Addison County Sheriff Peter Newton is calling the actions of Brandon Town Manager David Atherton and the town’s selectboard an example of “corruption,” adding that the days of doing business with a “wink and a nod” have to end.
The town manager and selectboard don’t have anything nice to say about Sheriff Newton, with the panel voting at a recent meeting to term actions by the sheriff “inappropriate.”
Both sides are bringing complaints to higher entities to investigate the actions of the other.
The war of words stems from a speeding ticket issued by a sheriff’s department deputy last month to the son of the Brandon town manager. That has sparked an increasingly heated dispute over a public records request seeking video footage from the stop.
At the center of the matter are competing claims of inappropriate conduct by Atherton for allegedly using his position to influence the outcome of the ticket, and Newton for his alleged unprofessional conduct as well as foot-dragging in fulfilling the records request.
The allegations by one side against the other have been raised at a public meeting, on social media and Wednesday at a 10 a.m. press conference the sheriff held at the department headquarters in Middlebury.
The speeding ticket that started the ongoing tit-for-tat was for $305 issued the afternoon of July 9 to Atherton’s 17-year-old son for allegedly driving 58 mph in a 30-mph zone on Lake Dunmore Road in Salisbury.
Shortly after, according to the sheriff, Atherton called the sheriff’s department from a Brandon town government phone number.
“Mr. Atherton advised his son has just been issued a ticket and there was no way he could have been speeding,” the sheriff said at the press conference Wednesday, reading from a document he had prepared outlining his department’s interactions with the town manager.
Atherton, according to the sheriff, said the radar device must not have been working properly and asked to speak to the deputy who issued the ticket. Instead, Newton said, he was given the process for contesting a ticket and told that he and his son could talk to the deputy at the hearing.
Then, the sheriff said, Atherton said his son had come home crying and feeling intimidated, and was again informed about the process for challenging the ticket.
A few days later, on July 14, Newton said Atherton contacted the sheriff’s department again, challenging whether his son was speeding and asking to see the video footage from the stop.
But the sheriff’s department wouldn’t provide that footage.
“As this was still a complaint about the traffic ticket, Mr. Atherton was advised of the process for contesting the ticket and requesting a copy of the video from the Judicial Bureau to prepare for the hearing,” the sheriff said at Wednesday’s press conference.
“Mr. Atherton advised,” according to the sheriff, “in his experience working with the town of Brandon, ‘we don’t do it that way.’”
Later that day, Newton said, Atherton called the sheriff’s department, saying he had talked with the town’s police chief, who told him he had a right upon request to see the video, and he would be making a formal public records request.
Within a couple of hours, according to the sheriff, that formal request was made from the town manager’s official email account, asking that the material be sent to that same email address.
On July 19, the sheriff said, Atherton reached out to the sheriff’s department again, speaking to the department’s business manager and saying that it was late in responding to his request.
However, Newton contends that his agency under the law had three days to respond, and the “clock” starts running on the first full day after the request is made, meaning he had until the close of business July 19 to respond.
In an email dated July 19, Newton wrote to Atherton that it would cost $21.57 to cover the expense of fulfilling the records request, and the records could be picked up at any time.
Later that day, Newton wrote another email to Atherton that was copied to Brandon Selectboard members, stating it was “brought to my attention that you mentioned you were the Brandon town manager several times on two different phone calls you made to our office looking for records of a speeding complaint.
“I’m not sure what you being the town manager of Brandon has anything to do with the business you were calling about,” the sheriff said. “If it had something to do with town business, can you please explain to me how?”
In response, Atherton, in an email the next morning on July 20, wrote to Newton, “I mentioned this during our conversations because we also have a police department and Brandon and I know that if someone called our police chief stating that they felt intimidated during a traffic stop, he would want to see the body cam footage to determine what took place and to watch our officers’ behavior.”
Atherton said he found it “odd” that Newton had sent the email to ask that question at 9 p.m. and had emailed it to the entire Brandon Selectboard.
On the afternoon of July 20, Atherton arrived at the sheriff’s department with the needed money and was provided the requested materials, according to the sheriff. Accompanying Atherton was Tim Guiles, a Brandon Selectboard member.
Newton said Guiles told him he believed it was wrong to include the selectboard on the email exchanges.
