OLD ORCHARD BEACH, Maine — The town of Old Orchard Beach and its former town manager have settled a lawsuit that sprouted from the administrator’s controversial termination more than a year ago, the Biddeford-based Journal Tribune reported.
Details about the out-of-court settlement have not been publicly disclosed, according to the newspaper.
Former Town Manager Mark Pearson filed a lawsuit against the town seeking damages in April 2013, about a month after the Town Council voted to effectively fire him.
After Pearson was hired as the town’s top administrator in February 2012, a finance department employee alleged she began to see a string of policy violations including nonpayment or delinquent processing of town bills, employee child support obligations and town contributions to worker retirement funds.
The Maine Human Rights Commission later issued a ruling that the employee was retaliated against by Pearson’s administration after she expressed concerns about the alleged violations, as she reportedly saw her hours reduced, was denied a cellphone stipend and was forced to start using a time clock at work.
In his lawsuit, Pearson alleged that the town, Town Council and several residents made “false and defamatory statements” about him, the Journal Tribune reported at the time.
Before a narrowly divided council voted to effectively terminate Pearson in March 2013, the panel voted to override the town manager’s decision a month earlier to fire Public Works Director Bill Robertson. The majority of the council took Robertson’s side in what became an acrimonious division ultimately contributing to the town manager’s ouster.
But the decision to terminate Pearson was not a universally popular one.
As a sign of public backlash over the controversy, six of the Town Council’s seven members at the time were thrown out of office in a recall vote at the polls two months later.
