On April 13, Jonathan DeLaBruere the Duxbury Select Board assistant announced his resignation. DeLaBruere has worked as Duxbury’s Select Board assistant since 2018 and has played a key role in finding, applying for, understanding and locking down road construction grants for the town. That said, his position has been a controversial, especially after a reporter for the now defunct Waterbury Record found that DeLaBruere was logging 40-hour weeks for what was supposed to be a 20-hour a week part-time job, and in some cases, logging overtime.
Some Duxbury residents were upset at the increased tax burden associated with DeLaBruere’s pay, especially when a reporter noted discrepancies on his time card. Specifically, in one instance, Mike Verillo of the Waterbury Record found that DeLaBruere had logged an hour on his time card for a phone call with Verillo that lasted 13 minutes and 16 seconds.
However, both select board assistant benefits and inconveniences will disappear with DeLaBruere’s resignation. His resignation letter reads as follows:
“Please accept this email as my letter of resignation with the town of Duxbury. The last day I will be available for work, if the select board so chooses, will be Friday, June 4, 2021. I certainly want to make this transition as seamless as possible to ensure no delays in project timelines and deliverables occur. I expect that we will need to schedule a few special meetings in the next couple of weeks and months to transition each project to the select board and go over all of the details.”
When asked why he resigned, DeLaBruere told The Valley Reporter the reason was simple: “In February of 2020, I accepted a full-time position with the town of Fairfield as their town administrator. At that time, I had agreed to continue providing assistance to the Duxbury Select Board in wrapping up some outstanding projects. With those projects either completed or in a good place for easy transition, I felt it was the right time to officially resign. My last day of employment will be Friday, June 4, 2021,” said DeLaBruere.
Now, the question is whether or not the Duxbury Select Board will be able to function temporarily without a grant specialist like DeLaBruere. The board has not made any decision as to his replacement yet, but has made it clear that the select board assistant position is a valuable one.
“The position of select board assistant was created to support the select board,” said select board chair Mari Pratt. “A job that can be a thread to hold multiple select boards over multiple years in a holding pattern, as to not alter any pathways in active projects. In my opinion, Jonathan, as our first, has taught the select board what we want from this position.”
