RANGELEY – The district attorney’s office has decided not to go forward with a criminal assault charge filed against Rangeley’s town manager by the foreman for the town’s highway department.
The alleged incident was reported on Sept. 11 when Everett Quimby, a longtime foreman for Rangeley’s highway department, told town police officer Steve Townsend that town manager Bill Lundrigan had assaulted him, said police Chief Phil Weymouth.
In a statement to police, Quimby said that after getting in a verbal spat with Lundrigan outside the door of the town manager’s office at the town hall, Lundrigan forcefully yanked Quimby into his office, Weymouth said.
According to Weymouth, Lundrigan admitted to police he touched Quimby’s arm in order to guide him into the office so that there wasn’t a scene in the middle of the town hall.
“That is the discrepancy,” Weymouth said. Fortunately, an unnamed town employee was the lone witness to the dispute and that statement was the “clincher,” said the chief.
In order to keep town business running smoothly and to keep the town manager and his highway employee separated, Townsend issued Lundrigan a summons, charging him with assault and ordering the two men to have no contact. “This is a town that does have to operate,” Weymouth noted. “And the town manager has a right to be in control of his space.”
Late last week though, the Franklin County District Attorney’s office decided to dismiss the summons, and not go forward with the charge.
Although there was the basis for the summons, said assistant district attorney Andrew Robinson, “the complaint does not rise to the level that it merited a criminal charge.”
Meanwhile, Lundrigan, who called the charges “frivolous” and “unfounded,” has appointed a fellow town employee, Jerome Guevremont, to take over the job of road commissioner so that he doesn’t have to interact with Quimby.
Quimby is still employed by the town, and Lundrigan declined to comment as to any changes in personnel as a result of the incident.
“It’s a real problem when an employee reacts in that kind of format that they press criminal charges,” he said. “I am going to take some time to look at this very seriously before I decide what to do next.”
sdepoy@sunjournal.com
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