HUNTINGTON — A former Select Board member has paid a $5,000 penalty for having her driveway repaved using town-owned asphalt millings, the State Ethics Commission reported this week.
Karon Hathaway admitted violating the state’s conflict-of-interest law by directing, as a Select Board member, the delivery of about $5,000 worth of asphalt millings to her property for her own use, according to the commission.
When Huntington repaved a section of Route 66 in April 2022, the town’s highway superintendent decided that the town should keep the millings, or ground-up asphalt, from the project, and that they be delivered to the Highway Department garage.
Hathaway’s nephew owned one of the excavation companies subcontracted to haul the millings from the job site to the Highway Department, according to the commission. On the first day of the roadwork, he instructed the driver he hired for the job to deliver the millings to Hathaway’s home, where a large plywood sign reading “Dump here” was set up near the driveway.
After this, the highway superintendent told the driver to stop delivering the millings to Hathaway’s home. The superintendent also called Hathaway and told her all millings were supposed to be delivered to the Highway Department. When the town’s administrative assistant told Hathaway to return the millings to the town, Hathaway refused, saying she did not have the necessary equipment to do so.
The following day, Hathaway’s nephew instructed the driver to deliver additional loads of millings to Hathaway’s home. When the driver told him that he was under the highway superintendent’s orders not to do so, he was told Hathaway had said it was fine and to bring her additional loads. The driver believed that, as a Select Board member, Hathaway’s instructions superseded those of the highway superintendent and delivered at least two additional loads to Hathaway’s home.
In total, Hathaway received at least eight loads of millings, according to the commission. Hathaway’s husband then spread the millings over their driveway over the next several days, making them unreturnable to the town.
The conflict-of-interest law prohibits public employees from soliciting or receiving valuable, unwarranted benefits because of their official position.
Hathaway was no longer listed as a Select Board member in September 2022, but she remains a member of the town’s Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals.