VEAZIE, Maine — After two executive sessions totaling more than two hours and 15 minutes in length, the Veazie Sewer District trustees delayed public discussion of the proposed contract for the 23-year superintendent until the district’s next meeting.
After coming out of the executive sessions — the first of which the trustees used to consult with an attorney and the second of which they used to discuss “employment duties and compensation of an individual public official” — trustee Chairwoman Esther Bushway told audience members that the contract had been revised during executive session at Wednesday night’s meeting.
Bushway said the trustees would enter negotiations with Superintendent Gary Brooks and reconsider the revised contract after next month’s sewer district board meeting, where the new version may be voted on in public after another executive session. She pointed out that town councils form contracts with town managers in much the same way.
About 35 residents packed into the sewer district’s garage for the meeting. Several attendees said during the meeting that they felt left in the dark and wanted a say in the contract.
“I think you’ll see that [the contract] won’t harm the sewer district, and it will keep good people in place,” Bushway said. “We’ve pretty much agreed on the terms.”
During contract discussions, the trustees were “not quite hitting each other but coming close,” Bushway said.
Bushway presented the contract during a February board meeting. The three-year contract promises superintendent Gary Brooks a $74,500 salary per year plus benefits through Dec. 31, 2014.
Bushway said she brought the contract before the board of trustees because some other department heads in municipalities like Orono and Bangor have contracts and she fielded several suggestions that Brooks have a contract.
Brooks said during the meeting that he drafted part of the original contract with assistance from an attorney. He hasn’t had a contract for the past 23 years.
The contract stipulates that Brooks may terminate the agreement at any time after providing 30 days’ written notice. The sewer district trustees may terminate the superintendent’s employment, provided they pay him the full salary for each of the three years, according to the contract. The agreement and Brooks’ employment also could be extended or terminated by the trustees after the initial term ends on the last day of 2014.
On Monday, Rob Tomilson, the newest sewer district trustee, emailed a letter to Veazie residents that questioned the motives behind the contract and argued that it would make Brooks immune from dismissal without paying the superintendent’s full three-year salary.
During the executive session, residents mingled in the garage, sharing excerpts from several letters that have been widely circulated during the course of the week questioning the motives behind the contract.
In one of these letters, resident Travis Noyes wrote, “We as rate payers will not allow this type of personal, almost nepotistic approach to be put on us without some level of recourse.”
Tomilson has criticized increasing labor expenses at the sewer district and compared Brooks’ salary with the salary of 30-plus-year Bangor Wastewater Treatment Department Superintendent Brad Moore’s salary of $77,680, a salary Moore confirmed Tuesday.
Tomilson argued that Moore’s responsibilities were “exponentially greater” than Brooks’ because Veazie has a Grade III wastewater facility, which is less complex and serves a smaller population than a Grade V treatment plant, such as Bangor’s.
Brooks said during an interview Tuesday that comparing Veazie’s sewer district’s staff and facility with the facility and operation of Bangor’s wastewater treatment department doesn’t give an accurate view of staff workload or costs in Veazie’s system.
Bangor operates a municipal facility, meaning that most major sewer decisions, such as changes to rates, are handled by city officials. Bangor’s wastewater treatment department handles billing and some other services in-house.
Brooks said that other municipal facilities may have town or city officials who handle liens, delinquencies and other business, but Veazie’s quasi-municipal sewer district uses its own staff to deal with these sorts of responsibilities. Brooks said he essentially has to act as “town manager” for the sewer district, supervising and handling situations that town employees would handle at some municipal wastewater systems.
He also said Veazie’s Sewer District’s labor costs are higher than other districts that are comparable in size because its employees do in-house repairs to the district’s vehicles and equipment that other facilities might shop out to third parties.
Trustee Gary Brown said Tomilson’s email didn’t go to the superintendent or any of the trustees.
On Tuesday, Brown said he didn’t have any issues with the contract, arguing that the sewer district has seen very few violations under Brooks’ leadership and finds ways to save the district from expenses by “doing a lot of things in house that normally would be farmed out.”
I cannot comment on the nature of this contract.
I can, however, comment on Gary Brooks, professionally.
He is solid as a rock, and operates the Veazie treatment facility with a jaundiced, practiced eye.
