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Belington mayor threatens to remove resident from meeting

Lasky-Setchell

BELINGTON — After having residents removed by police from the last Belington City Council meeting on Feb. 20, Mayor Maureen Lasky-Setchell threatened to remove one of them again during a highly contentious council meeting Thursday.

After two residents criticized Lasky-Setchell during the public comment period at the beginning of Thursday’s meeting, the mayor immediately responded, speaking for the next eight minutes.

“This has gone on way too long,” Lasky-Setchell said near the end of her comments. “And I expect my council to back me up and put an end to this nonsense right now. Because we have a lot of business that we need to take care of.

“We need to get to work for this town, and this side-railing, minutiae show is just distracting and it is debilitating,” she said. “It is bothering all the employees that work for this city. It has caused conflict and it is an embarrassment for our community.”

“I thought you wanted volunteers,” Tana Crummel, one of the residents who spoke during the public comment period, then interjected from the audience.

“OK, I’m not talking to you,” the mayor said. “You need to be quiet or you’ll be asked to leave.”

Crummel started to speak again, and Lasky-Setchell said, “I’m the mayor! Shush!”

The controversy began when Lasky-Setchell had a Belington Police Department officer escort residents from the Feb. 20 council meeting, reportedly including several people who spoke during public comment and several who did not.

The residents came to that meeting to protest Aaron Crummel being served a no trespassing order by the city after he took photographs inside the Belington Civic Center, which he believes needs repairs and is a public danger in its current condition.

During the Feb. 20 meeting’s public comment section, speakers referred to an alleged incident during a sporting event at the Civic Center in 2018, They claimed Lasky-Setchell caused a disturbance in reacting to a referee’s call during the event. From there tensions escalated during the meeting and Lasky-Setchell eventually had police escort the residents out of City Hall.

During the public comment section of Thursday’s meeting, resident Tammy Payne, one of those who was removed from the Feb. 20 meeting, demanded an apology from Lasky-Setchell.

“We have talked to several members of council who believe what we said. We feel the mayor owes us, this council, and (former city police officer) Tyler Harris an apology,” she said.

Then Tana Crummel, the wife of Aaron Crummel and the daughter of Councilwoman Suzanne Wilmoth Skidmore, got up to speak, noting Lasky-Setchell had limited her comments during the Feb. 20 meeting.

“I should have not really been limited,” Tana Crummel said.

“You’re still limited. You’re still limited to three to five minutes,” the mayor said.

“Nobody else was limited,” Tana Crummel said. “Any persons on the agenda in previous meetings have not been limited.”

She noted that she has researched both a city ordinance and state code regulations regarding Belington’s Board of Parks.

“‘The city treasurer shall serve as ex officio treasurer for the Board of Parks.’ This is how the ordinance and the code reads,” she said, “Maureen claims to be the Board of Parks treasurer and has been since 2015.”

She added, “It’s a huge conflict.”

Regarding the no trespassing order against Aaron Crummel, she said, “If it was anyone else besides my husband, it would have never been an issue.”

In response, Lasky-Setchell said she does not turn the Board of Parks’ financial documents over to the auditing firm which performs the city’s annual audit, and as such does not actually function as a treasurer.

“In the five years that I have been running the Board of Parks, part of the Board of Parks, I have made everyone come in that (City Hall) door and pay the bills up front with (city employees) and they get a receipt for it,” the mayor said. “And then they add up the money, they have a talley for it, they have a receipt that they keep in the office for every penny that comes in. And then I usually make the deposit and I pay the bills for the Board of Parks. And that’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way it continues to be done.”

“On top of that, the suggestion or inference that there’s any mishandling of funds since we have been running the Board of Parks is not only insulting, it’s ridiculous.”

Lasky-Setchell then read statistics detailing that in August 2015, the year she first became treasurer of the Board of Parks, the board’s account contained $2,400. At the end of the fiscal year in August 2019, the account contained $9,509.

“I called myself the treasurer just because I made the deposit and paid the bills. Pardon me, I should have called myself something else. I don’t know what that phrase should have been. Maybe it shouldn’t have been treasurer. Apparently that’s bothered a couple of people. It hasn’t bothered anybody the last five years but now all of the sudden it does,” she said. “I will definitely call myself something else in the future if that’s going to be in violation of an ordinance.”

Later in the meeting, Tana Crummel clarified that she was not accusing anyone in city government of fiscal wrongdoing.

“There is not a conflict in any ordinance or any charters or anywhere,” Lasky-Setchell responded. “We went through everything. And we are not in violation of anything.

“So I plan to finish what I started. And then, you know, and then we’ll talk about where it goes from there,” she said.

Later in the meeting, Councilman Craig Bolton made a motion, saying “I move that the city vacate the no trespassing order against Aaron (Crummel).”

All council members present voted in favor of the motion.

Lasky-Setchell was first named interim mayor after former mayor Matt Ryan resigned in July 2019.

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