'Incivility' prompts Shelburne Selectboard member to resign
Joel Banner BairdSHELBURNE - Shelburne Selectboard member John Kerr blames rampant “incivility,” “divisiveness” and “dysfunction” in municipal government for driving him from completing a term set to expire in 2019.
In an open letter to his colleagues earlier this month, Kerr said he plans to resign on Oct. 31.
During a phone interview on Thursday, Kerr faulted a “vile subset of the population” for frustrating the board’s majority, and second-guessing town government.
“It reached a crescendo,” he said. “It just didn’t sit right with me.”
Kerr was re-elected to his second two-year term in March. After his retirement goes into effect, the Selectboard will appoint Kerr's replacement to serve until March 2018, according to Town Manager Joe Colangelo.
Kerr’s announcement comes at a time when the town has struggled to formulate a hazardous-materials storage ordinance.
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The heavily amended ordinance, scheduled for a final vote on Oct. 24, has been widely critiqued as unnecessary, and as a thinly veiled extension of Shelburne’s legal feud with Vermont Railways over the construction of a road-salt transfer facility.
“There was whiplash from the negative side,” Kerr said. “You couldn’t do anything right.”
Kerr also said he was upset by public response to police Chief James Warden's August dismissal — the details of which remain confidential as a personnel matter.
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Daily attacks related to those issues through Facebook and Front Porch Forum posts, from “people who were criticizing or second-guessing things that we’re doing,” further undermined his morale, Kerr said.
His replacement on the Selectboard, Kerr added, would benefit from a level head and a commitment to balance.
He said he has no second thoughts about his decision to resign.
“I’m definitely done,” Kerr said.
“Outside interests”
In his resignation letter, Kerr faulted “special interest groups from outside” who subverted Selectboard efforts to reach consensus.
Kerr elaborated on Thursday: He was referring specifically to a private offer of $2,500 to fund independent legal counsel for the town’s Ethics Committee, made at the Sept. 26 Selectboard meeting by E. Davies Allan, a marine contractor based in Westport Island, Maine.
The Ethics Committee unsuccessfully petitioned the Selectboard last month for funds to potentially pursue matters that involve the Selectboard or town manager — “and where the Town Attorney would have a clear conflict of interest.”
Allan, who has rented a house on Harbor Road while he oversees work at Shelburne Shipyard (and who says he is considering buying a large business that would be adversely affected by the hazmat ordinance) said he spontaneously made the offer of $2,500 because a majority of Selectboard members appeared “dismissive” of the committee’s request.
“Maybe the committee knows something we don’t know,” Allan added.
In his resignation letter, Kerr praised the work of Colangelo and Warden, as well as that of Claudine Safar, an outside attorney who has worked closely with the town to formulate and promote the hazmat ordinance.
More than one Selectboard member, Kerr added, had engaged in “condescending behavior” toward Safar.
Contact Joel Banner Baird at 802-660-1843 or joelbaird@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @VTgoingUp.