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Methuen

Methuen city councilor strikes deal with ethics board

Methuen City Councilor Joyce Campagnone is no longer collecting a $400 monthly stipend for serving on the council. She also has paid a $1,000 civil penalty for violating the state’s conflict-of-interest law and $4,000 in restitution to the city. That’s the gist of a disposition agreement that Campagnone, a full-time, paid employee of the Greater Lawrence Sanitary District, which includes Methuen, reached with the the State Ethics Commission. According to her lawyer, Peter J. McQuillan, Campagnone had been told by the city attorney in 1992, soon after she was first elected to the City Council, that “as long as she didn’t vote on anything pertaining to the [sanitary] facility, there was no conflict of interest.” The ethics commission, citing a law prohibiting municipal employees from holding multiple paid positions with the same city or town, differed. On Jan. 22, 2014, the commission’s enforcement division notified Campagnone that she could continue to hold both positions as long as she accepted compensation from only one of them. She requested a hearing on the matter, McQuillan said, receiving money for both posts as she awaited a resolution; the $4,000 in restitution came from that 10-month period.


Brenda J. Buote can be reached at brenda.buote@gmail.com.

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