Winter lights
All-state
Festival of light returns to Shelburne Museum
Soccer coaches name best of the best
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Volume 51 Number 48
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December 1, 2022
Fall migration
PHOTO BY LEE KROHN
Snow geese at Dead Creek Wildlife Management Area in Addison on their annual migration south.
Pierce plans next steps in records lawsuit Judge to review documents requested by former Shelburne planning director LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
A state court on Nov. 17 issued an order in a lawsuit filed by Shelburne’s former zoning and planning director Dean Pierce against the town and its town manager Lee Krohn over a slew of public records requests that he claimed were improperly denied. The split court decision denied many of Pierce’s requests as they were outside the “scope of complaint,” but the judge did allow him to review other docu-
ments. The first two records requests, filed Dec. 24, 2021, were for materials and communications “pertaining to the performance of staff at the planning and zoning department that in any way constitutes a complaint or expression of opinion ... received from any person.” The second request sought any communications or documentation pertaining “to the performance or behavior of town manager Lee Krohn that in any way constitutes a complaint.” Krohn denied those requests
“on the basis that any such documents are ‘personal documents relating to an individual, including information in any files maintained to hire, evaluate, promote, or discipline any employee of a public agency.’” The third request, filed Jan. 3, asked for a variety of communications “occurring outside public hearings or public meetings” between Krohn and former selectboard chair Jerry Storey and former Shelburne Development Review Board chair David Hillman, among others. These
requests related to several development projects in town, communications with the applicants of those projects and a document visible on screen during the selectboard meeting on March 23, 2022. The issue erupted at a contentious February 2022 selectboard meeting when Pierce first made the request for the records, and where Krohn publicly criticized his former planning director. Krohn, at the subsequent selectboard meeting, apologized to the selectboard for maligning criticisms of his performance
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as “a fishing expedition and a witch hunt, seeking to manufacture discord and doubt about my performance as your town manager,” among other comments during the previous meeting. Following that squabble, Pierce filed a fourth request for “a letter placed in the file of a Town of Shelburne employee as a result of Selectboard action taken on Feb. 17,” which Pierce had reason to believe was regarding Krohn. Krohn denied this request on See PIERCE on page 13
Shelburne Road, S. Burlington Maple Tree Place, Williston
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