GREENFIELD — After hearing testimony under oath from several town officials regarding alleged bullying and abuse of power by Town Council leadership, councilors have decided to take no action against the president or vice president.
“I think everybody behaved a little badly here. I don’t think there was an ethical violation,” said At-Large Councilor Karen “Rudy” Renaud, who proposed the investigation.
The council subpoenaed the mayor, police chief and the mayor’s former office manager to testify under oath during a special meeting Wednesday. The testimony and subsequent questioning lasted about 2½ hours, but in the end, the council took no action.
The investigation stemmed from a parking ticket Council President Brickett Allis received on Deerfield Street in October. Mayor William Martin said Allis went on a “profanity-laced tirade” against Police Chief Robert Haigh after receiving the ticket.
Martin also alleged that both Allis and Council Vice President Isaac Mass have threatened to cut funding for parking enforcement, and said Mass spoke harshly to his former office manager over a parking ticket in February.
Though Allis admitted his handling of the situation was inappropriate, he said he reached a boiling point after witnessing and reporting numerous alleged problems with parking enforcement, which he believes were not handled properly.
“The issues that were underlying caused me to become angry about what was going on and the anger was triggered, yes by a parking ticket, but not by a parking ticket issued to me, but by parking tickets issued to other people,” he said.
Allis said he believes there has been selective ticketing in town — particularly on Bank Row, where contractors have been parking in a “no parking” zone in front of the Abercrombie building, which is being renovated. Between Oct. 10 and Nov. 8, Allis listed 31 tickets that were issued in the zone — all for metered parking violations and none for restricted parking. He presented several pages of photographs from Bank Row as evidence that restricted parking violations were taking place.
“There is an array of violations and approximately $1,000 of revenue lost by not ticketing those vehicles,” he said.
When questioned by the council, Haigh said parking enforcement officers can use discretion when ticketing vehicles and there is no specific policy on the issuance of tickets at this time. Haigh also said he has been instructed by the mayor in the past to tell his parking enforcement officers not to ticket certain places, but did not specify where.
Allis said he was also frustrated after witnessing parking enforcement officers driving in tandem on four occasions. He said while one officer drove, another got out, checked a car, and then got back into the vehicle.
“It appears if we have people chauffeuring each other, then we have too many people in that department,” he said. “I didn’t threaten to cut funding because I got a parking ticket, I said if we have resources that are not being used properly, maybe there are too many people and maybe they need less budget.”
Audrey Labonte, the mayor’s former office manager, said during her brief testimony that while Mass did speak to her about a parking ticket in February, she never felt bullied during the conversation.
During the investigation, several councilors questioned why the issue between Allis and Haigh was not discussed in-person, privately, before letters chastising Allis’ behavior were either sent to the media or made public through records requests.
“I think in all fairness, all parties should have come together before this email went to The Recorder,” Precinct 4 Councilor Wanda Muzyka-Pyfrom said to the mayor, referring to his initial letter to Allis that the mayor said was inadvertently sent to The Recorder before being sent to Allis. “I think most upper management, when there’s a conflict of interest, there’s a meeting called for all parties, and it looks like the meeting was just between you and the chief.”
Renaud pressed Martin further on why he sent the letter to the press, asking why he wished to make the information so public.
“It is public information,” Martin responded. “Is there a particular reason why I should be covering it up?”
Other councilors suggested that town employees feel bullied or intimidated by the mayor.
Maria Burge told Martin that his body language could be perceived as bullying behavior, and offered to work with him on it.
“The idea that you would have to work with me is somewhat strange,” Martin responded. “It’s a very strange, strange proposition from you.”
Martin said he was a certified psychiatric mental health nurse for nearly a dozen years, adding an official complaint has never been lodged against him.
Mass said he was concerned that the mayor does not recognize that people feel bullied by him, saying he hopes Martin does something to address the issue.
“There is no doubt in my mind that there are town employees who do not feel comfortable right now,” Mass said.
Allis said the mayor has also made a town councilor feel intimidated in the past.
He said the day before the council was set to vote on this year’s budget, Martin visited Precinct 9 Councilor Daniel Leonovich’s auto body shop on Deerfield Street to ask him to vote in favor of the budget. After Leonovich voted against the mayor’s proposal, Allis said Leonovich began receiving parking tickets for the first time. He said 12 of the 20 tickets issued on Deerfield Street were issued to Leonovich’s vehicles.
“It started the day after a budget vote that was unfavorable to you,” Allis said. “Do you think that could be viewed as intimidation?”
The mayor denied any link, saying after the meeting, he tried to help Leonovich find a bigger location for his business.
“I didn’t know you got a whole bunch of tickets until Councilor Mass told me,” Martin said to Leonovich. “I checked with the police chief right away and he said there were no extra patrols in your area … that would be just horrible if anyone planned to do anything like that, but I don’t believe that anyone would.”
Other councilors felt Wednesday’s investigation got out of hand.
“This meeting was actually worse than the last one, which I didn’t think could be possible,” At-Large Councilor Penny Ricketts said. “This was a serious matter, but the questions were just too far out there.”
She said if councilors felt as though there was an ethics violation, they should have gone straight to the state Ethics Commission.
“I feel right now, let’s scratch this whole thing and let’s move on,” she said.