TRURO — The select board voted on June 28 to investigate a complaint that vice chair Sue Areson had violated the town charter by talking to town employees about Town Manager Darrin Tangeman’s job performance.
The vote was 3-2, with chair Kristen Reed, Stephanie Rein, and Bob Weinstein in favor and John Dundas and Areson opposed.
The complaint came in a June 13 letter from attorney Adam T. Dupuy, who said he represented a Truro voter who wanted to remain anonymous “out of fear of retaliation.” Dupuy asked for an independent investigation into what he referred to as a “whistleblower complaint.”
Areson’s lawyer, William Henchy of Orleans, argued that Dupuy’s letter should be ignored because of a select board policy against responding to anonymous complaints.
But Truro’s town counsel, David Jenkins of KP Law, disagreed. “I don’t think this is an anonymous complaint within the meaning of the policy,” he told the select board, “because we have a contact person who will have the ability to speak to whoever made the complaint.” He added that the policy was not a hard and fast rule. “The board always has flexibility to look at complaints,” he said.
On behalf of his client, Dupuy alleged that Areson had violated three sections of the town charter: Section 4-4-1, by “conducting an unauthorized and unsanctioned investigation into the Town Manager”; Section 4-5-1, by acting under individual authority; and Section 4-5-2, by communicating directly with town staff instead of through the town manager.
These possible violations were worthy of board members’ concern, said the town counsel. Jenkins told the board, “Upon receipt of a complaint, probably the worst thing that a town can do under any circumstances is to ignore the complaint. Towns or employers in general get in trouble when a complaint is received, and it is tucked in a drawer and not dealt with.”
A follow-up letter from Dupuy dated June 15 alleges that, between April 10 and 21, “Areson met with four Town Directors without approval of the Town Manager and one other Town non-director employee to specifically solicit negative feedback on the Town Manager.”
In an email to the Independent, Areson wrote: “I am disappointed that three board members voted to spend taxpayer money to investigate an anonymous complaint.”
Reed said that KP Law would recommend an independent investigator to conduct a formal inquiry into the complaints against Areson and prepare “a fact-based report to the select board for further consideration.”