Anyone questioning the salaries paid to workers at the Veazie facility, well, you may want to spend a day or two onsite.
The good people of Veazie, naturally enough, create wastewater.
They simply need to pay for its proper treatment.
Commonly, the complexities of wastewater treatment exceed to grasp of elected officials.
Perhaps, perhaps, that is the case here.
The complexities of wastewater treatment in most cases could get confusing but in Veazie we have a very simple lagoon system. Not complicated by any means.
As far as paying for our waste no one has ever said they dont want to pay for treatment, we just want to pay the least possible.
“A very simple lagoon system.”
A very simple “overboard discharge system” would be simple.
And very costly to the rest of us.
Which is why you cannot do that.
I find it interesting that nowhere in this article are any problems with the Veazie treatment plant mentioned. It appears to be operating precisely as planned, designed, funded, and built.
Heart of sky forgets about that the system could be run at about the 1/2 of the cost and save the rate payers and tax payers a boatload of money that maybe could be use to fund some of the teachers positions that are being cut. But its better for friends to give friends raises then educate our children
If you review the requirements of the plants operations it’s far from brain surgery and that’s why anyone with a high school education can do it.
It’s good to know it doesn’t require an engineering degree.
I think Heart of Sky has a great idea!
The trustees should hire a consultant to review the management and the workload of all the employees. The consultant should observe them ~ I know that banks and other private businesses have done this to see how much wasted time employees have. All I know is that the number of employees have increased, the pay has skyrocketed and the physical work required has decreased since the last round of major improvements. From my observation over the past year I know that the office is not visited to often by the citizens of the district. The citizens who do visit the plant most often are Town Councilor King a former Trustee and Mrs. Brooks the managers wife. The number of visits by those two individuals far exceed anyone else in Town. As for professionalism Mr Brooks may do a fine job running the sewer plant but one does not write up “his own” one sided contract ~ give it to the Chairwomen and then seek approval of that contract at a meeting where it was NOT even on the Agenda.Yes, that is what the public call’s “SHADY” and display the character of an individual ~ both Mr. Brooks and Chairwomen Bushway.
Should the Trustees decide to hire consultants to assess the operation and management of the treatment plant, I don’t think anyone would object.
I would hope not.
I hope Brooks shoves a lawsuit up Trustee Tomilsons butt for this fiasco. Putting a personnel isssue out in the public like this is uncalled for. I’m sure Brooks would be within his right to sue the entire District for the damage done to his reputation. A.J. Grief loves these cases. By the time the dust settles on this one Brooks won’t need his 3 year contract…….just a pair of Oakleys and one of the fancy bottle sleeves……..Mexico here we come!
I think your a little confused because once Chairwomen Bushway brought the contract to a meeting and asked for a vote of approval the document is a public record. It also has been well documented that Mr. Brooks had directed if not sole input into the document that Chairwomen Bushway presented. What the trustee expressed would be items for discussion.The Chairwomens only mistake may have been that she should have orginally brought the item up in an executive session which it was not. She added the item to the agenda.
Oh my gosh, I have been saying this about the town office for as long as I can remember! I have no idea why we need three full-time office workers and a full-time town manager, especially when everyone I know does their town business online. And it seems like every time I drive by there, the only cars in the lot belong to current and former employees.
The Town as a whole should have a management and service delivery review evaluation conducted by a consultant. From minutes I reviewed tonight it seems that the Town had discussed doing a study like Old Town had conducted by a consultant but it seemed to pass.
I wish to clear up your misinformation. I called the town office today to find out how many full time people worked there. At the present time, there are two full time people (one clerk) and (one book keeper) and a Town Manager.
So if this guy is terminated, he is guaranteed his full 3 year contract…..and countless people who comment on BDN rant about how “good” they believe teachers have it.
That’s the problem ~ a for cause termination procedure was not in the contract ~ even a paralegal should have picked up on that oversight. So who did Mr. Brooks use for an attorney again? He keeps saying he did.
I know the contract is posted on the other article (and thank you to whoever did that!) but it references a personnel policy… maybe I don’t know enough about these things, but don’t personnel policies typically have termination procedures in them? Would someone mind posting that policy here for all of us to read?