WILLIAMSBURG — Controversy over two, porta-potty toilets along a shared Hyde Hill Road driveway continued to boil this week after a Board of Health ruling that the privies do not violate town laws.
Not only are residents upset with the decision, but they are fuming over when the board made it. Instead of voting Monday as originally planned, the board said it had all the information it needed earlier and instead met on Friday.
The ruling means that Chris Duval, of 15-17 Hyde Hill Road, can keep the non-working outdoor toilets in place. The toilets are situated on either side of an easement on Duval’s property that is also used as a driveway by Henrietta Wallace of 21 Hyde Hill Road.
Wallace and another resident, Keith Snow of 84 Goshen Road, made formal complaints at the board’s Aug. 1 meeting, asking that the porta-potties be removed.
They contend the toilets are illegally placed within 30 feet of a “of a lot line or street,” violating state law. Additionally, they accuse Duval of placing them there to be purposely antagonistic.
“To him it’s a prank, he thinks it’s amusing,” Wallace said.
Duval has referred to the toilets as “decorations.” He made a brief appearance at Monday’s meeting but did not speak on the porta-potty issue.
Officials who made two inspections of the porta-potties — one on Aug. 1 by Health Agent Valerie Bird and Board of Health member Gordon Luce, and one Aug. 4 by Board of Health chairwoman Donna Gibson — determined that they are not functioning privies, they contain no chemicals, are not in use, and the doors to each have been screwed shut.
As such, the board said toilets do not fall under their jurisdiction and unanimously agreed that no further action will be taken. They called the issue a “civil matter.”
The decision angered Attorney Alan Seewald of Northampton, who represents Wallace.
“Once again you are not doing your job,” Seewald, who maintains that in use or not, the porta-potties are still privies. “I have never seen a Board of Health less inclined to take action within its jurisdiction!”
Residents were not happy with the decision, but they were even less happy with the way in which it was rendered.
At the Aug. 1 meeting, the board told concerned residents that the board would reconvene Monday, Aug. 8, to render its decision. However, later in that meeting, after most of the residents had left, the board opted to meet again on Friday, Aug. 5. They said all of the information they needed would have been gathered by then.
When Gibson read the decision at Monday afternoon’s meeting, several residents were visibly upset.
“You told us last Monday that you would reconvene on Monday the 8th. I put that in my calendar,” Seewald said. “If you made a decision on Friday why are we all here today?”
Gibson said the meeting was properly posted ahead of time, adding if he had “stayed to the end of the meeting you would have heard what we had discussed.”
Seewald argued that the issue had come to a close before residents left.
“They just snuck an extra meeting so our eyes would not be on them,” Seewald said. “It’s outrageous.”
Other residents said that they should have been called about the Friday meeting.
According to Town Clerk Brenda Lessard, last Friday’s meeting was posted the required 48 hours before hand, but it did not include an agenda.
“They are required to post an agenda as well, indicating what they reasonably intend to be discussing,” Lessard said. “They are not obligated to call interested parties to say we are having another meeting on this day.”
Seewald was clearly angered about the process and what he called the board’s “complete inability to deal with Mr. Duval.”
Seewald accused the board of not fulfilling its responsibilities to respond to current or past complaints regarding Duval.
“We complained for months about a hydronic outdoor heater. They did nothing about it. The DEP finally came in and fined him $5,000 because they wouldn’t do anything,” Seewald said.
However, according to Bird, the town’s health agent, the board did investigate those complaints in March and April of 2015, and she herself referred the issue to the DEP.
“The Board of Health is the most powerful board in this town,” Seewald said. “This board is supposed to make sure that the health and safety of the citizens is protected, and once again it has abrogated its responsibility.”
Board of Health member Helen Symons disagreed.
“We do take our job seriously in protecting the public health,” she said. “We don’t take sides and we do our best to understand all of the issues and apply the rules. If we need help, we go to a higher authority.”
Wallace, however, said the board was trying to actively avoid heated outbursts from Duval, who was present at the Aug. 1 meeting and frequently spoke loudly, sometimes interrupting board members and using profanity.
The boards minutes from that meeting state that “It was difficult under the circumstances to have a civil discussion of the matter,” as well as noting that the discussion become “quite a heated exchange between several participants” with the chairperson frequently having to ask participants “to speak more civilly.”
“I really think that they just don’t want to have to interact with Mr. Duval,” Wallace said.
Symons noted that it is just part of the job.
“Yes, it’s uncomfortable when things get like that,” but also added that the board “never felt threatened or intimidated, it’s just hard to hear everyone, and it makes it difficult to keep the meeting going smoothly.”
Bird supported the board’s Friday ruling, saying that she did not believe that they needed or would get any further information on Monday, and that the decision would have been the same.