6th Annual Fall Fest Will Be Held on Central Street This Saturday

by Inanna Arthen
The 6th Annual Winchendon Fall Fest will be held on Central Street between Blair Square and Maple Street on Saturday, October 22 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The street will be closed to vehicle traffic for the day, as both sides of Central Street will be lined with booths, tables, pop-up tents and food trucks. (Parking on Central Street will be banned starting at 9:00 p.m. on Friday night, October 21 to allow for marking spaces and set-up.)

174 vendors have signed up for the event, ranging from non-profit organizations and town groups to crafters, authors, small business people, churches, and musicians. Family-friendly activities include raffles, bouncy houses and face painting.

The Fest will feature a number of performances and demonstrations. Schedules and locations will be posted in various places.

• The Animal Craze traveling Petting Zoo will have live animals for children (and grown-ups) to enjoy.
• Magnolia Studio will host the Nagasri Dancers' debut belly-dance performance in their tent in front of the Clark from 12:15-12:30 p.m.
• The Winchendon Police Department will hold K-9 demos with their newest "officer," K-9 Blitz, and his handler, Officer Wironen, at 11:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.
• The Winchendon Fire Department will be doing fire safety and firefighting demos at 12:00 and 1:30 p.m.
• Music will be provided through the day by the duo Two for the Road from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., Winchendon's favorite rock 'n' roll cover band, The BIG RanDom from 12:30 to 3:00 p.m., DJ Kayden Gordon spinning country-western tunes from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and solo performer Ron Morrey from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The BIG RanDom will be collecting non-perishable food for the Winchendon CAC.

All this entertainment and walking will make families hungry! There will be plenty of food options to try, from one end of the street to the other.

• Not Just Produced will be offering barbequed food and more, along with the Glen Caffé, both in front of Not Just Produced.
• The Harbour will have a tent in the GFA parking lot serving food and craft beers.
• The Kiwanis will have their "world famous" food tent up and sizzling for you.
• Theara Spicy Kitchen food truck will serve authentic Southeast Asian cuisine.
• All Purpose Bakery will vend unique baked goods.
• Uncle Joey's Cannoli truck will be serving up cannoli of every kind.
• Jackson Effie Coffee Cabin will offer small-batch locally roasted gourmet coffee.
• Fidelity Bank will have its popular ice cream truck dishing up ice cream.
• Two Foxes Farm Pizza will be vending its wood-fired gourmet pizzas and more.
• The Unitarian Universalist Church will be selling its popular "church chili," hotdogs, corn muffins, and beverages.
• The Winchendon CAC will have a table with empanadas and chili. The YCM Sunshine Café will be there selling lemonade and tea.

Along with these, eateries up and down Central Street will be open and eager to serve you, including (starting at the bottom and working up) Dunkin Donuts, Cumberland Farms, Subway, Friends Garden, Christo's Place, C&S Pizza, Gabby's Pizza and PJ's Slush Stop.

The Winchendon Recreation Department will be set up by the Clark Memorial YMCA and will be running several activities, free to all, including the following:

Pie Baking Contest
Check-in and drop off your pie between 9:00 a.m. and noon (no pre-registration, just bring the pie). Judging will take place at 12:15 p.m. and awards will be announced at 1:00 p.m. Pies will be judged in three categories: Best Tasting, Best Presentation and Most Creative, with 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes.

Pie Eating Contest
Ages 7-12 will start snarfing at 11:30 a.m.
Ages 13-18 begin at 12:30 p.m.
Adults age 19 and up begin at 1:30 p.m.

Pumpkin painting will go on throughout the day.

Fall Fest was bumped ahead this year from its traditional Indigenous Peoples' Day/Columbus Day weekend date, due to the Central Street Reconstruction Project. It looks like the weather will be excellent, sunny with temperatures in the 60s. Come on down, see the all new and improved Central Street, and join Winchendon's biggest event of the year!

BOS Vote to Classify Conservation, BOH members as Special Municipal Employees

by Inanna Arthen
A debate about classifying members of the Board of Health and the Conservation Commission as Special Municipal Employees according to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Ethics Commission rules took two meetings to resolve but finally was approved in a 3-2 vote.

The discussion was prompted because of a specific individual's circumstances with respect to the town, but the classification is a general one and applies to any person holding the positions classified, not just a given individual. In this instance, Winchendon resident Glenn LaRochelle, who serves on both the Board of Health and the Conservation Commission, had been hired as a paid part-time employee for the Department of Public Works, potentially raising questions of conflicts of interest. The Special Municipal Employee designation is intended to address this by relaxing some of the strict conflict-of-interest rules.

In the September 12 meeting, Town Manager Justin Sultzbach began by explaining that "a situation that happens in small towns pretty frequently because there's a lot of overlap, you're drawing from a smaller population. And so you see a lot of double coverage on different boards or committees, but also people that work for a municipality that also volunteer their time as a resident on a board or committee. So in this instance, for Mr. LaRochelle, he works with Department of Public Works, but he also volunteers on the Board of Health. He volunteers on the Conservation Commission, he does not receive a salary for those two. And so it'd be typical in this situation if the board is agreeable to voting the role, but not the individual to be a Special Municipal Employee." The Board of Selectmen can decree this designation as they see fit.

Mr. Sultzbach proposed that the roles, or positions of member of the Conservation Commission and member of the Board of Health carry Special Municipal Employee status.

Selectman Barbara Anderson said, "[The] problem with that form is it gets filled out, it gets filed in the Town Clerk's office and forgotten about, and I don't think that excuses him from voting and not recusing, when he should recuse under those circumstances. He told me when we appointed him to Conservation that he would recuse if it were necessary, if there was a conflict, and I would expect him to do the same on Board of Health regardless of the form, just because the appearance of impropriety is more important, that we don't want people at home to say, 'well, he voted that way because he worked for DPW' ."

