From the Eagle-Tribune;
Timberlane hires retired AD as consultant
By Meghan Carey
Staff writer
PLAISTOW — Dennis "Bucky" Tardif may have retired from his position as athletic director for the Timberlane Regional school district on June 30, but he's still drawing a paycheck from the district.
Tardif is being paid $30 an hour to help his replacement, Angelo Fantasia, with the transition and putting together the district's strategic plan, according to Superintendent Richard La Salle. Tardif is limited to working 20 hours a week, which he's been doing.
"He's been working right through the summer," La Salle said.
Tardif is a short-term consultant, but La Salle said the duration of his work isn't specified nor is there a contract. Tardif could not be reached at his Atkinson home nor at the athletics office yesterday.
School Board Chairman William Baldwin said the board talked about hiring Tardif as a consultant to help with the transition. It decided it was necessary for a year, he said.
"That's a big job," Baldwin said. "It's a district job."
There is an assistant athletic director, Barry Chooljian, but Baldwin said he didn't have time to work with Fantasia. Chooljian is head of the guidance department and helps with athletics when he can, Baldwin said.
Neither La Salle nor Baldwin said they knew when the decision to hire Tardif as a consultant was made. The discussion isn't reflected in minutes from any meeting.
Fantasia, a Salem resident, was hired in early April. For the last five years he has served as athletic director in Nashua, a larger district with two high schools and two sets of varsity teams. He could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Still, La Salle said, it is necessary to have Tardif, a 23-year veteran, work with Fantasia in the beginning.
The athletic director position grew over Tardif's tenure, La Salle said. The main part of the job is coordinating the health and physical education curriculum for the seven district schools, and running the athletics programs at the middle and high schools.
But Tardif doubled the number of teams and took on other responsibilities, including managing facility rentals, La Salle said.
The roles were second nature to Tardif, but would be difficult for Fantasia to pick up on his own, the superintendent said.
"It became clear that it was not reasonable," La Salle said. "It's hard for someone to immediately assume (all the responsibilities)."
La Salle said the district was in a similar situation last year when former Pupil Personnel Director Colleen Bovi left. When she was replaced, a number of responsibilities she had taken on had to be spread among other administrators, La Salle said.
And, he said, he didn't want to do that again.
Tardif also is helping La Salle coordinate various reports that will be presented during budget season to assist the district in long-term planning of academics and facilities.
La Salle said he also plans to award a contract to architects Lavallee and Brensinger to study the structural integrity of the middle and high schools. The company will bring back three or four findings on whether the buildings can be renovated or if they will have to be rebuilt, when that may be necessary, and some planning costs, La Salle said.
The New England School Development Council also is studying the schools, doing an approximately $22,000 study of educational space needs, La Salle said. That will include comparing Timberlane programs to modern standards.
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9 comments:
Notice that neither the superintendent, nor the school board chair can say for certain when the decision was made to hire Bucky. No minutes exist!
Sounds like our Lt. Runs the school board the way his boss ran the selectmen!
Ol' Bucky is probably a friend of the Lt.
Whoever is cutting the paycheck is doing so without the proper approval.
How can a board legally take any action, such as hiring a new employee, without taking a recorded vote in a public meeting?
I have been asking that question of the Atkinson board of selectmen for three years now. It is one of the reasons we are in Court.
When it comes to tricks regarding pay, the LT. has proven the master.
What really amazes me is that the LT. is chairman of the school board and he's still working on a degree, at the taxpayers expense I believe.
it doesnt take a degree to win an election.
especially when the chief of police and a selectmen are actively campaigning for you, even on government property.
Atkinson Reporter2 please accept this as an article submission;
The evolution of a costly problem.
Although I grew up in Atkinson, I left to go to college, and now live out of state, but as I have family in town I try to keep up on events in town. I LOVED reading the Atkinson Reporter, and the Atkinson Taxpayers website, and now I love reading this site.
Background now out of the way, I have spent much time reading the atkinsontaxpayers.org website. I remember a lot of these incidents, but seeing it all together in one place is overwhelming. I decided to write about what I felt about reading all of this.
I think we can all agree, even though the police chief evidently does good work with the elderly, he is a costly problem to the town, what with all the lawsuits, resident complaints, shouting at meetings, Gestapo tactics with his enemies, etc. I wanted to examine how this could be allowed to happen in my home town.
