LIVERMORE FALLS – A reported altercation between the waste station manager and the town manager this week may be due to the town’s growing financial pressures, Highway Foreman Denis Castonguay said Friday.
Station Manager Fred Nadeau said Town Manager Martin Puckett came to the station Wednesday and told him he was not allowed to open the transfer station after July 1.
Nadeau said he asked Puckett to “follow the proper chain of command” and either give him the orders in writing, or tell Nadeau’s supervisor, Castonguay, to tell him.
Nadeau said Puckett “got very upset,” and “the conversation got heated.” When Nadeau tried to leave the room, Puckett “grabbed my arm and held the door shut,” he said.
“He then said he’d have me forcibly removed if I did not do as I was told,” Nadeau added.
A little while later, Nadeau said, Castonguay arrived and told him “he had been instructed to change the lock on the gate,” to the transfer station. From now on, Nadeau said, he is to be let in by Castonguay in the mornings. Castonguay will lock up at night, too.
Nadeau filed a complaint against Puckett with the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department on Wednesday evening, saying Puckett assaulted him.
Detective Sgt. William Gagne said Friday that Nadeau does not plan to press charges against Puckett.
Puckett was not available for comment as of Friday evening.
In a Thursday interview, Nadeau said he is not angry with Puckett. “I think Mr. Puckett has been under a lot of pressure and stress,” he said.
Nadeau added he is “extremely embarrassed by the whole incident. I know Mr. Puckett and myself are better men than that. We simply allowed the negativity of local politics to overwhelm us.”
“It was a situation of total frustration on both their parts, because we’re all very frustrated,” Castonguay said of the dispute. “In some ways it was such a minor incident,” he said. “But it’s a perfect example of what politics have degenerated to in this community.”
At last week’s annual town meeting voters disagreed with the selectmen’s plan to shut down the dispatch and transfer station and farm the services to Jay and Androscoggin County. Residents said they wanted to keep their dump and dispatch services, and, angry not to have been given a choice because of the wording of the warrant, denied funding to many town departments, including police and dispatch, the town office, library and transfer station. Lacking funds, all town services except police, dispatch, and fire will be shut down as of July 1.
To add to the stress, folks may be having to live in closer quarters than they’d prefer with weeks worth of smelly trash, Castonguay advised. That’s because the station will be closed to residents and haulers, and the Jay dump will be off limits because there’s no money to pay tipping fees there, he said.
“I am getting phone call after phone call from irate taxpayers, who don’t know what to do with their trash,” Castonguay said.
He suggested people find a secure place on their property to put their trash until a special town meeting can be held to fix the town’s finances.
“It’s time we as a community start working together and stop acting like small children poking at each other with sticks,” Nadeau said.
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