Mr. Sultzbach said, "I can stress that to him on the employee side of things, as a request that he do in instances where there may be that perception, that he takes the time to just quickly recuse himself or to at least call it out and make reference to it."

Board Vice Chair Rick Ward said, "This is the conflict of interest law. Even though we may get irritated at it at times, and I know some of us has crossed the line. I'd be one of them and had to be corrected. But the guidelines are good. And I really have a problem because what this does is the conflict law is less restrictive for people designated Special. So now it gives them, they can hold multiple jobs, they can have business interests, and it starts pushing that envelope wider." Unless there was a demonstrated problem with the town losing people because they were not Special Municipal Employees, Mr. Ward said, he didn't see it as something the Board had to address.

Mr. Sultzbach said that with Mr. LaRochelle's employment by the DPW, "he is technically in conflict unless this vote goes through." It wasn't a simple matter of a member of a board or committee agreeing to recuse themselves from certain issues, he said. "Mr. [Lionel] Cloutier, by example, is on the Conservation Commission and the Board of Health. He covers both. So same thing down the road, if he held a paid position in town that exceeded that amount of hours, he too would be in violation. So it's kind of a weird dynamic and like I said, you don't really run into it a lot...the reason that the state Ethics Commission has a ruling on this and a maneuver that you can do to make sure it's legally covered is because it happens."

Department of Public Works Director Brian Croteau rose to clarify that neither the BOH nor the Conservation Commission have any oversight of the DPW, including the transfer station. There would be no financial or jurisdictional conflicts.

Mr. Sultzbach agreed with the perception of impropriety being a concern even if it doesn't reflect reality. "What I'm trying to highlight is that it literally could never be the reality by design, the way our organization is designed, it could never be the reality," he said. "Perception we can't really do much about, but the things that we can do, among them is voting something like this in place and having them fill out a disclosure form so that it's on record, so that at least helps with the appearance. I hear around town all sorts of things about the way certain things look, believe me, and there's not much you can do about it beyond trying to do the right things and put these type of procedures in place."

The Board discussed whether Mr. LaRochelle should come before the Board and specifically agree to recuse himself from anything which would involve a conflict of interest, and whether every member of the BOH and Conservation would have to do the same since the Special Municipal Employee designation automatically applies to the role/position of every member of those bodies, not individuals. Mr. Sultzbach said that the Special Municipal Employee designation is standard practice and is basically "just paperwork."

The Board postponed voting on the proposal until their next meeting, since the motion needed to finalized by the town's legal counsel.

The Board took up Mr. Sultzbach's proposal again at their meeting on Monday, September 26. Mr. Sultzbach began by explaining that the term "Special" does not mean any employee is getting "special privileges." The designation is in the interests of transparency.

Ms. Anderson stated that she thought it was "dangerous" to "issue a blanket statement that anybody that serves on the Board of Health or Conservation gets Special Employee status." She went on, "in the case of the gentleman that stepped forward? He's claimed he was [employed by the town] and he's stated he would recuse himself. All that needs to be said and then I trust he will. And each time state, 'because I'm an employee of the town.' I need to have that happen."

Mr. Ward said that the Special Employees do get special treatment because the rules are relaxed for them. "When you take office or you join any committee, you raise your hand and take the oath to the town of Winchendon," he said. "And in that oath you agree to follow all the conflict of interest rules. We'd have to sign statements if we're in a conflict. It's already there. Why are we picking two organizations, the Conservation Commission and Board of Health for special treatment? Will this eventually lead to everybody being relaxed?"

Selectman Danielle LaPointe said that a "blanket statement" was the only legal way to handle the situation. Mr. Sultzbach affirmed that without this, Mr. LaRochelle would have to quit his job or resign from both boards.

Mr. Sultzbach clarified that it wasn't simply an issue of a board member recusing themselves. "Functionally this is something that we should do," he said. "I have done it before in a similarly sized community with very little fanfare. It is not as freeing and liberating as I think it's been perceived to be. It's paperwork. It's just paperwork. There's no way that it could be abused and it's literally a law written by the legislature that upholds, it's from the Ethics Commission."

After some further debate, Ms. LaPointe made a motion "to designate members of the Board of Health and Conservation Commission as a Special Municipal Employee in accordance with General Laws Chapter 268." The motion passed 3 to 2, with Mr. Ward and Ms. Anderson casting the nay votes.

What's Your Story? Join the Beals Memorial Library for Generation Stories!

Join the Beals Memorial Library in Winchendon this November for a unique storytelling experience with their Generation Stories program! The library will be connecting Winchendon teens and elders from Broadview Assisted Living for two sessions of intergenerational storytelling, sharing, and collecting, led by storyteller and educator, Norah Dooley.

Generation Stories will take place on two consecutive Thursdays in November, beginning on November 10, and concluding on November 17, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Participants will gain a recognition of and appreciation for another generation's history, background, culture, and more!

Leading this fun experience is critically-acclaimed children's author, Norah Dooley. Norah specializes in teaching people how important their stories are and how to tell them. Through StoriesLive.org she has helped teach storytelling to thousands of high school and middle school students. Norah has been featured as an Exchange Place storyteller at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN, the Clearwater Festival, the Newport Folk Festival, and several Cambridge Revels.

Generation Stories is funded through a federal Library Services Technology Act grant.

The program will be hosted at Broadview Assisted Living, located at 547 Central St. in Winchendon, MA, 01475, and is for Winchendon teens and senior citizens. Space is limited, so registration is required. Online registration is only available for teens in grades 8 - 12. Visit bealslibrary.org or contact the library at 978-297-0300 to sign up!

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