Analysis of the Investigator’s Report

Nobody is going to be happy.

This article will summarize and analyze the detailed findings of the investigator’s report on Nottingham’s former Fire Chief and Lieutenant. If you’re new to this story, you may first wish to read the overview of the report. 

There are concerns in town that the investigator was biased and the investigation was conducted unfairly or improperly. To address these concerns, this article will look critically at the mechanics of the investigation. 

Many problems are evident upon close inspection of the text. Several instances in which the investigator’s conclusion appears to be unwarranted are identified. (“Unwarranted” means that the conclusion is inadequately justified, not that the conclusion is false.) 

I find fault with the investigation methodology. The key deficiency is the focus on finding corroborating testimony from witnesses while disregarding searching for disconfirming evidence. In particular, I find failure to investigate available documentary evidence, failure to interview relevant witnesses, failure to obtain expert opinion with respect to technical issues, and failure to consider possible extenuating circumstances.

There have been complaints about the investigation being a “witch hunt” or a “fishing expedition.” I find an element of truth to that, but I reject the loaded terms. The investigator appears to have been charged with asking employees what their specific concerns were and to seek out testimony that corroborates those specifics. This article details why such a methodology is badly flawed. Simply put, the flaw is the investigation focused on finding evidence to confirm claims and takes care to avoid collecting information that might disconfirm those claims.

A particularly concerning flaw in the investigation is that the investigator failed to interview the Chief’s manager and never entertains the possibility that there was a management failure at a level higher than the Chief. Another flaw is that the investigation turned up claims against employees other than the subjects of the investigation. These claims were not investigated. 

While I find serious problems with some parts of the investigation, I do not find problems with other parts. Even the most negative evaluation of the quality of the investigation would not overturn the report’s overall conclusion that the department was in a state of serious dysfunction. 

As the Chief is responsible for the function of the department, the Chief was ultimately accountable for that dysfunction. As described in the investigator’s report, the Chief was directly responsible for several management failures that were causes of that dysfunction. 

Readers interested in the full report can request it from the town. 

The next article will examine the mechanics of the entire process, from when the complaints were first heard by town management to where we are today.

Safety Concerns

Utility Vehicle Safety

Four witnesses expressed concerns about a maintenance issue with the Fire Department’s utility vehicle - a RAM 2500 truck. Brake repair had been delayed so long that the brake pads were totally worn out. The Chief acknowledges that this issue did arise, but that the truck was taken out of service and repaired. 

The witnesses, however, claim that the truck continued to be used for 2 to 3 weeks before being repaired, with several safety incidents occurring. In one instance the Chief instructed a firefighter to drive the truck. The firefighter objected, saying it was unsafe and proposed an alternative vehicle. The Chief ignored the objection and insisted - without explanation - that the truck be driven. The firefighter found that the front brakes were entirely non-functional and nearly hit a mailbox. 

It was also claimed that a sign was put on the truck saying it was not to be used, but the Chief drove the truck anyway, leaving the sign crumpled up in the cab.

The investigator concluded that the Chief had caused unsafe conditions.

(Also raised with respect to the utility vehicle were concerns about the Chief’s use of the vehicle. No fault was found. There appear to be differences of opinion and interpretation about the vehicle use policy.)

Insufficient Operating Procedures

There are differences of opinion regarding whether operating procedures and related matters are properly and thoroughly thought out and documented. 

The investigator concluded that she could not determine whether these procedures etc. were or were not up to standards, that based on witness testimony the concerns are wide-spread and that the Chief appeared to be highly resistant to any suggestion for improvement. 

[ANALYSIS: The investigator should have obtained copies of this documentation and called in an expert to asses these claims.]

No Policy for Vehicle and Equipment Maintenance

Five employees expressed various concerns about the lack of record-keeping and planning for maintenance and the lack of various kinds of minor equipment. There were also concerns about maintenance failures of the furnace and compressor.

The Chief and other members of management, including Lieutenant Ross (redacted, inferred) and another member of management (redacted, inferred to be the Deputy) all disagreed, saying that this is kept on a spreadsheet and discussed in management meetings. 

The investigator found:

… the issues raised by numerous members of the Department concerning the quality and repair of vehicles and equipment are valid and raise questions about the adequacy of communication in the Department as well as the delegation of responsibility to address such concerns. I also find that the concerns raised by the firefighters about the Chief’s refusal, or at least reluctance, to take recommendations about equipment improvements and efficiencies is again consistent with the Chief’s behavior in other aspects of Department management.

