By Nicholas Brown
Staff Writer

Ethics charges are piling up in Epsom, further straining a board of selectmen that has been rife with internal disputes for more than a year.

At least two of the charges stem from board members’ actions in the aftermath of the investigation, and subsequent firing, of a former Epsom fire captain, Floyd Graham.

At least three formal charges have been filed in all, and selectmen Chairman Julie Clermont said, “I believe everyone on the board has been implicated at this point.”

On the night the latest ethics charge was publicly disclosed, the board took steps toward firming up the town’s first ever ethics committee, and was also notified it had come out clean after a three-month criminal investigation by the Merrimack County Attorney’s office.

Still, pending ethics complaints and apparent division among board members may be causing some rifts.

“This has ballooned completely out of proportion, I’m afraid,” said Clermont.

History

In 2005, selectmen fired Graham, a 17-year member of the fire department, after affirming charges that he treated a minor in a neighboring town with a saline IV, using town equipment, and while off duty.

After Selectman Joni Kitson, a friend of Graham’s, recused herself from the investigation, she requested a time sheet of Graham’s that she had signed, but believed may have been altered by other selectmen, according to public records.

The board denied Kitson’s request, and she filed a Right to Know suit against the town, which was settled out of court last September, according to court records.

Selectmen agreed to let Kitson view the time sheet, and also agreed to pay her $3,085 in legal expenses, records show. Multiple selectmen at the time said the settlement was offered to prevent anticipated costs of further litigation.

In February of this year, selectmen reviewed a hefty stack of meeting minutes and other public records related to the Kitson lawsuit, many of which invoked the Graham case.

Former selectman, and the town’s zoning compliance officer, John Hickey, said at the time that the correspondence was reviewed to answer questions that had been circulating around the community.

Latest charges

Less than a month later, Kitson’s husband, Gary Kitson, filed five formal ethics complaints in which Hickey, Selectman Mary Frambach and the town attorney, Tony Soltani, are named.

Gary Kitson stressed that his filing wasn’t on behalf of Joni Kitson.

“I’m a spouse, but I’m also a resident of this town,” he said. “There’s no one that tells me what to say.”

In his charges, Gary Kitson alleges Hickey and Soltani said Joni Kitson could “seek relief of her question about a particular time sheet by going directly to the person that the time sheet pertained to, knowing that the person was ordered by the board to have no contact with Joni Kitson.”

“This has the appearance of a set-up,” the charge reads.

Soltani said any communication he made to such an effect would have been through Kitson’s attorney.

“It doesn’t seem to be a complaint against me, and I don’t know what the ‘set up’ would be,” he said of Gary Kitson’s charge. “It’s not clear to me what the complainant is complaining about.”

In another charge, Gary Kitson contends Hickey, with Frambach’s knowledge, used town supplies to provide copies of public records to two reporters. Gary Kitson wrote that the alleged distribution of records marked a violation of the town’s ethics code “in connection with the improper use of town property or services while not generally available to the citizens of Epsom in the same manner.”

Gary Kitson also contends Hickey and Frambach violated the ethics code by publicizing and discussing information gathered in nonpublic sessions, that Hickey was in breach by adding a handwritten note to finalized minutes, and that Hickey’s position as zoning compliance officer have conflicted with his duties as a selectman.

Hickey, who’s no longer a selectman, described the charges as “frivolous.”

“Basically these are just issues left over from the (March) election,” said Hickey. “I think it’s personal, and I think it’s poor sportsmanship.”

Hickey has filed his own ethics complaint, which was aired at the board’s Monday, June 5, meeting, against the Kitsons.

In a letter read by Clermont, Hickey alleges that the Kitsons use taxpayer money to meet with Soltani without notifying the lawyer of Kitson’s then pending lawsuit.

Joni Kitson declined comment on the charge, and said it would be in the hands of the recently conceived ethics committee.

That committee will also field ethics charges filed by resident Rob Topik. Clermont confirmed that a selectman or selectmen are named in Topik’s charges. Topik couldn’t be reached by press time.

The board recently determined have two members of the ethics committee appointed by the town moderator, with the remaining three members appointed by the supervisors of the checklist. Once formed, the new committee will have to firm up its own procedures and regulations, said Clermont.

Current conditions

Until the committee is operational, “all the charges are being tabled,” said Bob McKechnie, who’s in his first term as a selectman.

Clermont said she hopes the ethics committee will relieve some of the stress at selectmen’s meetings, which routinely eclipse four hours.

“The longer these things stay at our meetings, the more it affects this board,” said Clermont.

McKechnie said he’s tried, to no avail, to get fellow board members to attend a team building center at the New Hampshire Local Government Center.

“I’ve tried to convince them to put all this behind them,” he said. “This is a circus and I’m fed up with it.”

Frambach said the board’s internal disputes are “getting ridiculous, and it’s getting worse all the time.”

Perhaps good news for the board is that it won’t be facing any criminal charges from the Merrimack County Attorney’s office.

County Attorney Dan St. Hilaire said his office has conducted an investigation of the board over the past three months after a complaint from Joni Kitson. Kitson has said she approached the county attorney because she thought the board acted illegally by altering the Graham time card.

“We found there was insufficient cause to file charges,” said St. Hilaire. “The allegation just doesn’t fit the criminal code.”

Said Kitson, who’s own initials are on the document, “I was happy to hear there was nothing criminal done.”