Londonderry Town Manager Shaun Mulholland pushed back last week on statements made by Town Council Vice Chair Shawn Faber in a Facebook post published ahead of the election.
“I don’t like to dwell in the negative; however, I do need to clarify some information that’s not correct,” Mulholland said.
Mulholland had previously submitted a memo to the Town Council addressing inaccurate statements made by Councilor Deb Paul at the Deliberative Session regarding the Human Resources warrant articles. That memo was read into the record and published as part of the Feb. 17 meeting.
At the Monday night Town Council meeting Mulholland said Faber’s Facebook post also contained incorrect information that needed clarification.
The portion of the post he highlighted stated: “Without policies like this, the Town Manager will continue his unchecked spending, such as handing out raises which average above 16% and even as high as 25%, and burying an over 800K contract in the default budget without voter approval or Town Council knowledge. Ron Dunn and Ted Combes have worked together with me to prevent this irresponsible behavior in the future, in addition to saving the taxpayers over $1 million dollars during budget season.”
“It’s really important to make sure the information that goes out to voters is correct, and that is simply not correct,” Mulholland said.
Regarding the OpenGov contract, Mulholland explained that the total cost is just over $500,000 between now and 2030.
“This would make you think this is occurring in one year, which is not correct,” he said.
Mulholland noted that the contract was presented to the Town Council on Dec. 11 and that it had been discussed extensively during the hiring process and in subsequent communications.
“So that is simply not correct,” he said.
On the issue of salary increases for department heads and positions reporting directly to him, Mulholland disputed Faber’s figures.
“The average salary increase of 16 to 25 percent is simply not true. The average salary increase is 5.3 percent,” he said, adding that most increases were between two and six percent. “I have yet to find anybody who has a 25 percent increase, so that is also incorrect.”
Mulholland played video clips from previous meetings, which he said supported his statements.
“We had a government official put out information that is incorrect. I’m clearing it up by using his own words,” Mulholland said. “The Council was well aware of this. The Council could’ve appropriated zero dollars, but it didn’t. It approved a budget with this amount of money in it, which went to the voters. So it is not true that the Council did not know about it, and it was hidden in the budget. That’s not true either.”
“The information about the salary increases was also incorrect,” Mulholland added, saying it was important to ensure accurate information reached the public.
Faber could be heard making remarks during the presentation, at one point he could be heard saying “He’s lying.”
Mulholland emphasized that his intent was not to attack Faber personally.
“My objective is not to attack him. I’m tired of this business—the toxicity of the politics here—but he’s the one who made this statement and he signed it as vice chair of the council. So when that goes out to people, they believe it because it came from a government official,” he said.
Faber responded that the OpenGov contract was signed on Aug. 15, well before budget season.
“So yes, we all knew about it during the budget process,” Faber said. “We’re discussing the budget process. We’re discussing that there was no finalization made in any of those meetings because we were going through and trying to analyze what we were going to cut.”
Faber said that a week before warrant articles had to be finalized, the Budget Committee requested that OpenGov be placed on the ballot for voters to decide. He said he and Town Council Chair Ron Dunn went to the Town Manager’s office and told him the warrant article needed to be displayed at the meeting.
“It was not,” Faber said. “This was hidden from the public and kept away so this would pass because this is something Shaun wanted. The contract was signed before it was presented before the Council in September.”
He said the Council did not learn the contract had been signed until December, and not from the Town Manager, but from someone else – implying it should have been included in the Town Manager’s weekly updates.
“You’d think a $678,000 contract is something we’d like to care about,” Faber said. “I don’t like this back and forth either. It was inappropriate. It has nothing to do with what is on the agenda, and it was purely yet another political stunt.”
Town Councilor Dan Bouchard later said he disagreed with Faber’s characterization.
“Councilor Faber, you sit there and say he’s a liar,” Bouchard said. “I take offense to that, and I think it’s totally inappropriate for you to do that.”