LIVERMORE FALLS — Bailey Bros. owner Brenda Brochu accused Selectman Ron Chadwick of lying about a Sewer Department truck purchase during Tuesday’s selectmen meeting.

At issue was a decision selectmen made in December 2016 to purchase the Chevrolet truck from Hight Chevrolet in Farmington instead of a Ford truck from Bailey Bros. in Livermore Falls.

Brochu said Chadwick had told her at a selectmen meeting in December that the entire Jay selectboard was involved with the decision, when that was not the case.

“I told you that Jay was involved,” Chadwick said. “The whole sewer committee (the Jay selectboard) was not involved.”

He said Jay Sewer Department Superintendent Mark Holt helped Livermore Falls Sewer Department Superintendent Greg Given get a price on the truck.

“That’s not what you told me a month ago, and you’re weaseling your way out of it,” Brochu responded.

She pointed out that Chadwick had repeated the lie several times “saying you voted to go with the truck out of town because Jay told you.”

“You threw your neighboring town under the bus,” Brochu said.

She added, “You blatantly lied as a selectperson. That is wrong, and you shouldn’t be sitting at that desk if you’re going to play games that way.”

Brochu asked if a vote to spend money for the truck was taken on the phone instead of at a public meeting, and whether or not there was a conference call for the vote.

Town Manager Kristal Flagg said individual calls, not conference calls, were made.

“So you did individual calls to spend money on a public money matter,” Brochu said.

Addressing Chadwick, she said, “Obviously, talking to you, you don’t have a clue what you did nor do you have any remorse for what you did.”

On another matter, selectmen and Fire Chief Edward Hastings IV discussed how the minimum wage referendum passed by Maine voters in November would affect the Fire Department.

“Over the next few years, the minimum wage is going to go to $12 an hour,” Flagg said. “We have some people making $12 an hour. It affects the (pay) steps for everyone.”

Hastings said Fire Department employees who were making less than $9 an hour before the law passed are now making the required minimum wage of $9 per hour.

In other business, the selectboard:

• Approved a bid from James Sawyer of $811 for a dump body insert from the Sewer Department and $2,252 from Alan Adams and Rick Cushing for a 1996 GMC plow truck, also from the Sewer Department.

• Gave Flagg permission to contact architect George Parker to develop plans for repairs to the fire station. At a special town meeting Tuesday, residents voted to spend up to $650,000 in general obligation bonds or notes at 2.75 percent interest for repairs.

bmatulaitis@sunmediagroup.net