ConCom Chairman Alleges Harassment

     To some the cranberry bogs are an issue in Falmouth that are bound to stir up emotions. Such was the case in February when the Falmouth Conservation Commission discussed, both internally and with Falmouth selectmen, the draft lease of the town bogs.
     As a result of those discussions, which became heated at times, a harassment claim has been levied against conservation commission member Peter L. Waasdorp Jr. by commission chairman Karen A. Wilson.
     At the heart of the allegations, Mr. Waasdorp said, are three e-mails he sent to Ms. Wilson and fellow members during the draft lease process.
     In the first, Mr. Waasdorp expresses displeasure, not only with a two-minute time limit for  public comment at a commission meeting on February 6, but with the selectmen’s meeting two days earlier in which he claimed to be the subject of personal attacks. Included in these attacks, he writes, were Ms. Wilson’s attempts to marginalize him at the selectmen’s meeting by saying he was not speaking for the entire commission.
     In the subsequent e-mail sent solely to Ms. Wilson, Mr. Waasdorp questions whether a Town Meeting vote is required to approve the bog lease. If it is not, he asks, why did Ms. Wilson not inform the committee.
     He also asks why Ms. Wilson has yet to respond to several of his concerns about the lease, including the deadline to make comments to Assistant Town Manager Heather B. Harper, the omission of bogs to be farmed, and financial data.
     Slowing down the process, he writes, has resulted in corrections to the proposed lease that was missing a proper accounting of bogs and acreage. In addition, he writes, the lease mistakenly directed the farmer to point nozzles at the rivers during chemical applications, an error caught only after the document was properly scrutinized.
     He concludes that without key information that was missing from the lease, the conservation commission should delay its vote on the document.
     In the final e-mail, sent to all commission members, he raises concerns that Ms. Wilson will not answer his questions.
     In addition, he wonders why she refused to share the farm plan of the then-proposed grower, Fred C. Bottomley of North Attleborough, which commission members had been seeking for weeks. Ms. Wilson had received the document nine days before the commission did. By that time, they only had one day to make comments on the lease to Ms. Harper, he said.
     In regard to the harassment charge, Ms. Wilson said yesterday that “there is a formal process to address any issues of this nature, and I am going to refrain from commenting at this point.”
     Mr. Waasdorp, however, said the claims of harassment “are absolutely untrue. There is no basis in evidence and the selectmen will exonerate me.”
     As a result of the allegations, which were filed in May, Mr. Waasdorp said, he consulted with both Falmouth Town Counsel Frank K. Duffy Jr. and Falmouth Equity/Affirmative Action Officer George R. Spivey to determine what the normal course of action was. He was told, he said, that mediation is the typical course of action.
     He agreed to mediation, he said, meeting with Mr. Spivey, followed up by a series of questions he had to answer about the alleged charge. After several weeks of submitting these answers, Mr. Waasdorp said, he was informed that Ms. Wilson refused to participate in mediation.
     While not common, Mr. Spivey said, these types of cases do occur in Falmouth and usually fall under harassment or discrimination.
     If the charges call for an investigation, he said, he may be involved or the matter may be handled by Christina Callahan, the town’s personnel director.
     Although he refused to comment on this case, Mr. Spivey said, he generally will do a fact finding, make a determination based on facts, and submit a recommendation to either selectmen or Town Manager Robert L. Whritenour Jr.
     Because mediation failed, Mr. Waasdorp said, there must be a hearing on the matter before selectmen. He was notified that they would hold it in executive session, but he said, “I exercised my right to meet in open session and they agreed to that.” His rationale for this request, he said, is that “my reputation means a lot to me and harassment has all kinds of ugly connotations, even if this isn’t workplace harassment. I want them to look at the evidence and be totally exonerated and I want that to be publicly known.”
     He said the allegations were a complete surprise to him and “came out of the blue,” having no indication that he would be charged with harassment. He admitted that the period of time during which the bog lease was dissected was a highly intense period and his concerns were that the document not be rushed.
     In some cases, he said, his concerns were warranted, referring to the state’s Inspector General’s Office finding that a $25,000 performance bond needed to be on the lease after having been dropped by the town. That finding was spurred by Mr. Waasdorp’s scrutiny of the document. “It was ignored by everybody,” he said. “I was the only one who didn’t sign the lease.”
     He suggested that his complaint to the Inspector General, following which Mr. Whritenour essentially termed him a disgruntled citizen, may be the genesis of this allegation.
     The allegation, he said, has not impacted his work on the committee, and he has attended all but one meeting since then. “We have done work and cooperated fully,” he said, referring to himself and Ms. Wilson.
     A tentative public hearing was scheduled for Monday’s meeting, but because Selectman Carey M. Murphy was absent, it has been moved to Monday, August 11, at 6 PM, Mr. Waasdorp said.
     Chairman of the Falmouth Board of Selectmen Ahmed A. Mustafa said his board will meet Monday 8-4 in executive session to discuss the matter. He said no determination has been made as to whether anyone is at fault, let alone whether Mr. Waasdorp should even be removed from the commission. He also wanted more time to look into the facts before he would comment on this specific case.