As far as I can tell chief Consentino was appointed on a probationary basis in 1978 to the position of chief of police. At that time, as near as I can tell, he had been a part- time police officer for 8 years or so, with little or no formal training, or experience. It was in 1980 apparently that the first problem appeared;( all of this is available in the court documents section of atkinsontaxpayers.org)
A Selectman, Wayne Peak, apparently found that minor fees that the police charged for reports and such, were not being deposited to the town, but given to the patrolmens association(a private organization). As this was money charged by the town for services, Peak determined that it belonged to the town, and characterized the misappropriation of these monies as misuse of funds, or some type of theft. Peak brought his information to the board of selectmen and asked them to punish the police chief, but they refused. Peak went to court, filing a Writ of Mandamus, demanding that the Court order the selectmen to do their duty. He also resigned in protest.
I have to say that the court documents read like an adventure novel, allegations of police harassment, false charges of reckless driving later dismissed, formal accusations of witness tampering, employing agents to fire shots at the police station, complaints to the Mass Dept. of Revenue, untimely audits yielding no results, at one point chief Consentino even sued Mr. Peak, claiming, Libel, Slander, Defamation of Character, reduced earnings capacity, and stress related illness’. These competing claims wound their way through the Court system for 7 years, until being settled for an undisclosed amount. Mr. Peak then threw a party in N.Andover the weekend after the settlement to show off the TWO new Cadillac Eldorado’s he purportedly bought with the settlement.
This case was finally settled in 1988. In 1990 or 1991 there came another issue, then Lt. Rick Daniels resigned suddenly over disputes with chief Consentino. Chief Consentino claimed in the Eagle-Tribune that Daniels “wiped out 12 years of computer database information before he left”. Daniels claimed this never happened, and was heard to state that Atkinson didn’t even have a database in 1979.
In 1996 or so their was some issue apparently with police standards and training, resulting in their visit to town.
In 1997 and 1998 there were endless shouting matches between selectman Fred Childs questions about budget and expenditures in the police dept. and chief Consentino’s refusal to provide clarification to this selectmen, his boss. All of this is detailed in the Eagle Tribune, and on the atkinsontaxpayers.org site.
In 1999, the officers got so frustrated that they decided to form a union. There were “intimidation letters” from chief Consentino to the organizers, resulting in a labor board case, in which the NH Public Employees Labor Relations Board, ordered the “town and its Agent(Consentino) to cease and desist from any bullying, harassment, and intimidation of officers”.
Around this same time Mrs. Childs, then a part time officer herself, in Atkinson, evidently filed a complaint with police standards and training about chief Consentino’s hours, that he worked too many to be part time, and that he lacked the training and education to be full time. Chief Consentino responded by asking one of his officers to visit her house and take pictures of her Hampstead animal control cruiser, he followed this up with a letter to the Hampstead selectmen accusing Mrs. Childs of misusing her cruiser for personal business. When Mrs. Childs found out about this intimidation, and rightly blew up about it, Consentino claimed “I was acting as Phil Consentino resident, not Phil Consentnio, chief” Like every “resident” has access to police officers and police dept. stationary!
In 2003, there was another flap that ended up before the labor board involving officer Lorden, case was settled with officer Lorden receiving payment. There was another labor board case involving Officer Buco, another settlement, another payment. 2003, also saw the infamous “Town that hates Halloween” story, reported on CNN, Boston Globe, Union Leader, AP, Howard Stern, Michael Graham, Howie Carr, etc. Nice Job!
In 2004 saw the first conflict of interest allegations from Brian Boyle, then from Mark Acciard. Acciard, then a budget committee member, filed a code of ethics complaint, which they ignored. He then filed with the Court asking for an injunction to keep the POLICE CHIEF from DECIDING POLICE MATTERS AS A SELECTMAN!!! Should be a no brainer, right? Wrong! Chief Consentino refused to step aside, even after the Court ordered him to, and the Court found this 30 year chief in CONTEMPT OF COURT! He didn’t like that and tried to appeal it to the NH Supreme Court, and they dismissed his case!
In 2006 He was the subject of a Federal Civil Rights Suit against the Town, recently settled! Another settlement another payment!
And Now the Town is currently facing a $3,000,000.00 lawsuit alleging misconduct AGAIN on the part of Atkinson’s police chief! When does it end?
The selectmen could, at any time, during all of this done their duty, and enforced town policy, and reprimanded, suspended, or even fired the chief, but they have done nothing, and the allegations, legal costs, increased insurance premiums, all continue to march on.
I think it's clear what was concealed by sealing the 3/20 school board meeting. The misbehaving coach got a no show job in exchange for leaving quietly. I think we need to fire the school board for engaging in this kind of politics.
Back to topic -
Who voted on this? They have to respond to a request for the backup information (yes, RTK) regarding the hiring of the retired person.
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