[ANALYSIS: The investigator did not do a site visit to inspect the spreadsheet, nor did she review any documentation about equipment repairs to assess. She took the word of 5 employees versus 3 managers to draw this conclusion. Further, if the managers were doing this function in management meetings it’s reasonable to conclude that employees might be unaware of it. 

The investigator’s conclusion appears to be unwarranted both on the face of the witness data provided and due to the failure to inspect the documentary evidence.] 

Canceling Mutual Aid When not on Scene

Seven members of the department expressed concerns about the Chief over-ruling decisions made by those on the scene to call in mutual aid. Witnesses described several examples of such situations that they experienced or observed others experience, either in person or in real-time monitoring of the department’s radio communications. There appear to be substantial differences in professional opinion between the Chief and many firefighters about what constitutes appropriate circumstances for requesting aid from other departments. 

The investigator concluded:

The incident with the woman whose leg was fractured when the tree fell on her is the most concerning of the three. Several individuals expressed the view that the Chief cancelling the mutual aid request was in part due to his general dislike of receiving mutual aid (the Chief has referred to firefighters as “mutual aid happy”) and in part due to his poor relationship with <redacted firefighter>. The Chief’s response to me when I asked about the incident was concerning in that he seemed unconvinced with any assertion that he should have left the decision to those on scene because they were in a better position to determine whether they could handle the situation

[ANALYSIS: Neither the investigator nor I are qualified to judge between these opinions, yet the investigator jumps to the conclusion that these are “concerning.” 

The problem with the scenarios presented is that it is easy for laypeople to jump to the conclusion that more help is always better, or in any case, never a bad thing. In reality, there are costs and trade-offs for everything. An ambulance that is called for an event is then unavailable for another event that might arise. Resources are neither unlimited nor free. Managers cannot throw everything they have at every problem. One of the duties of management is the conservation of resources, often to the displeasure of front-line workers. 

The NH Department of Safety has expert trainers for firefighters. The investigator should have contacted them or some other impartial authority to get an independent expert opinion, laying out the details of each case and the contrasting professional opinions presented to her.]

EMT Service Concerns

TEMSIS Reporting

TEMSIS is a state-mandated online electronic medical record system in which EMTs report the care they provide each time they are called. The department has 17 EMTs, 5 of whom are officers. 9 EMTs expressed concerns that lieutenants Vilchock (redacted, inferred) and Ross (redacted, inferred), who are responsible for quality assurance, often asked EMTs “to change the narrative section of the report and that they sometimes disagree with the changes sought.” 

The process for requesting these changes is to put them on a hard-copy cover-sheet which is returned to the EMT along with a print-out of what the EMT filed online. The EMTs expressed concerns that if they were to be called to testify they may say what it was they originally reported, not what was in the changed report. Many of the EMTs have taken to noting in their reports that “changes are made ‘per Lt. Vilchock (redacted, inferred).’” Making matters worse, the cover-sheets are not retained. They are shredded or discarded leaving no paper trail. Some EMTs referred to the cover-sheets as “hate mail.”

The Chief and Lieutenant Vilchock disputed these claims, saying that the QA changes were largely not substantive - excluding adding missing information - and are mostly focused on spelling and grammar. 

The investigator concluded: 

The QA methodology is problematic. There is almost universal agreement that inappropriate changes are requested which alter the substance of legal documents. The concern about the methodology of using a paper document to request changes or corrections and then not retaining the change memorandum is valid.

[ANALYSIS: As this is a documentation process, it’s surprising that the investigator relied completely on testimonies. Not a single example of a problematic change is presented - not even an example of a report that had been filed where an EMT had noted that changes were made per Lieutenant Vilchock. While the investigator notes that 9 EMTs complained about the process, not a single example of one of the hated cover-sheets is provided. Yes, the originals are systematically destroyed, but everyone carries around cameras these days. Why did no EMT take a picture of even one egregious one? (Of course, obscuring information regarding the identity of the patient in order to be HIPAA compliant.)

It’s also mysterious that such a reportedly wide-scale problem was not previously reported outside the department. TEMSIS is under the jurisdiction of the NH Department of Safety. Why did someone not alert the Director of the Fire Academy & EMS about the problem? Or the Emergency Medical and Trauma Services Coordinating Board? Or file a New Hampshire whistleblower complaint?]

