Monadnock Ledger-Transcript
Published: 5/10/2021 2:15:34 PM
Karen Hatcher has dropped out of the race for Peterborough Select Board, citing a previously undiscovered passage in the Peterborough town employee handbook that precluded her from serving on the board and as Peterborough’s Community and Economic Development Coordinator.
“It came to my attention a few minutes ago that there is an explicit line in the Town of Peterborough employee handbook that prevents a town employee from being a Select Board Member,” Hatcher wrote in a statement posted on social media Sunday afternoon. “I was unaware of this when I filed to run for office.”
Hatcher was criticized when she took the coordinator position by some Peterborough residents who felt that her paid job, which indirectly reports to the Select Board by way of the Town Administrator, could come in conflict with her role on the Select Board. Upon review, the Town of Peterborough ruled those concerns unfounded.
“After reviewing the Town’s Code of Ethics, the applicable state laws, and chapter of the employee manual having to do with the “Recruitment, Selection and Appointment of Employees,” we determined that there was nothing to prevent Karen from serving both as a member of the Select Board and a part-time employee,” Town Administrator Nicole MacStay wrote Monday.
When Hatcher resigned from her Select Board position last year, she stated she did so in order to focus on her CEDC position during the “intensity and velocity of community and economic issues” at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. This spring, with those effects of the pandemic – and the increased CEDC workload – seemingly winding down, Hatcher opted to run for her Select Board seat once again, reasserting her confidence that she’d be able to fill both roles adequately and without creating any conflicts of interest.
However, a passage in the Town of Peterborough’s employee handbook precludes any town employees from serving of the Select Board. According to Chapter 15, Article 8 of the handbook, “no appointed employee of the Town can, at the same time, hold the office of Selectman.”
Neither Hatcher nor MacStay would clarify how this particular passage was brought to their attention during this election cycle. As to why town officials missed that aspect of the employee handbook during the 2020 review, MacStay said they hadn’t reviewed that particular chapter, titled “Conduct of Employees,” before appointing Hatcher to her CEDC role, only the “Recruitment, Selection and Appointment of Employees” chapter.
“Obviously we were incorrect,” MacStay wrote, “as there is a sentence included in a separate chapter having to do with employee conduct which precludes the appointment. It was an honest mistake, and nothing more.”
The race is now down to current Budget Committee member and builder Richard Clark and Economic Development Authority board member and businessman William Kennedy.
In her statement, Hatcher urged her supporters to vote for Clark. “Rich Clark has served the town on the Planning Board and the Budget Committee and is a person of integrity,” she wrote. “I hope you’ll vote for him.”
Voting is set for Tuesday, May 11 at the Peterborough Community Center on Elm Street.
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