Three people resigned from Isle La Motte’s town government after the chair of the selectboard raised pointed concerns about the conduct of the town’s now-former clerk and treasurer.
Leading up to the Isle La Motte Selectboard meeting on Sept. 6, longtime board member Rustam Spaulding and Town Clerk and Treasurer Stephen Mank both submitted letters of resignation. Mank wrote that his assistant, Mary Labrecque, also planned to resign.
The two remaining selectboard members — Cary Sandvig and Chair Mary-Catherine Graziano — approved all three resignations that night, and all took effect by the following day.
The sudden departures have rocked local politics on this roughly 500-person island and left the town office closed to the public while board members scramble to recruit new staff. In the meantime, the board plans to hire a bookkeeper to pay the town’s bills.
Both resignation letters also aired criticisms of the town. Mank, in his, wrote that “it has been an honor to serve 99% of the residents of Isle La Motte” over his year as town clerk.
“lt more than compensates,” he continued in the brief letter, “for the constant harassment, condescension, and amazing lack of understanding and respect for these offices we have consistently received from the remaining one percent.”
Graziano said Mank’s resignation was likely precipitated by an email she sent him on Sept. 4 outlining more than dozen concerns she and other board members had with the way he was managing the office, and charging that he wasn’t communicating well with others.
She contended that Mank hired staff without notifying — or getting approval from — the selectboard, made unauthorized purchases using town funds and repeatedly failed to provide board members with town budget documents upon request.
Mank also repeatedly failed to post meeting agendas and minutes in compliance with Vermont’s Open Meeting Law, according to Graziano, or to update the town website.
More recently, the board chair said Mank did not give the selectboard a chance to sign off on a roadway grant it had been awarded, potentially costing the town valuable funding. Mank also delayed sending payment to multiple contractors without notifying the selectboard, Graziano and Sandvig said in a joint written statement.
In her Sept. 4 email, Graziano told Mank she had adjusted the job description of a not-yet-hired assistant for the town offices to include “the work that the Town Clerk has not been doing.” The assistant would now support the entire town government, she said, not just the clerk and treasurer’s office, as had originally been intended.
“These latest items necessitated a change in approach, as important town business was not being done,” Graziano and Sandvig wrote. (The board chair declined a request for an interview Tuesday.) “After a year of trying to work with (Mank) on the ongoing issues, and trying to find solutions, these last incidents were a significant cause for alarm.”
In an email Tuesday to VTDigger, Mank called Graziano’s comments about his job performance “unfounded” and said it was “simply incredible” she had broadened the responsibilities of a second assistant that his office badly needed.
“Clearly, Mary-Catherine and I have different perspectives on how VT municipalities are supposed to operate and the roles of key elected town officials,” Mank wrote.
It was Spaulding’s resignation, though, that appeared to have caught town officials by surprise the most. Spaulding, himself a former board chair, was not planning to seek another term when he came up for reelection in 2024, Graziano said. But she said she had no idea Spaulding wanted to step down until he submitted a resignation letter.
“I am disappointed to hear that (Spaulding) is leaving,” Graziano said at the meeting, adding that she had “a lot of questions about the timing of all of this.”
In his resignation letter — which he sent Sept. 5, a day before Mank — Spaulding wrote that he did not think a majority of Isle La Motte residents were in favor of “the direction the town government has taken,” namely “more regulation and higher spending.”
He also said he no longer had time for “the many new demands” of holding his seat.
Reached by phone Monday, Spaulding declined to elaborate on his reasons for resigning, and pushed back at the idea that his and Mank’s decisions were linked.
“No, no,” he said. “I resigned first, and it was not a coordinated effort.”
This month’s resignations follow that of town road commissioner Selby Turner, who left his post in July. According to The Islander, Turner cited a “lack of qualified administrative support” from local officials as well as “paranoid, unqualified, neophyte ‘micromanagement’ which has plagued our town government for some two decades.”
At the selectboard meeting earlier this month, several residents in attendance said they were concerned about the town’s politics — and about its leaders — going forward.
“You do realize that now that we’ve had two, three resignations, the selectboard is going to be under extreme scrutiny?” Robin Gutierrez said to the two remaining board members.
Graziano took a pause before replying.
“That is to be expected,” she said.
