HATFIELD — An elected member of the Hatfield Housing Authority is being removed from the five-member panel for alleged behavior that undermined the functioning of the board and its leadership, refusing to attend meetings and failing to stay up to date on required state certifications.

In a 3-0 vote Wednesday, the Select Board terminated Christopher Smith’s position as a commissioner, responding to a written request from the Hatfield Housing Authority and Executive Director Cara Leiper to censure, discipline or remove him, and following receipt of sworn oral testimony from current and former board members and employees about what they saw as inappropriate actions.

“I think that there is a lot of unprofessional behavior, not corroborated by one person, not one instance, but a lot of different instances, and I don’t think that behavior lives up to the standards I think Hatfield residents have a right to expect from a public official,” Select Board Chairwoman Diana Szynal said before the vote that came using provisions of Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 121B, Section 6 that give the Select Board authority to remove an elected member of a housing authority.

Szynal, who also serves on the Hatfield Housing Authority, said that Smith is “clearly very agitated and has a history of acting on behalf of the board without the true authority to do so.”

The other Select Board members agreed with this reasoning.

“The evidence presented just gave us no choice,” said board member Edmund Jaworski, who added that the removal doesn’t preclude Smith from again running for elective office.

Board member Greg Gagnon said the decision was about listening to and backing a volunteer committee having problems with a member.

“I think my decision is best for the town of Hatfield,” Gagnon said.

In defending his actions, Smith said he made no mistakes while on the board and pointed to his long record of service. “I have served for 44 years on dozens of boards and committees, both elected and appointed,” Smith said.

He noted that he didn’t campaign for the position in 2020, but agreed to serve after going to lunches at the Council on Aging and meeting with several residents of Capawonk Housing for the Elderly, the town’s only Housing Authority property.

“I listened to what those people were saying, and they live in fear,” Smith said. “They live in fear.”

Testimony

Before reaching the decision, Leiper was among the witnesses sworn in to offer testimony. Leiper, who is on paid administrative leave for her position, for the second time presented to the board a letter signed by herself and Housing Authority Chairman Alex Malinowski that contends Smith’s “failure to fulfill his duties as commissioner.”

Leiper said Smith had failed to get updated training, missing a Sept. 16, 2024 deadline and still not having completed this as of late March, while a state performance management review noted the only corrective action needed in Hatfield was Smith’s incomplete certification.

Others spoke to Smith’s behavior.

Malinowski said Smith would get upset and argue if votes didn’t go his way and brought a “piss-poor” attitude. “During the time Mr. Smith was on the board, I noticed personally that if there was a disagreement there was definitely tension on the board between all board members,” Malinowski said.

At one point early last year when the five-member authority was down to three members, Smith’s absences meant the board couldn’t meet, which member Judy Schell said meant business couldn’t get done. Disagreements were also problematic. “It was very contentious,” Schell said.

John Wilkes, a former member of the Hatfield Housing Authority for 12 years, said Smith’s election, with 11 write-in votes in 2020, changed the tenor of the board. One of his first actions was demanding that then Executive Director Brenna Duquette provide him records back to 1966, copies of minutes dating to 1973 and corporate organizational charts.

“He wanted everyone to keel over and give him all the information,” Wilkes said. “He was on a mission, he wanted to root out inefficiencies and different things that happened at the authority. He said there was corruption here and different things going on.”

“He was tough to work with, very tough to work with,” Wilkes said.

Wilkes also said Smith deliberately interfered in a grant-funded project to redo Capawonk’s parking lot, missing a meeting so a contract couldn’t be signed and the project would have to start from scratch.

Duquette said Smith also contacted vendors and engineers, attempting to do side projects, hindered the board’s working as a collective body and undermined the chain of command.

“We do know he impeded a lot of the daily operations,” Duquette said. “Countless times he acted on behalf of the board without consent or directive from either the board or the whole from former Chairman Wilkes.”

Smith reacts

In a statement he read at the session open to the public, at his request, Smith said the board has not been looking out for the best interests, safety and health of Capawonk residents, that he disagreed with signing an incomplete contract to enter a three-year arrangement with the Northampton Housing Authority and that, with Leiper on leave, the board should reach out to the Amherst Housing Authority to see if it is open to working with Hatfield on a six-month trial basis.

Following the meeting, Smith, in an email to the Gazette, wrote that the he believes the hearing violated Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30A, Section 11.3, which states. “Every party shall have the right to call and examine witnesses, to introduce exhibits, to cross-examine witnesses who testify, and to submit rebuttal evidence.”

Witnesses for this hearing couldn’t be cross-examined or known in advance. “I was slandered and couldn’t defend myself,” Smith said.

Smith also criticized Szynal for getting appointed to the Housing Authority last fall and alleges she pushed to get him off the board as political retribution for his campaigning for state Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, instead of Szynal, when they were seeking to succeed the late Rep. Peter Kocot.

Szynal said that was seven years ago and that this was about deflecting his own behavior. “It has nothing to do with that,” she said.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.