Instead, board mulls how to react to public criticism
By Patricia Bogumil
Interim Editor
Minutes into a closed session held June 13, commissioners with the Town of Waterford Sanitary District (WSD) knew something was amiss.
Commissioner Donna Block had expected the closed meeting to address retirement and other benefit costs for WSD employees, a topic of concern she raised earlier this month.
But minutes into the session, it became clear that Board President Bill Gerard did not share Block’s vision for the meeting.
Instead, Gerard expected commissioners to discuss hostile remarks and behavior directed at WSD employees by the public regarding employee benefit costs.
With four WSD employees on hand after being invited to share their concerns, Gerard’s understanding prevailed.
According to unofficial minutes, the closed session ran from 6:32 p.m. to 7:45 p.m.
After convening back into open session, Gerard made a motion that passed unanimously for the WSD board to write a letter of support for its employees, addressing issues that have become public, according to unofficial meeting minutes.
On June 19, Block took the blame for the closed meeting confusion, explaining that she had contacted Debbie Nelson, the WSD office administrator, to arrange for a closed session to discuss benefits.
But she and Nelson had also discussed the harassment issue, said Block, and Nelson set up the agenda thinking that was the subject to be considered in closed session.
The June 13 meeting notice cited a state law that allows for a closed rather than open meeting when discussing employee “employment, promotion, compensation or performance evaluation data.”
Commissioner Jeff Santaga did not reply to requests for input from the Waterford Post.
But Gerard spoke June 15 with Post reporter Tracy Ouellette at the WSD office in the Town Hall.
Gerard confirmed that he believed the June 13 closed session had been called to discuss angry and harassing comments being received by WSD employees, Ouellette said.
Once he realized that wages and benefits were to be discussed instead, Gerard said he “put a stop to it,” she reported.
Gerard said he felt bad that WSD employees are “under fire” from the public, because they had done nothing wrong, Ouellette added.
“It’s never been the employees’ fault what goes on in this District,” she reported Gerard as saying.
Gerard said the closed session also included discussion about something that was talked about earlier in open session – ways to improve communication between WSD and the public and how to use the WSD web site for that purpose, Ouellette reported.
Block said she plans to again ask that employee benefit costs be scheduled for discussion in the near future.
“I expect that we will have another meeting in closed session, and I will follow up on it,” she said.
Town Chairman Robert Langmesser said he understands why some residents feel hostile to how WSD conducts its business.
“Some of these people make more just in retirement benefits than I make as town chairman,” he said.
Langmesser suggested another way to address public concerns besides writing a letter for the employees.
“The bottom line is to get these commissioners to come forward with full information to the public about the different benefits being paid to these employees – the salaries they get, the insurance they get, the retirement program,” he said.
The blame for money problems in the WSD budget does not rest on the current three commissioners, Langmesser added.
“The blame goes on the shoulders of all the people there the last 15 years who created this problem,” he said.
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