Epsom’s returning selectmen, for whom voters showed a racking lack of support on the March 13 Election Day, said they don’t intend to resign their posts.

“Once I commit to something, I’m committed,” said Selectman Bob McKechnie.

When asked if she planned to step down, Selectman Joni Kitson replied, “No, I don’t.”

On Election Day, voters overwhelmingly passed three petitioned, and legally nonbinding, warrant articles calling for the ouster of McKechnie, Kitson and Peter Bosiak for alleged “conduct unbecoming a selectman.”

Seventy percent of the more than 1,000 voters said they favored Bosiak’s removal, while 76 and 79 percent of voters said they wanted Kitson and McKechnie out.

McKechnie said his first year on the board has been “a real rough year,” especially since the selectmen’s firing of popular road agent Gordon Ellis, who was convincingly re-elected this year.

Selectmen fired Ellis last fall after charges including that he failed to get proper permits for some bridge work, and that he regularly failed to submit timely schedules to selectmen and the town’s Road Advisory Committee.

Ellis lost an appeal to selectmen to reverse their decision, and has since filed a lawsuit asking for lost wages that claims selectmen had no right to fire him since he’s an elected official.

“People think or feel I went in there to do nothing but rid us of the road agent,” said McKechnie.

“That’s furthest from the truth.”

But, said McKechnie, “There were a lot of things that were not done last year from the road agent and from the highway department.”

McKechnie and Kitson each said they hoped to begin this year with a “clean slate” with Ellis, though the new selectmen’s first meeting wasn’t without some friction.

A new year
The board of selectmen, in its first public discussion on Monday, March 19, wasn’t able to pick a chairman.

McKechnie said he’d decline a nomination since “The people have spoken.”

Kitson, who’s previously served as co-chairman and chairman of the board, said the others needn’t bother nominating her.

“Joni will decline,” she said.

New selectmen John Klose and Joanne Randall, just kicking off their first terms, both declined nominations.

Bosiak remained silent.

“Why would you even want a freshman selectman to be chairman of the board?” resident Andrew Walton asked the three veterans of the board. “They’ve been on the job for 11 minutes.”

The board ultimately decided to delay the chairman conversation for a week.

The Monday meeting was also the first time since Election Day Ellis planned to report to the board as the head of the highway department.

Selectmen took reports from all nine other town department heads before Kitson summoned Ellis.

McKechnie interjected, “Before we go there, I think we’ve got to do a quick nonpublic (meeting) for personnel reasons.”

Ellis remained in the town hall chamber while about 50 curious residents were ushered into the hallway for the next half hour.

Selectmen later explained there was a miscommunication about paperwork Ellis had filed in the town hall earlier that day.

“He’s back on light duty. We’ll take care of it in the morning,” said Klose, an admitted friend of Ellis.

But moments earlier, just after the nonpublic meeting, Ellis silently waded through the crowd toward the exit.

“I can’t comment,” he said. “Not that I wouldn’t like to, but I couldn’t say anything nice.”