Judge Orders Fairfax Clerk To Give Treasurer Access To Vault

Monday December 27, 2004

Fairfax treasurer gets vault access

By LEE J. KAHRS
Messenger Staff Writer

FAIRFAX –– A Franklin Superior Court Judge has ordered the Fairfax Town Clerk to change the combination to the town vault and share it with the town treasurer.

This latest development may nudge the saga of the clerk versus the Fairfax Selectboard into court in a few months.

Judge Ben Joseph last week ordered Town Clerk Tina Levick to change the vault combination and instructed her to give the new combination only to town treasurer Donna, said Levick’s attorney Joseph Cahill.

The order came two weeks after town business came to a standstill because Levick changed the vault combination, to which only she and Second Assistant Clerk Barbara-Ann Sempf were privy.

Levick changed the combination the same week Judge Joseph found for the Fairfax Selectboard in a small claims case brought by former Assistant Town Clerk Melissa Allard, who was seeking $450 in back pay.

On Dec. 13, Levick was out of the office and Sempf refused to open the vault in protest because the selectboard had not paid her.

Levick has her own lawsuit pending against the selectboard, stemming from the board’s refusal to pay Allard. Levick’s claims the selectboard has no legal control over the office of town clerk because it is an independently elected post.

The selectboard answered by filing a lawsuit against Levick.

Cahill said he anticipates both sides will have their day in court.

“It’s obvious this matter is now in process,” Cahill said in a phone interview. “Judge Joseph has indicated that a hearing will be held.”

When asked for a timeline on those hearing, Cahill speculated they would be “a couple of months away.”

Joseph found for the selectboard in the Allard case citing statute that states the town clerk has the power to appoint the assistant town clerk, but only the selectboard has the right to set compensation.

“It is interesting,” Cahill said. “There is an anomaly in the statute and it’s hard to understand the selectboard’s position. It is not a significant sum of money here.”