By Joseph Edgerton
Staff Writer

The town council found selecting a volunteer candidate to do the job is not always an easy thing to do.

“I love and respect you all and the job that you all do,” said Joleen Worden to the Bedford Town Council. “When I sit in this chair, it’s no different from me lecturing my children when they have done something wrong.”

At the Sept. 27 council meeting, Worden and Bedford Taxpayers Association President Roy Stewart protested the selection process that led to former Councilor Bill Greiner’s appointment as interim trustee of the trust fund.

After being warned to discuss the procedure and not the candidates involved, Stewart and Worden asked the town council why they had not adhered to the advertised application process.

“The person you appointed never sent an application or resume, he just sent an e-mail before the position was even vacant,” said Stewart. “The applicant who submitted an application was never interviewed by the town council. Appoint the person who applied the right way.”

The position became available when Jim Morgan realized he could not serve as trustee of the trust fund and keep his position with the parks and recreation department. Morgan resigned June 13.

The town council began searching for volunteers on March 2. There were numerous applications for trustee of the trst fund and Greiner was picked.

“Jim Morgan inadvertently ran (for trustee) and didn’t know. He notified us on April 26 that he was interested in staying with parks and rec, and would resign,” said Town Council Chairman Bill Van Anglen. “In an e-mail to us, he said that Bill Greiner was interested in the position.”

The Bedford Taxpayers Association wrote letters to protest the Sept. 13 nomination of Greiner as interim trustee of the trust fund, which Worden and Stewart read into the record.

“What bothers me the most about all of this is that a proper application was submitted with a resume, form and a letter of recommendation on June 30,” said Worden. “I can’t imagine why the application wasn’t passed on to all of you after it was received. How was anyone supposed to make an intelligent vote if they didn’t know of any other applicants? You voted blind.”

Packets usually distributed to councilors before a meeting did not contain information about Mark T. Peicker, an applicant for the trustee position. Councilor Paul Roy asked for a copy of Peicker’s information, which was distributed to councilors as part of the “new business” section of the Sept. 13 council meeting.

“Mr. Peicker said he would be out of town, and asked if the interview could be conducted over the phone, which is something we don’t do,” said Van Anglen. “He was mistakenly taken off the agenda. The town attorney said the process we used on Sept. 13 was correct, and Mr. Peicker’s application was not included in the packet because it was taken off the agenda.”

Van Anglen said, at the time of the vote, there were no objections to bringing the matter up under new business at the meeting.

“You can look at the tapes and read the minutes. Not a single councilor objected to what happened at the meeting,” said Van Anglen. “The application should have been given out sooner, and that was a mistake, but it was never objected to in the meeting.”

Town Councilor Michael Scanlon said there is no designated process for interviewing volunteers for a position, although an application is available on the town Web site.

“The application form is not required to be filled out, and it was never the initiative of the town council to create an application form,” he said.

“That is why people aren’t volunteering,” said Worden.

“This is why people aren’t volunteering,” said Scanlon. “They see people’s names getting dragged through the mud, and they see people getting used as pawns. I feel bad for the applicant (Peicker). He was a person who just tried to do the right thing.”

Town Councilor Andy Egan said the board made the right decision in appointing Greiner to the six-month position.

“Joleen Worden began this by hugging me as a scolded child and ended it by questioning my ethics. If you question my ethics, impeach me,” Egan said. “It was a clerical error. There was no smoke and mirrors. I voted as I always did, with the information provided to me and my own analysis of it.”

Councilor Paul Roy said there was some ignorance on his part of the discussion and voting process.

“The part of the process that bothered me the most is that it was not brought up as a discussion, but as a motion,” he said. “There was no time for discussion, and that’s what I’m opposed to.”

Councilor Norm Longval, who was the sole abstaining member of the council on Sept. 13, said a more official procedure should be adopted.

“I voted in abstentia because I was not comfortable with the process. It never came to my mind that the motion could have been tabled for discussion,” he said. “We need to put something together so that something like this can never happen again. It hurts the process.”