagnosed with substance abuse disorder don’t receive specialty treatment, and most medical providers aren’t trained to provide medication-assisted treatment, Maruti said. The medical center is now training primary care providers on those specialized treatments, Maruti said, See FORUM, page 2
PHOTO BY COLIN FLANDERS
Essex Middle School teacher Mary Viglotti shows an example of a project from the eighth grade drug prevention curriculum during a forum on January 24 at Essex Jct. Recreation and Parks.