STRONG – Precipitated by a road maintenance dispute that many say has gotten out of hand, two of Strong’s five selectmen have resigned and two others have withdrawn their papers for re-election in the past few days.
On Friday morning, Jeffrey Murphy resigned after nearly 10 years as selectman. Jeff O’Donnell resigned Monday. Both Clyde Barker and Roger Corson have withdrawn their papers for re-election during March town meeting, Barker on Thursday and Corson on Monday. The remaining selectman, Tonia Boyd, who was not available for comment Monday, did not resign.
The dispute, in large part, involves the maintenance of Church Hill Road, which landowner Vernon Voter contends the town is responsible for.
Voter said Monday, “I have thousands of dollars worth of wood laying on the ground that cannot be moved because of the icy road conditions. This wood is a supplemental income to add to my retirement.” But after researching the issue, selectmen concluded the road is no longer town property, and that therefore voters should not be required to pay for its maintenance, said Murphy.
The issue came to a head last week, when “yelling and screaming” broke out, first at a selectmen’s meeting Tuesday and later on Saturday, when the four remaining selectmen (without Murphy, who had already resigned) went to inspect the road in person. “Everything I can find says it was discontinued,” said Corson. He said selectmen had decided before meeting with Voter and his family that “we’re not going to maintain (Church Hill Road)” because it would “do the town no benefit to maintain” it.
Murphy, who in addition to being a selectman for nearly 10 years was also a volunteer firefighter for almost 25 years and a Planning Board member for “as far as I can recall, 23 years,” said Monday his resignation was not entirely about the recent disagreement.
The “dispute is a small part of it, and only tipped the card over for me,” said Murphy, who explained after spending so many years doing his “civic duty,” he nearly decided not to run for office again last year. “My ego got in the way,” he said of his decision to run. “My daughters grew up while I was doing all this, I ran a business and it’s time for me to move on, step aside,” he said.
However, in his resignation letter Murphy urged all the selectmen to resign because of “the amount of grief,” he said. “We had no support from anybody, no legal help from anybody, had our necks stuck out there, and it looks like we’re being unfair to some and favoring others, but we’re not.”
Corson echoed his sentiments, saying he feels “the town doesn’t appreciate the selectmen.”
“One person will tell us we’re doing a good job, and all we get from other people is complaints. If I’m not doing my job well enough, give it to someone else that can do it better,” he said.
“I try to please everybody and I know in my mind there’s no way I can do it. So rather than alienate friends because of my position, we should let people get in there that can do it better,” Corson added.
O’Donnell, like Corson, said one of the reasons he resigned was because the dispute was affecting his relationships with his friends and neighbors.
“I share a common border with one of the families, and we’ve been good friends for years. It’s just dividing everybody up.”
“Each side wants it their way and (the selectmen) are just the monkeys in the middle. It’s not for me to say which side is right,” O’Donnell said. “I’m not a land-use expert, I’m not a land lawyer, I’m just a regular guy who works a full-time job, trying to do the right thing.”
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