Dalton Residents Express Support for Town Clerk Heather Hunt
The meeting room at the Senior Center had a crowd of 40 for Monday's meeting, where the town clerk addressed the Select Board about the recent error on an election instruction sheet.
An erroneous date had been left on the instruction sheet sent out with 28 mail-in ballots for the Feb. 3 special election for Select Board.
Hunt thought many voters would understand that the date was an "obvious error or a typo" because it was for November's general election.
That said, she did not want to make light of the error or make excuses.
"I believe the townspeople are tired of hearing these excuses from us, their elected officials. I take my responsibility as your town clerk very seriously, and the integrity of my office is second to none," Hunt said.
"I am here tonight to provide you some clarity and to assure you that this was just a mistake. We are not perfect, and yes, we do make mistakes."
But, she said, she was not prepared for a Facebook post by board member Marc Strout expressing how he was "extremely frustrated at this developing situation" and that it was the elected town clerk's "responsibility to make sure all information is correct."
Hunt, after reading the post aloud, said she could not put into words how shocked and saddened she was to "see this vicious post that could only cause more harm than good and further surprised to see that the post was sent as an @everyone so that all 1,148 followers" were immediately alerted "to my error."
Strout said he had sent emails to her and Hutcheson on Friday night with no response so was unaware that her office was working to fix the situation. And he didn't know Hunt did not have remote access to her work email.
He included the phrasing of how the town clerk's office is "an elected position" because he had gotten calls from residents expressing their frustration and blaming the board for the error, Strout said.
Hunt explained that Town Manager Thomas Hutcheson called her on Saturday morning, Jan. 18, and told her she "may want to dig a hole and bury your head in it for the next three weeks."
Alarmed, she said she anxiously asked what he was talking about and that he "quickly explained to me that he had just gotten off the phone with Mr. [Chair Robert] Bishop, who had advised him that there had been some sort of an error in the mail-out ballot packets.
"Tom further stated that Mr. Bishop was extremely angry and had instructed him to not only get a hold of me right away, but to call town counsel without a moment to waste."
She raced to Town Hall to find that the error was in the instruction sheet not on the ballot. She and her assistant Patty Mele-Nichols spent the rest of their Saturday rectifying the situation by mailing out corrected instructions with stamps she bought and updating the town website.
"We did all of this while keeping in good spirits, knowing that we were doing exactly what the good people of this town would expect from the clerk's office," Hunt said.
That's when the "most unprofessional and destructive post had gone up," she said, on the private "Marc Strout, Town of Dalton Selectman" Facebook page. "To say that I was ill-prepared to manage the nightmare that was about to unfold is a profound understatement."
The post was harmful to her integrity and undermined the office's efforts to conduct free and fair elections, she said, and that such "unprofessionalism" also casts doubt on the election process and undermines public trust in the mail-in voting system.
"I have to admit, after being notified by so many residents that this malicious back-and-forth dialog was taking place at the very moment we were working so hard in the office to make it all right, it briefly knocked the wind out of me, but after a moment, we picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off, and got back to doing what we were put in office to do in the first place, and that is work for all the residents in our beautiful town of Dalton," Hunt said.
Hunt said legal counsel informed the town the mistake was minor and the state's election counsel Michelle Tassinari wrote that it wasn't "a new issue — we had quite a few local election officials make similar (and easily correctable) mistake."
Resident Daniel Filiault said he has worked with numerous town clerks over the last 45 years and Hunt is "a good town clerk as the town has ever had. Her compassion for her community and its citizens is shown every day."
"Her knowledge and ability to do the job is unquestioned and clearly demonstrated every day," he continued. "She will not compromise the integrity of her office. Until recently, her performance as clerk has never been questioned."
Bishop said he felt that no one was saying she is a bad town clerk. Filiault responded that the town "is lucky to have a person of integrity such as Heather Hunt as their town clerk. I only wish that I could say the same thing about some other elected officials for the town."
Resident Judy Condron said she's worked at the elections and those involved in running it are beyond reproach. The Facebook page was not a place to make statements like that, she said.
Bishop said legal counsel's response was that Strout was within his rights to post as he did not threaten Hunt and it is not a town Facebook page.
Resident Lauren Gaherty said she applauded how the town clerk's office took care of the error.
"I worked with town clerks across the whole county, and I applaud what Heather and Patty did to take care of their error," she said.
"Everything was done transparently. It was done openly for the public to make awareness of the error, and it was done professionally."