HIPAA Concerns

There were differences of opinion on how well the department’s document security complied with HIPAA. 

The investigator did not find any compliance failures.

Ambulance Equipment

Several employees expressed concerns about outdated equipment which the Chief refused to replace due to cost.  They also had concerns about an ambulance that was for a time operated without heat.

The investigator made no finding.

[ANALYSIS: Department heads are responsible for keeping their department’s spending within their allotted budgets. Nottingham’s voters have enacted a 4% tax cap. The town has for long had a new ambulance on order that has been delayed due to supply-chain issues.]

Unprofessional Comments to EMTs and Patients

Four witnesses reported instances of Lieutenant Vilchock (redacted, inferred) saying inappropriate things, all of which Lieutenant Vilchock strenuously denied.

Three EMTs reported being put-down in front of patients and/or hospital staff. These were:

• Referring to EMTs as “learners” or saying they “need training.”

• Asking an EMT if they knew what they were doing.

• Calling an EMT a “bitch.”

• Berating EMTs.

• Ripping things out of an EMT’s hands while they were rendering care.

Inappropriate comments made to patients were:

• Referring to the President as “that fucking guy” and saying “I hope you didn’t vote for him” during an EMT’s exam of a patient. [A common question in cognitive screening tests is “who is the president of the United States”?]

• Telling a patient who had fallen down stairs and was complaining of pain to “shut the fuck up.”

Inappropriate comments made to an EMT about a patient:

• Referring to a lesbian patient as a “rug muncher” and asking “why can’t they be normal?”

The investigator concluded:

I find that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that Lt. Vilchock (redacted, inferred) is condescending and hypercritical in the presence of patients and non-employees of the Department. I do not find that there was sufficient corroboration of the allegation that <she> (redacted, inferred) made profane and discriminatory statements to or about patients in their presence….

[ANALYSIS: The investigation of the treatment of the EMTs seems one-sided. What if the EMTs who made these complaints were in fact not knowledgeable about what they were doing and were delivering substandard care in time-sensitive situations? Hence there might be a reason that an officer of the department, who is one of the 6 members of the department who holds advanced EMT certification, might have cause to be critical? It would seem that this line of inquiry should have been pursued. 

The issue about comments to patients seems to have been insufficiently pursued to see if they could be corroborated. It was well-known in town that Lieutenant Vilchock was being investigated. Why was there no opportunity for patients to submit complaints about mistreatment?]

Inappropriate Workplace Communications

Nine witnesses claimed that they either observed directly or were told by others that Lieutenant Vilchock (redacted, inferred)  made statements that could be deemed homophobic, transphobic, or discriminatory due to race, ethnicity, or disability. These include

• A former firefighter who resigned from the department after a couple of weeks was said to have been an <redacted>. He was reported to have been bothered by Lieutenatnat Vilchock (redacted, inferred) who encroached on his space, and stepped on and dirtied his boots. When he complained Lieutenant Vilchock was reported to have said, “oh, don’t be such a homo (inferred from “h—o”).  Employees unidentified in the report believe that this employee resigned due to homophobic comments made in the workplace by unspecified members of management. (Management is the Chief, Deputy Chief, and three lieutenants).

• Calling a firefighter a liar in front of other employees when he mentioned that he had <redacted>, and calling him <redacted> or <redacted> when he stated his preference to be called <redacted>.

• 2 incidents, involving calling two different firefighters “spic” (inferred from “s—c”).

• Using a <redacted description of a> slur in front of a firefighter whose wife is of <redacted> descent.

• Referring to more than one employee as a “pussy” (inferred from “p___y”), along with other unspecified inappropriate comments about homosexual, bisexual, and transgender individuals.

• Telling an employee who requested not to drive the ambulance at night because of a <redacted reason> that she cannot use <redacted term> “as a crutch” her whole life.

Sandra Vilchock (redacted, inferred) denied saying any of these things. Jaye Vilchock denied knowledge of the claims. 

Lieutenant Ross (redacted, inferred, and in this section he is named as a witness rather than numbered as in the case of other witnesses, and he is identified as being one of the earliest witnesses interviewed) said he was aware of allegations that Firefighter <redacted>’s wife had been referred to [unspecfied by whom] as a <redacted>. He said that firefighters <redacted> and <redacted> had made “statements” about Chinese individuals and that he had “chided” them for doing so. Lieutenant Ross appeared to be aware of other allegations of inappropriate communications, saying such allegations were false. He disclosed this information to the investigator before the investigator made any specific inquiries with him about potential inappropriate communications. The investigator concluded from this “that there was at least some awareness of these specific allegations within the Department leadership.”

