LENOX — Interim Town Manager William “Smitty” Pignatelli is leaving Town Hall this week — later than he originally anticipated when he took the job — in part to take care of unfinished business at the Statehouse in Boston as he wraps up his final weeks as a state representative.
But Pignatelli confirmed to The Eagle another reason he’s leaving six weeks before newly appointed Town Manager Jay Green takes over in early January. Pignatelli, acknowledging his role in a verbal flare-up with Lenox Human Resources Director Lyndsay Patenaude on Oct. 30, voiced regret and embarrassment for raising his voice and telling her to “do your effing job,” but using the actual expletive. Pignatelli described the outburst as an intense verbal altercation over her working hours and his view of her job performance.
It’s official, Jay Green is the new Lenox town manager. Here are the details of his contract …
Pignatelli chose not to run for reelection after serving 22 years as state representative of the 3rd Berkshire District.
COMPLAINT FILED
After that altercation, a person at Town Hall filed a complaint anonymously with KP Law, the town’s legal firm in Boston. The complaint alleged that Pignatelli had created “a hostile work environment.” That prompted an investigation by attorney Deborah Ecker. Ecker did not return a call from The Eagle.
KP Law conducted interviews and completed an investigation, said Select Board Chairman Neal Maxymillian.
Maxymillian characterized the matter as a personnel issue, and so the town would not be releasing the complaint publicly. “They felt this should be investigated and I told them, ‘I don’t think we should sweep this under the rug; I think we should follow an appropriate process.’”
In an interview, Maxymillian confirmed that KP Law’s investigation had been completed, that the process has taken its full course, and they considered the matter closed with no further action recommended beyond Pignatelli’s offer to apologize.
“We will make sure the town continues to function so we can hold the Dec. 5 special town meeting, address permit requests, venue requests, until Jay [Green] comes on board,” Maxymillian said. “We’re looking out for the town, making sure there’s a fair process and that the town continues to operate. I’d like the town to know and to feel reassured and that we should move on because we’re trying our best.”
‘IT’S VERY SAD’
Lenox Town Clerk Kerry Sullivan, a 32-year veteran at Town Hall, said interim Town Manager William “Smitty Pignatelli “tried to bring everybody together.”
Town Clerk Kerry Sullivan, a 32-year employee at Town Hall — 10 of them running Pignatelli’s district office at Town Hall from 2007 to 2015 — said the situation is “very sad.”
Pignatelli “doesn’t deserve this whatsoever,” Sullivan said.
“The staff has been questioning what’s going on [with] Smitty leaving abruptly, and still no word from the human resources director,” she told The Eagle. “There’s no direction at all.”
“It’s so sad that this is happening because the whole town deserves better than this. I feel badly for everyone involved,” Sullivan said.
Pignatelli “tried to bring everybody together,” Sullivan said.
“He personally hands out paychecks with thanks every other Friday,” Sullivan noted. “He checks in with people, it was very nice. He doesn’t deserve this; he deserves more respect than this.”
Sullivan said there was an audio recording of the Oct. 30 incident made by someone without Pignatelli’s knowledge. Under Massachusetts law, in-person or telephone recordings requires consent by all parties involved.
As of Monday morning, no plan had emerged publicly for who would be running the town manager’s office between Nov. 29 and early- to mid-January, when Green, who is winding down a six-year tenure as town administrator in Adams, takes over.
Lenox Town Accountant Anna Osborn said that there’s no “hostile work environment” in Town Hall, contrary to a complaint filed by a staffer following a verbal altercation with interim Town Manager William “Smitty” Pignatelli.
Town Accountant Anna Osborn, who started at Town Hall last April, said there’s no “hostile work environment” at Town Hall.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “It’s a very cooperative place.” She recalled hearing from a distance what sounded like “a loud discussion over a difference of opinion” on Oct. 30.
“It was probably a big deal, depending on the personalities,” Osborn said. “It was just unfortunate. Smitty’s done a great job. He has a wonderful reputation across Massachusetts, and for his tenure here to end this way when he was doing the town a favor, to have it end on this note is just very sad.”
