Mary Bowers has told the trustees of the Great Salt Bay Sanitary District “thanks, but no thanks” to their offer of a retirement party.
In a letter sent this week, she said she was forced to resign from the district after enduring five years of abuse from one trustee.
“Thank you for offering to give me a ‘retirement party. However, under the circumstances, I do not feel comfortable having a celebration,” she said in a letter to the trustees and district workers.
Bowers, who for 23 years has been the superintendent of the utility that supplies water and sewer service to Newcastle, Damariscotta and part of Nobleboro, resigned during the week of Jan. 18th, saying she had another opportunity.
In a letter dated Jan. 30, she singled out the actions and comments of one trustee saying she could no longer work for the district.
In an interview, she declined to name the trustee or elaborate on the letter.
Trustee chairman Allan H. Ray said Bowers’ accusations were “a real surprise. It is a shock to me,” he said.
Bowers said in her letter that tension has been simmering between her and one trustee for the last five years.
“Over the last five years, I have had to endure inappropriate remarks and comments from one trustee. On at least one particular occasion I had to threaten him with going to the Human Rights Commission if he did not stop the unprofessional conduct,” she said.
“Over the last year, the situation has deteriorated to the point where I believe it is best for me and for the District to leave.”
“This is a decision I did not want to follow through with, but certain actions and the lack of support from some of the trustees left me with little choice to seek employment elsewhere,” she wrote.
She said she complained to the trustees in recent meetings closed from the public.
On Jan 21, the GSBSD Board of Trustees met behind closed doors in executive session with Bowers. They declined to comment on what transpired at the session. She said she then resigned to accept other opportunities, but declined to elaborate.
On Jan. 27, in a session once again closed to the public, they again met with her and the district employees.
After they let the public into the second meeting, trustees, Ray, William H. Brewer, John D. Gallagher, Winton O. Jacobs, Robert Whear, and Christopher “Kit” Hayden, sported smiles, shared donuts and said the only official action they were taking was to set the date for a retirement party for Bowers to honor her for her long service.
“We hate to see her go,” said chairman Ray.
Last fall, Bowers clashed with trustees’ decision to sell some of the property near their Little Pond water source to Jon Pinkham without first obtaining an appraisal.
While town officials are required to follow legal steps to sell off land, including obtaining appraisals, similar regulations are not required of the trustees, and they sold the parcel with out an appraisal.
The sanitary district asked the planning board to enlarge a two-acre lot into a 3.2-acre lot.
In January, Pinkham, agreed to purchase the two-acre lot for $20,000. The two-acre lot, including three buildings, is located near, but not in, the Little Pond watershed, officials say.
At the Sept. 16 district trustee meeting and at GSBSD treasurer Brewer’s request, trustees voted to enlarge the two-acre parcel to 3.2 acres, but the price remained the same – $20,000.
“The price doesn’t matter,” said trustee Gallagher who seconded Brewer’s motion to sell the land to Pinkham. He [will] be a good neighbor and take care of the land,” trustee meeting minutes said.
Gallagher said the trustees were more interested in preserving the quality of the watershed than the price of the lot. “The price did not matter,” he said at the time.
GSBSD District Superintendent Bowers urged the trustees to get an appraisal for the property before selling it.
In the end, the board did not obtain an appraisal for the lot before voting to sell it to Pinkham. There was no advertised public sale of the property.
The sanitary district purchased the 180-acre Richard Storer property for $750,000 in 1999. A $337,500 federal grant provided part of the purchase price and the district sold $412,500 in bonds to fund the rest. A rate hike to the district’s water customers covered the cost of the bonds.
Part of the Storer property retained by the district drains into the watershed for Little Pond, a 77-acre pond that has been the source of the town’s drinking water since 1896.
Ray said the resignation had nothing to do with the sale of the land.
“She did not agree with the board and said so in the minutes,” Ray said.
Hayden said there has been a conflict between Bowers and Scott Abbotoni, the water division manager. Hayden said the board hired a mediator to work with the two of them, but she resigned.
