FORT KENT – The former superintendent of the Fort Kent Utility District has settled a four-count lawsuit and a Workers’ Compensation claim with the town for $185,000.

While it wasn’t clear Tuesday who would pay the settlement, the town has not had a town meeting to raise the amount. Signing off on the settlement, along with the town and utility district chairman Robert Berube, was the Acadian Insurance Co.

Gilles Daigle went on stress-related sick leave on Sept. 4, 1998, when he was superintendent of the Fort Kent Utility District. He was on Workers’ Compensation paid leave until April 1999.

Sometime after going on sick leave, Daigle filed a harassment suit against the Fort Kent Utility District and Berube through the Maine Human Rights Commission. The four-count suit ended up in U.S. District Court at Bangor.

Daigle claimed the district and Berube violated his First Amendment rights.

He also claimed violation of the Whistleblowers Protection Act and retaliation against him for filing a human rights complaint against the district.

Daigle was manager of the utility district for years until he resigned his position in November 1998.

Since then, the district has been disbanded and the water and sewer services have become a department of the municipality.

Daigle went to work for the town of Fort Kent in the early 1970s when the town purchased the Fort Kent Water Co.

He headed the department through municipal ownership and continued when it became a utility district.

“I was hoping to have a copy of the settlement with Gilles Daigle tonight,” Town Manager Donald Guimond said Monday night. “I haven’t received it.”

“In lay language, all of Daigle’s claims have been settled,” John W. McCarthy, a Bangor attorney, said Tuesday. “This includes his Workers’ Compensation claim and his discrimination claim against the utility district and its chairman, Robert Berube.”

The Workers’ Compensation claim was settled for $1.

The four-count discrimination suit was settled for $185,000.

Daigle, who now works for an engineering company, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Guimond’s only comment was that a settlement was reached.

The settlement agreement said the settlement was a compromise of disputed claims, and that payment was not an admission of any wrongdoing by any of the defendants named in the suit.

Daigle had filed charges and allegations in U.S. District Court, the Maine Human Rights Commission, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Maine Workers’ Compensation Board.

His claims included employment discrimination under the Civil Rights Act, the Rehabilitation Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, physical and mental injury, emotional distress, defamation and invasion of privacy.

Through the agreement, Daigle agreed not to apply for employment with the town, or with any business or employer in which Berube has any ownership.

The town agreed to give Daigle a letter of reference.

The civil suit against the utility district,

Berube and the town was scheduled to be heard in U.S. District Court this month.

The Town Council approved pre-settlement agreements last month.