Town clerk files third lawsuit against Townsend

TOWNSEND — The ongoing legal fight between Town Clerk Harrison Mayotte and other officials in Townsend escalated this week after Mayotte filed a third lawsuit against the town in Middlesex Superior Court.

Mayotte filed the latest lawsuit Monday, and it stems from a request he had made to preserve security footage from inside Town Hall the morning of Sept. 1, the day of the state’s primary elections for which Town Hall served as a polling location for Townsend voters. The request was for all security footage in Town Hall from the hours of 6 to 8 a.m. that day.

In Mayotte’s initial filing he said the reply to that request came on Sept. 15 in the form of footage from nine Town Hall cameras, and an admission that “four camera recordings had been negligently destroyed,” despite a requirement that municipal surveillance recordings be retained for at least one month.

“The Town knew, or certainly should have known, its legal obligations. I reminded the Select Board and every department of those obligations more than a year ago. The law governs the records system; the records system does not govern the law,” Mayotte said in a statement to The Sun Friday. “Four of nine requested recordings are gone. The question is not whether an IT vendor was eventually contacted, but why the Town operated a system apparently incapable of meeting the Commonwealth’s retention requirements, and why an express preservation warning did not prevent the loss.”

Mayotte said he moved for a preliminary injunction “preserving the remaining footage, metadata, and system evidence pending adjudication.”

“A municipality cannot answer a question about missing public records by attacking the citizen who requested them. In the prior litigation, records surfaced after months of delay and only after court proceedings had begun. In this case, the Town’s own evidence confirms four recordings were overwritten,” said Mayotte. “These are not imagined controversies, and criticizing the requester does not make the underlying facts disappear. The Town is entitled to defend itself. But its indignation at being sued in good faith is not evidence of lawful compliance, and its opinion of me is not an exemption to the Public Records Law.”

In response to the latest lawsuit, Town Administrator Kieran Meehan said that when his office received the Sept. 1 public records request from Mayotte, his team “promptly coordinated technical support personnel to retrieve the footage.”

“Five recordings were successfully obtained and provided. Footage from four additional cameras was unavailable due to the existing system’s storage limitations and automatic overwriting of older recordings. This overwriting was acknowledged and confirmed by our technical vendor team,” said Meehan.

Meehan said Townsend “takes its public records obligations seriously,” and that the town’s court filings outline the steps that were taken to retrieve the records. He also acknowledged the financial impact the town faces by having to pay the legal costs to deal with three lawsuits now filed against it by its own town clerk.

“We cannot ignore the financial and operational consequences of continued, frivolous or else unnecessary litigation. This is now the third lawsuit brought by the same individual against the Town in approximately five months. Each action requires legal representation, administrative attention, staff time, and public funds,” said Meehan. “As of this date, we have spent approximately $25,000.00 (this figure excludes Insurance Counsel fees). These costs are ultimately borne by Townsend taxpayers.”

The first two lawsuits filed by Mayotte both stem from disputes over public records requests as well. The first was filed in April by Board of Health Chair Dr. Christian Roman-Ramirez, with Mayotte later joining him as a plaintiff-intervenor even after Roman-Ramirez withdrew his original claim, alleging that the town failed to respond in time to a public records request he had made in February regarding all revolving account budgets for the town.

The second lawsuit was filed by Mayotte directly in July, in response to a Select Board meeting agenda with items for discussion concerning his own powers as the records access officer for the town. Mayotte claimed the discussion items, which were removed from the July 7 agenda before the meeting, were meant as retaliation for the first lawsuit.

In both of those cases Mayotte filed in his capacity as the town clerk, but in his most recent lawsuit he filed it as a private citizen.

Meehan noted the Select Board has items on its Oct. 14 meeting agenda to address Mayotte’s legal actions.

“The continued lawsuits by the Town Clerk combat the good work of Townsend residents, staff, and taxpayers. The Town remains committed to transparency, protecting taxpayer resources, and ensuring that the business of Townsend continues to move forward,” said Meehan.

Select Board Chair Valerie Goodrich said in a statement that she encourages “anyone who is concerned about these matters or wishes to better understand the Town’s position” to attend or watch the Oct. 14 meeting.

“In addition to the lawsuits, we will most importantly be discussing a series of citizen petitions to the Select Board,” said Goodrich. “Speaking for myself alone, I grow increasingly frustrated by the current situation in Townsend, where personal grievances and longstanding disagreements, often with roots in the distant past, divert attention and resources from the different statutory responsibilities we have as elected officials. I do not believe that serves the best interests of our residents. At its worst, it could eventually affect administrative stability.”

Goodrich’s statement concluded “I will close with an appeal to municipal officials and leadership throughout the Commonwealth to pay attention to our small town. The situation in Townsend raises much broader concerns about the power of AI-assisted litigation to amplify disputes and disagreements and repeatedly disrupt day-to-day municipal operations. Those concerns deserve careful consideration beyond Townsend.”

One of the citizen petitions Goodrich referred to was one organized by Townsend resident Dawn Priest, who collected the signatures of Townsend voters and submitted them to the town clerk’s office with the intent of bringing two warrant articles to a special Town Meeting. One article would amend the fiscal 2027 budget to transfer funds from Mayotte’s salary to cover the legal costs, and the other would permanently reduce his position’s salary.

After submitting the signatures and the filing of yet another lawsuit, Priest said she was still disappointed it got to this point, but felt “grateful that there is this avenue for voters, empowered by our statutory authority, to preserve our taxpayer dollars to the best of our ability.”

“The petitions were turned in with more than the required number of signatures, and I look forward to the prompt completion of the certification process and the setting of a Special Town Meeting date,” said Priest. “As for the new lawsuit, it is my opinion that asking the Court to order production of something that he is fully aware does not exist is a further waste of taxpayer dollars and Town resources. After reading his pleadings, as well as the correspondence that he references in them (received through a public records request), my opinion is that he is attempting to create a misleading “gotcha” narrative based on his distorted characterization of facts.”

Priest said Mayotte’s “departure is necessary.”

“I believe that Harrison remaining in office is dangerous to the wellbeing and stability of our community.  Many residents share this opinion and are discussing a recall petition. For the sake of his own dignity, I prefer to see him resign voluntarily,” said Priest. “Unfortunately, based on his decisions to date, I have little confidence that he will choose to do something that is in the best interests of the community.”

In multiple filings by the town in response to Mayotte’s latest suit, the town cited Mayotte’s relative youth as a factor.

“With due respect, Mr. Mayotte’s actions and behaviors are reflective NOT of a pervasive governance problem in Townsend, BUT, of Mr. Mayotte’s own youth, inexperience and inability to collaborate with other town officials with an eye toward the greater good,” said one filing by the town.

Mayotte was elected to the town clerk role in the local election in spring 2025 at the age of 20.

Later in the same filing, the town gave the supposed reason for Mayotte’s request of the security footage.

“The motivation for Mr. Mayotte’s request was, as might be suspected, a quest by him to embarrass, malign or otherwise discredit the administration,” said the town, identifying Sept. 1 as primary day. “According to a ‘self report’ sent by Mr. Mayotte to the Elections Division of the Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth shortly thereafter, between 6:30 a.m. and 7:35 a.m. … as the automatic, electronic locking mechanism was not programmed properly. The issue was rectified promptly, and ultimately by the Chair of the Select Board herself, but was enough to prompt Mr. Mayotte to file the aforementioned ‘Self-Report,’ to submit a formal complaint to the Town Administrator and make the public records request now at issue.”

Polls opened on primary day at 7 a.m.