The town attorney has cleared Conservation Commission Chairman Mervyn Taub of any wrongdoing when he suggested that the Hannaford Brothers Co. give money to the town to make up for encroaching on wetlands.

At a June 24 meeting on a variance Taub asked Hannaford to consider the donation since the new store the company is building at Jenkins Road and Route 101 has already infringed upon the 50-foot setback from the wetlands.

“Chairman Taub stated that this was not the most popular project in Town and he didn’t want the Conservation Commission to be perceived by the public as furthering the interests of the Hannaford and the construction people against the wishes of the general public,” the meeting minutes say.

“He asked what would make it a little more palatable. What can the Conservation Commission do to sweeten the medicine so it goes down a little better?” according to the minutes.

Taub mentioned the town is raising money for the restoration of a silo at the Joppa Hill Farm. He also said the commission might be buying some conservation land.

Despite ethics concerns raised by some town officials, town attorney Barton Mayer concluded there was nothing improper about the conversation. “Having reviewed the minutes and various e-mails concerning this affair, I am satisfied that the Commission Chairman did nothing wrong,” Mayer wrote. “Mitigation is a commonly accepted practice for allowing encroachments on wetlands.”

During the meeting, however, two alternate members had said they were uncomfortable with the suggestion. Greg May said it felt like the commission was “buying off a group” and Mark Dell’Orfano said it was “like a shakedown.” Town Councilor Paul Roy, an alternate liaison to the commission, left the room in protest.

Taub thought the proposal was normal.

“This is a fairly standard procedure that, you make your mistake, you should be willing to mitigate for what was done,” Taub said in an interview.

The commission ultimately recommended that the Bedford Zoning Board approve the variance, with no mention of the donation in the motion. But afterwards, Roy, some of the commissioners and a few residents asked Town Council Chairman Mike Izbicki to look into what had happened.

Izbicki referred the matter to Mayer.

“I just had to make sure there was nothing done wrong or anything like that,” Izbicki said. Izbicki and council Vice Chairman Bob Young shared Mayer’s response with Taub in a meeting Thursday, July 31. Izbicki said they did not tell him to issue a public statement on the matter.

“Merv has done a lot of good things for this town,” Izbicki said. “I just want him to know he’s done a good job, but, you know, he didn’t handle things the way they should have been.”

Taub has been on the Conservation Commission for about a decade, half that time as chairman. He is a trustee of the Bedford Land Trust and was a member of a committee that spearheaded the construction of the transfer station and the town recycling program.

“We are volunteers,” Taub said. “We work for the town as volunteers and we serve them to the best of our ability. None of us has any personal stake in these issues.”

Hannaford had applied for the variance after construction had begun. Izbicki said the late application was due to an oversight during the planning process.

“It just fell through the cracks,” Izbicki said. “The town missed it. The engineer missed it. Everyone that reviewed the documents missed it.”

The town was the first to catch the mistake, according to J. Lord, an engineering project manager for Hannaford.

On July 15, the Zoning Board granted the variance. A Hannaford spokesman earlier this week said the company would consider a donation to the town in the future.

“That’s a completely separate item from any kind of review or approval process,” said Michael Norton. “That will happen just as a normal course of being in the community.”

Norton did not view Taub’s proposal as inappropriate. He said the company did not think the chairman was trying to get money from Hannaford in return for a favorable recommendation on its variance application.

“Obviously we don’t think that’s the case because we haven’t funded the project,” Norton said. “People make us aware of things in the community all the time. I would simply take it in that context.”

Any donation would have to be approved by the Town Council, according to Izbicki.