{"id":20883,"date":"2020-01-08T09:54:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T16:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/?p=62401"},"modified":"2020-01-09T09:11:54","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T16:11:54","slug":"granbys-former-town-manager-received-almost-30000-after-he-quit-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/granbys-former-town-manager-received-almost-30000-after-he-quit-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Granby\u2019s former town manager received almost $30,000 after he quit job"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Aaron Blair<\/strong>
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

In an uncommon move, the Granby Board of Trustees gave the town manager almost $30,000 in severance pay after he announced he would be leaving his job.<\/p>\n

Records show Aaron Blair received three months of compensation after resigning from his position this fall. Sky-Hi News obtained Blair\u2019s post employment contract through an open records request and found the town justified the severance agreement by referencing Blair\u2019s contributions to Granby.<\/p>\n

Blair\u2019s post employment contract described a mutual agreement to end his tenure and stated that the board \u201crecognizes the value and service\u201d Blair provided the town.<\/p>\n

As town manager, Blair\u2019s salary was $118,000. He was paid $4,538 bi-weekly since Oct. 2 as severance, totaling $27,230 gross pay at the end of December.<\/p>\n

At the Aug. 13 town meeting<\/a>, four members of the board and four members of town staff, including Blair, went into executive session to discuss personnel matters. Mayor Paul Chavoustie, Trustee Natascha O\u2019Flaherty and Trustee Cathy Tindle did not attend the meeting.<\/p>\n

After the executive session, Trustee Becky Johnson made a motion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to still make the motion \u2014 it might not be seconded \u2014 but I am going to make the motion that we offer our current town manager a severance package of three months when and if he chooses to leave us,\u201d Johnson said at the meeting.<\/p>\n

Trustee Josh Hardy seconded the motion. Johnson, Hardy and Mayor Pro-Tem Deb Shaw voted in favor. Trustee Nick Raible opposed it.<\/p>\n

An unusual agreement<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the mayor, who was not present for the discussion or vote, the town manager\u2019s resignation wasn\u2019t something he thought necessarily warranted additional compensation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think when people resign, that\u2019s their choice,\u201d Chavoustie said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I would\u2019ve supported a severance. (He) decided to leave; it was (his) choice to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blair started working for Granby in the spring 2017 and left the job Oct. 1. He alerted the board of his impending departure<\/a> in July. He had not yet accepted a new position, but made his decision clear to the board. His wife, Jessica Blair, announced her resignation as executive director of the Granby Chamber of Commerce at the same time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoyed tremendously working with Aaron and encouraged him to stay, but they felt they wanted to move on,\u201d Chavoustie said. \u201cI supported him in that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post-employment agreement was in addition to Blair\u2019s most recent employment contract with the town, which was approved in June 2018.<\/p>\n

The contract stated that if the town terminated Blair\u2019s employment without cause, he would be paid a lump sum of cash equal to six months\u2019 salary.
If Blair chose to resign, the terms were different. The contract said he was to provide 30 days notice and that \u201cno severance pay shall be provided by the town.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two town managers before Blair also received severance, but the town fired them in both instances.<\/p>\n

The town manager before Blair, Wally Baird<\/a>, was fired without cause in 2016 and received three months severance. Baird\u2019s predecessor, David Huseman<\/a>, was fired without cause at the end of 2006. He received four months severance.<\/p>\n

Grand Lake saw a hefty severance package following a resignation in 2019, but circumstances were slightly different. In May, Grand Lake\u2019s town manager<\/a> Jim White announced an early retirement after some disputes over his tenure with the Grand Lake Board of Trustees. White received $70,000 in severance as part of his early retirement.<\/p>\n

Aside from Grand Lake, the Sky-Hi News could not find any other instances of a resigning town manager receiving a severance package in the county.<\/p>\n

\u2018Miscellaneous provisions\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Blair\u2019s post employment agreement, while recognizing his work, also set out three provisions.<\/p>\n

The first was cooperation in continuing matters, in which Blair agreed to help with any litigation or possible litigation related to issues he might have been involved with while he was town manager.<\/p>\n

In the second provision, Blair waived all legal claims and complaints against the town. The third provision was a non-disparagement clause that applied to both the town and Blair, stating both parties would only say they ended their relationship amicably and \u201chad no concerns or disagreements about acts or omissions of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

On June 10, Blair also received a 5% raise and a $1,500 bonus, which he requested to be paid as a lump sum. He was paid the $7,400 on June 28, a few weeks before announcing that he would be leaving the town.<\/p>\n

The board plans to announce a new town manager<\/a> on Jan. 14.<\/p>\n

via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aaron Blair In an uncommon move, the Granby Board of Trustees gave the town manager almost $30,000 in severance pay after he announced he would be leaving his job. Records show Aaron Blair received three months of compensation after resigning from his position this fall. Sky-Hi News obtained Blair\u2019s post employment contract through an open […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 07:09:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20889,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20883\/revisions\/20889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}