Less than a year after a Pines Community Center’s employee was arrested on sexual assault charges and the executive director stepped down, the select boards in both Northfield and Tilton are recommending the towns continue contributing money to the recreation center.
In both proposed budgets for town meeting day, $64,750 is appropriated to go to the Pines. The Tilton-Northfield Recreation Council said this amounts to about 44 percent of the Pine Community Center’s operating costs.
Council president Rose-Marie Welch said she’s hopeful the Pines will continue to have the support of the two towns, given the efforts the nonprofit has made to improve safety for children in its care.
“We’ll find out come town meeting whether they are or not,” Welch said.
The nonprofit has been meeting with Tilton and Northfield officials since last spring, ever since 74-year-old Robert Magoon, the Pines maintenance supervisor, was taken into custody on May 23, 2016.
Magoon was indicted on 13 counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault and one count each of felonious sexual assault and simple assault. He is accused of assaulting seven girls, as well as an adult woman with special needs, between August 2012 and May 2016 at the community center.
Pines Executive Director Jim Doane resigned shortly after Magoon’s arrest. The Tilton-Northfield Recreation Council immediately assessed its security measures, including a walk-through of the Pines building with Northfield Police Chief John Raeffelly.
On July 7, 2016, the recreation council met with both Northfield and Tilton select boards to go over the steps they had taken. Meeting minutes show they equipped staff members with name tags and photo identification, started re-writing policy and procedures, and began weekly staff training.
The council also told the town officials that they were starting the most major of upgrades for the Pines: child care licensing through the state Department of Health and Human Services.
After some initial confusion about the Pines being a municipally run recreation program (it’s not), DHHS informed the recreation council that it needed to undergo the state child care licensing process.
The Pines completed that process in the fall of 2016, and Welch said recreation director Brittni Stewart was named interim executive director earlier this winter.
She was one of about 30 applicants for the position, Welch said, and aims to hold the position permanently in the future.
The recreation center is also continuing fundraising to buy and install more security cameras.
All of these efforts, Welch said, seemed to have gone a long way in rebuilding trust with the Northfield and Tilton communities.
“I think we have gained back a lot of our support – the licensing obviously helped with that,” she said. Welch is still a little nervous about what voters have to say on town meeting day, though.
“You’re always going to have a select few that are not going to support you,” she said. “We’re always looking over our shoulders.”
Town officials in both Northfield and Tilton haven’t heard much chatter about the Pines in the run-up to town meeting.
But like Welch, Northfield town administrator Glenn Smith is reserving judgment until the day.
“Ask me the day of the town meeting,” he said.
In the meantime, Magoon is scheduled to be back in Merrimack County Superior Court next week. He has a final pre-trial hearing set for March 16, with jury selection on April 3. This will be just the first in three separate trials on Magoon’s 15 charges – the other two are set for later this spring.
Magoon posted bail last fall after it was reduced from $150,000 to $10,000. The Tilton resident has been prohibited from being at the Pines Community Center and from having contact with any children under the age of 18. He has also been required to wear an electronic tracking device, to abide by a curfew, and to submit to random home visitations and drug tests.
(Elodie Reed can be reached at 369-3306, ereed@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @elodie_reed.)