The top candidate for the executive director position and the representatives of the Carver, Marion, Wareham Regional Refuse Disposal District have yet to strike an employment contract deal, with negotiations now stretching into a seventh week.
The CMWRRDD wasn’t sure last week if it was going to have a contract deal or if it was going to need to hold a special meeting last Thursday, but neither of the potential outcomes came to fruition; instead, according to Marion Town Administrator Paul Dawson, negotiations between the two parties continue as both sides are “still talking.”
“No news,” said Dawson during an October 9 phone interview. “But once something is decided one way or the other, we’ll have to take it to the board either to confirm or to move on.”
Dawson said the negotiations have been “convoluted” these past weeks.
Dawson, along with the town administrators of Carver and Wareham, have continued to work with Bernier to come to an agreement on an employment contract to fill the position left vacant after the CMWRRDD fired former executive director Ray Pickles.
Pickles and his wife, Diane Bondi-Pickles, and former Carver Health Agent Robert Tinkham, Jr. are all defendants of several complaints of fraud and embezzlement filed by the CMWRRDD, having allegedly defrauded the district out of over $800,000 over a period of five years. Pickles, who is still the town clerk for the Town of Marion, also left behind years of mismanagement and missing financial files, which left the CMWRRDD board searching for the missing pieces of the last five years and wondering what to do about the future of the regionalized trash disposal district.
But as for now, Dawson could not say what that future would look like and whether or not Bernier would be a part of it.
“We’re going to have to wait for the board to direct us as to what to do,” said Dawson.
Right now, I just don’t know the answer.”
Dawson did say that the board would likely hold a special meeting on the topic of the executive director position before its next regularly scheduled meeting on October 24 at 5:00 pm at the Marion Police Station.
Carver, Marion, Wareham Regional Refuse Disposal District
By Jean Perry