Osborn praised Pignatelli as someone who “knows, loves and really cares about this town.” She had not met him before she started work in Lenox. Osborn, a Peru resident, was finance director in Williamstown for eight years before being hired in Lenox by Town Manager Christopher Ketchen.
“He’s done a great job,” Osborn said, noting Pignatelli had initiated periodic staff meetings to open up the flow of information within the building. “If I have any kind of problem, he’s all over it. He’s a man of action, and that’s kind of what gets him in trouble sometimes. He wasn’t just going to do nothing. It’s a hands-on job. He’s fantastic for troubleshooting and solving any kind of problem.”
HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR
In a statement, Patenaude, the human resources director, said that “as human resources director, it is my job to protect the staff, so on Oct. 30 an incident occurred, a report was filed, and it was given to the Board of Selectmen. Anything that happened after that is all on the board to handle, and I don’t have any further comment.”
Patenaude is a 20-hour a week staffer whose office hours in Lenox are limited to Wednesdays.
She had been the human resources director for Lee until late last year, when she departed that 20-hour a week position. She cannot afford child care unless she’s employed full-time. According to Pignatelli, tensions with Patenaude had been simmering since he was appointed interim town manager as of July 1, following Christopher Ketchen’s departure for a state finance job.
In an Eagle interview and in his written account after the showdown on Oct. 30, Pignatelli described his frustration at having been excluded from a decision to temporarily relocate Veterans Agent Doug Mann from Town Hall to the nearby Community Center.
The move occurred as a result of Town Hall renovations, which affected Mann’s first-floor office space that is shared with Patenaude and with Land Use Director Gwen Miller, who primarily works from home.
Outgoing Rep. William ‘Smitty’ Pignatelli reflects on 22 years of finding solutions for the 3rd Berkshire District
Pignatelli asserted that Patenaude “refused to let me know who made the decision, so I told her that I was putting the responsibility on her and that I felt personally disrespected and that the position of town manager was disrespected as well.”
Tensions escalated that afternoon during that discussion in the Select Board’s second-floor meeting room shortly after working hours, though several employees were still in Town Hall.
“My frustration set in and I told her that she should be doing her job, not the town manager’s,” Pignatelli said. “She responded by saying, ‘I am doing my job.’ I said again that I felt disrespected and that’s when she laughed in my face.”
As he was departing for the day, Pignatelli said he told Patenaude in a raised voice to “‘Do your effing job!’ And I walked out. She followed me out and was yelling at me to ‘make my job full-time’ and I responded that it’s not a full-time job.”
Two days later, according to Pignatelli’s account, two Select Board members told him they had received messages from Patenaude about the incident.
“I stated my personal disappointment in my own reaction to her disrespect and that it would not happen again, despite my frustration,” Pignatelli said.
According to Pignatelli, Patenaude declined to respond to his request for an in-person meeting so he could apologize and figure out her work schedule.
During an interview with The Eagle on Friday, Pignatelli acknowledged that “in retrospect, I responded to disrespect with disrespect, which is totally out of character for me.”
‘PROTECTING THE STAFF’
Pignatelli said he had been advised verbally that he had been cleared of any wrongdoing, but has not seen either the complaint nor had any knowledge of who filed it. Also, as of Monday morning, he had not seen the final KP Law report.
“I’m all about transparency and two-way communication,” he said, “but feel that I have not been a recipient of transparency in return.”
Deanna Garner, the executive assistant in the town manager’s office who recently began a medical leave, did not respond to messages seeking information about the Oct. 30 incident.
The fallout has landed hard on the shoulders of Town Hall staffers, Sullivan said.
“What that has done to us is not fair,” she said. “We all have to pick up the slack now in a very unstable situation. We don’t know who to trust. It’s awful, it’s appalling, it’s sick. All Smitty wanted to do was help the town during the transition. I think he took a bullet for all of us.”
link
More Stories
Old Saybrook PD chief says allegation of ‘unpleasant’ work environment is untrue
In Quest For Top Talent, Pay Can Only Get You So Far, New Study Shows
Managing Security and Compliance in a Remote Work Environment