Clash pushes Lynn board

LYNN – The Retirement Board is making another attempt to cut former library trustee Linda Bassett’s pension following a verbal clash Tuesday between the board chairman and Bassett’s attorney.”Based on our investigation we are not going to participate in payments,” Chairman Michael Marks announced after recommending his four fellow board members refuse to pay part of the city’s $2,582 share of Bassett’s $22,000 annual pension.The board’s 5-0 vote to withhold part of the city’s contribution to Bassett’s pension prompted her attorney, Andrew Oatway, to warn the board “it is taking a position that has no support legally.””The board is now going beyond acting responsibly,” he said.The vote is the latest move by the board to cut Bassett’s pension in light of the 12 out of 24 trustees meetings she missed between 1981 through 1983.Bassett, a Marblehead resident, hired Oatway to fight the board’s attack on her pension and she won a partial victory in July when the state Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission informed the board by letter that only the public library trustees could challenge her trustee service.”The terms on Trustees and the possible termination of a Trustee would be matters within the real and responsibility of the Trustees, not the Lynn Retirement Board,” PERAC Executive Director Joseph Connarton wrote the board.Board members on Tuesday asked trustee and former library employee Janet McGough for her recollection about the trustees’ methods of tracking trustee meeting attendance.McGough said one of the 11 current members spends winters in Florida.”I’d like to think we would make as many meetings as we could,” McGough said.After meeting with the Retirement Board, she told The Item, “I don’t see how if you’re volunteering your time you can get paid in any way.”Oatway told board members Tuesday that his review of library board records indicates other trustees “did not make every meeting” and warned board members “we will deal with” their vote to withhold the city’s contribution to Bassett’s pension.