After Guiles and Atherton left, Newton fired off another email addressed to the “Brandon Selectboard.”
He wrote that Guiles and Atherton had just been at his office and that Atherton picked up the records he had requested, “which was sent to us through a town of Brandon email address. Mr. Guiles thinks it inappropriate to include the selectboard in this; I do not.”
Newton then asked for an “official response” from the selectboard on the matter.
That official response came at a Brandon Selectboard meeting July 26, when, after an executive session, the board unanimously agreed on a response to Newton.
It stated that the right to obtain public records is vital for a democracy. The board added that its members had been notified by Newton on July 19 that Atherton had made a public records request to the sheriff’s department.
The board, the statement added, “finds this action on the part of Sheriff Newton to be inappropriate” and the panel members would be filing a complaint with the Vermont Criminal Justice Council for unprofessional conduct.
In addition, Atherton said Wednesday he also contacted the Vermont Criminal Justice Council to file an unprofessional conduct complaint against Newton.
Attempts to reach someone at the criminal justice council Wednesday were not successful.
Meanwhile, Newton said Wednesday, he is calling on the Vermont Attorney General’s Office to investigate the affair.
Newton said he believed that Atherton had raised his position in an attempt to “intimidate” his department to “influence the outcome of the ticket” written to his son.
“I think it was a misuse of his position,” Newton said of Atherton. “I think it needs to be out there that he is using his position to try to change the outcome of a ticket.
“The days of doing business with a wink and a nod and a slap on the back have to end.”
Charity Clark, chief of staff for Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan, said Wednesday afternoon the office had not yet received such a complaint from Newton.
Atherton denied Wednesday that any intimidation was at play or that events had gone as Newton outlined. As Brandon town manager, he held no power or sway over the sheriff’s department, he said.
“My father would say, ‘Being the town manager and $1.10 gets you a cup of coffee at McDonald’s,’” Atherton said. “I have authority over employees for the town of Brandon. That’s it.”
Atherton called the whole situation “ridiculous.”
“I wanted to get some information. I was denied that information a few times. I did a formal request,” Atherton said. “He’s going to argue it was done in the [right] amount of time, but it was not.”
It was only after he reached out to the sheriff’s department July 19, Atherton said, that it responded to his request.
Atherton said that, when he went to pick up the materials, he brought someone with him because he knew it wasn’t going to go well and he wanted a witness there. He said that, at the sheriff’s department, Newton called him into a room.
In that room, Atherton said, Newton asked him for permission to put his son’s traffic stop video online to show how a traffic stop is supposed to be done.
“I said, ‘I’m not giving you permission to put my kid’s video on there. He’s a minor,’” Atherton said.
Next, according to Atherton, Newton told him that he would put all the emails Atherton had sent online.
“I’m like, go ahead. What have I done here? I’m trying to get some information,” Atherton said.
He described Newton at that time as “fired up” and not listening to him.
“I looked at him,” Atherton said, “and I said, you know what, you do what you’ve got to do. I’m going to do what I got to do, and right now I’m going to leave.”
Atherton said Newton then spoke to Guiles, getting in his face and asking him questions about the selectboard’s position on the matter. “I was shocked,” Atherton said of how Newton behaved.
On Wednesday, Newton said he had a simple reason for questioning Guiles and including the selectboard on the emails, since that is the body that supervises Atherton.
“Should I just blast him on social media?” Newton asked.
A later post by the Addison County Sheriff’s Department on its page, above a recent newspaper report on the incident, did just that. It stated, “At the sheriff’s department, we pride ourselves in standing up against corruption. That is exactly what this is. A serious misuse of a position of a town manager and a selectboard doubling down.”
VTDigger requested the video footage from the traffic stop, but Newton said Wednesday the deputy who could make the video available was not working that day. He said he would provide the video by Monday.
He said that, in his review of the video, he believed the deputy acted appropriately.
“I’ve got to tell you,” Newton said at the Wednesday press conference, “it was probably the best traffic stop I’ve ever seen.”
Atherton, who has also seen the video, did not contest the actions of the deputy.
“I don’t think the officer was out of line,” Atherton said. ”My kid getting stopped is not even the issue; now this has taken on a life of his own.”
He also said, “There may be a libel case coming out of this, who knows.”
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