Dublin residents reelected Jeannine Dunne as Town Clerk/Tax Collector over write-in candidate Tosha Desmarais, 403 to 140. Voters also elected Carole Monroe, with 380 votes against Allan “Jeff” Pinney’s 159 votes, as the Select Board member who will take Dale Gabel’s place.
The election came after a week of contentious discussions in Dublin after Desmarais, who up until recently was the town’s Assistant to the Town Administrator, and her mother Sherry Miller, who had been Town Administrator, both abruptly resigned from the town. Mother and daughter cited issues with the Town Clerk/Tax Collector’s office as the reason for their resignations. Miller resigned on March 2.
On Monday, 36 residents attended Monday’s Select Board meeting, at which multiple residents attempted to discuss the specifics of Miller’s claims of a hostile work environment. Select Board Chairman Dale Gabel said that, although the Town Clerk/Tax Collector is an elected official, the Town Administrator was a town employee and therefore the Board could not discuss the specifics of the conflict at a public meeting. Gabel did say that there were tensions within the town office and the Select Board was looking into a code of ethics.
“I agree with Dale that you can’t talk about employee situations including employee conflict situations,” Monroe said. “But having the words ‘hostile environment’ brought up and quoted in the press, those are like trigger words for me, that we should have an attorney on board with that.”
Monroe said this past week’s issue involving town employees was not the first and likely not the last for Dublin, and said the town can receive support from the municipal association in case of another such situation.
At the meeting on Monday, two residents questioned the political implications of a town employee publicly denouncing an elected official.
“The resignation was a conditional resignation by an appointed employee based off a democratic election. This has swayed who people support,” Olivia Wolpe said. “That worries me.”
Several residents requested hearing the town’s policy on nepotism.
“It’s not nepotism unless we’re related [to the candidate],” Selectman Walter Snitko said, since the Select Board does the hiring for the town.
Selectmen and attendees pointed out that there were at least three current instances of related family members working as town employees. In a small town, there is frequently no other option to fill all necessary positions without hiring family members, Gabel said, and that, when the Board chose to hire Miller’s daughter as Assistant to the Town Administrator, they did discuss how it might look to outsiders.
Monroe said she is thankful to voters for electing her, and said she is “all about transparency and collaboration.” One of her major priorities is to improve access to public information on the Dublin town website, such as full agendas and meeting minutes, the town employee manual , a code of ethics, and official contact information for Select Board members.
“I’ve heard these problems continually over the last year and a half,” Monroe said. “More and more people rely on going to the website to find the information they need.”
Town Meeting continues Saturday, March 14, at 9 a.m. in Dublin Consolidated School, 1177 Main Street.