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Date: 10/18/2023
HUNTINGTON — Former Selectboard member and current Planning Board member Karon Hathaway admitted to violating conflict of interest law and has paid a $5,000 penalty, according to a press release from the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission.
The Ethics Commission reported that Hathaway improperly took possession of the millings, or ground-up asphalt, after town crews repaved Route 66 in April 2022. Hathaway’s nephew reportedly ordered drivers to deliver them to her house, on her instruction. A sign was placed near her house’s driveway reading “Dump Here.” A total of eight loads of millings, worth $5,000, were delivered over the course of two days, which her husband, William Hathaway, then allegedly spread over the driveway. This was despite then-Highway Superintendent Charles Dazelle telling Hathaway and his drivers that the millings were supposed to be delivered to the Highway Department garage.
Hathaway admitted she violated conflict of interest law in September, the Ethics Commission said, signing an agreement and paying the $5,000 fine.
“Hathaway violated the conflict of interest law’s prohibition against public employees soliciting or receiving valuable, unwarranted benefits given because of their official position,” the commission said in its press release.
The Huntington Selectboard office did not respond to a request for comment. Hathaway also did not respond to a request for comment.
In spring 2022, Karon Hathaway resigned from her position on the Selectboard. She is currently on the town Planning Board and was elected as a water commissioner. William Hathaway won a September 2022 special election to replace her as a write-in candidate. He was re-elected in May for a three-year term.
Dazelle also said the events led him to resigning as highway superintendent in Huntington; he now holds the equivalent job in Chester. Followng his election, the Huntington Selectboard voted William Hathaway as its liaison to the Highway Department, and Dazelle said Hathaway acted in retaliation against him for being caught.
“I went down there and told them they created a hostile workforce, which they tended to disagree with,” he said. William Hathaway “had me in front of the Selectboard every other meeting complaining about this, complaining about that. Once they put him in charge of me, it was nonstop.”
Dazelle told Reminder Publishing that Karon Hathaway knew where the millings were supposed to go. He said she had asked him by text message, and he told her they were supposed to go to the Highway Department, to which she responded, “Great.”
“I’m really glad she was found guilty,” he said.
Dazelle said the Ethics Commission decision exonerates him.
“It was proven I had nothing to do with it,” he said. “I don’t operate that way. I try to do everything by the book.”