STRONG – Selectman Tonia Boyd handed in her keys to the town office Thursday, two days after being appointed chairman of the Board and one day after handing in her resignation to former Chairman Clyde Barker.
Boyd said Thursday that she felt her resignation was the best thing for the town, and explained she disagrees with the direction she feels the board is headed in.
Her resignation comes just two months after three of the other members of the five-member board resigned, citing ugly disputes with town residents as the cause, leaving only two seasoned selectmen – Boyd and Barker – onboard when three new members were elected this March.
Boyd was elected for the first time last year, and said Thursday night she had a great first year on the board. But all that began to change this winter, when disputes with residents over decisions made by the board turned to shouting matches and name-calling.
It all culminated in late January when Jeffrey Murphy and Jeff O’Donnell resigned their posts and Roger Corson and Clyde Barker withdrew their re-election papers, leaving just Boyd to carry on business with the newbies that would be elected this March. Soon after withdrawing, Barker changed his mind, explaining he, “can’t leave the town the way it’s in shambles now.”
Rupert Pratt was elected to the board on March 4 at annual town meeting, Harry Gordon and Jim Burrill were elected Tuesday at a special town meeting. Immediately following the election, the five selectmen met together for their first meeting to appoint residents to positions such as chairman of the board and road supervisor.
Boyd was appointed chairman, a position she said felt “almost pushed into because “I’ve only been in there for a year – I was interested in being a helper, being part of a team.”
She said she felt the meeting went badly, explaining that in her previous year on the board, decisions were made after careful discussion. If board members did not agree on an issue, they discussed it until coming to a conclusion. New appointments were made after considering what skills and experience potential appointees might bring to the job, with the aim in mind of doing the best thing for the town.
But on Tuesday night, Boyd said, appointments were made without thought or discussion, and she went away feeling she was not thinking on the same wavelength as the newer board members.
“I’m young,” Boyd said, and “my major concern on the board was to somehow make Strong someplace people want to live again. Both me and my husband – we love living here,” and want to help revitalize the town after the loss of major business in the past few years.
That aim was one she, Barker and the other members of last year’s board shared. But Tuesday’s meeting gave Boyd the impression the newest selectmen do not share the same aims. “The very first meeting there was a shouting match,” she said.
She and Barker “expressed those ideas to the newcomers,” and “they immediately shot it down in a 3-2 vote. I didn’t want to be any part of being on that kind of a level of work. I wanted, and I still do, the best interest of the town. But I don’t feel that I could have added anything.
“I felt it was in the best interest of the town to at least leave my position with dignity,” she said.
Before falling asleep Tuesday night she had decided to resign as selectman, and Wednesday morning she handed in her resignation papers to Barker. Thursday she dropped her keys off at the town office.
Barker “was devastated when it happened,” he said Thursday. “We’ve had such a good working relationship for a year – with her doing a tremendous job – and she had a lot going for her. But I guess she felt that first meeting not a good one.” She had good reasons for what she did, Barker added. “I’m just…I don’t know… in a state of shock I think,” he said.
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