The investigator concluded:

I find the allegations of inappropriate and discriminatory statements to be credible. There were numerous accounts of similar statements being made at different times in the presence of different witnesses…. I also find that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that a hostile work environment was created and/or permitted to continue after notice was provided to the Chief…. I find that the Chief had at least some knowledge these statements and allegations and appears to have taken no actions to remediate or address this behavior. 

[ANALYSIS: As written, the investigator appears to have presented misleading information and to have drawn a conclusion unsupported by the facts provided in the text. The accusations the investigator concluded were valid were accusations against Lieutenant Vilchock. To support that conclusion the investigator used a statement from Lieutenant Ross which referred to inappropriate communications made by employees specified in the text to be people other than Lieutenant Vilchock. 

The text does not address whether the Chief was aware of the comments of these other employees; however, it does state that Lieutenant Ross was aware of them and that Lieutenant Ross says he acted to address the behavior. Despite this, the investigator concludes that the Chief was aware and that no action was taken.]

General Inappropriate Behavior

In addition to discriminatory remarks and slurs, witnesses claimed other inappropriate behaviors on the part of Chief Vilchock and Lieutenant Vilchock, who denied them all.

Discussing Employee Performance Publicly

A few non-management employees said the Chief would discuss the performance deficiencies of other employees. One witness said the Chief and Lieutenant Vilchock said they wanted Firefighter <redacted> to leave the department. She referred to them as “dumb” and stated that they did not do their job. 

Another witness said the Chief publicly discussed which employees were doing well and which he believed would not “make it.” Another witness reported an embarrassing public demotion and removal of responsibilities.

Public Discussion of Personal Issues

Three witnesses described interactions between the Chief and Lieutenant Vilchock that made them uncomfortable. 

Rudeness

Several examples of Lieutenant Vilchock behaving rudely were provided. In general, these entailed swearing, name-calling, and being “prickly;” saying things such as “suck it up buttercup” and “are you a man or a p—y?”

The investigator said:

I find these allegations to be credible and within the definitions of prohibited conduct….

[ANALYSIS: According to the text of the investigation, all but one of the examples of general inappropriate behavior were reported by single witnesses. Only one of them was said to have had multiple witnesses and in that case the investigator failed to say how many or who.]

Contacting Other Departments to which <redacted> Applied for Employment

The Chief claims that he responded to an inquiry from another town’s fire chief regarding a job application from a fired NFRD employee. The Chief says he gave a would-not-rehire reference for the former employee. In the interview with the investigator, the Chief gave a harsh appraisal of the former employee, citing equipment damage, failure to complete assignments, and other performance issues. 

Witnesses claim that the Chief did far more than this. Several say they heard from the Chief and Firefighter <redacted> that the Chief along with <redacted> and <redacted> contacted <redacted> fire chief. In this call the Chief said the fired employee was the “worst hiring mistake” he has ever made. 

Six witnesses also claim that Lieutenant Vilchock (redacted, inferred) and the <redacted> son also called the <redacted> fire chief as the son (redacted, inferred) was a resident of that town. 

One employee stated that the Chief made a mission out of ensuring that <redacted> did not get another fire service job. Six witnesses said that they were aware of this. 

Two witnesses who were aware of the negative recommendation thought it was unwarranted and inappropriate; although both acknowledged that the former employee had performance issues which they attributed to inexperience.

In another instance, one EMT reported that Lieutenant Vilchock (redacted, inferred) ran into employees from another department at a hospital and wanted to talk with them about <redacted> (inferred former NFRD employee) who now works at the other department. 

The investigator concluded:

There is sufficient evidence to conclude that Chief <redacted> (why is the Chief’s name redacted here and not elsewhere?) contacted potential employers of FF <redacted> to attempt to dissuade them from hiring him. … The way FF <redacted>’s departure was handled was inappropriate and could have put the Town at risk of legal action against it….

[ANALYSIS: Why didn’t the investigator call the other fire chief to ask what had happened? Wouldn’t this have potentially provided crucial evidence one way or the other?

It seems implausible that six people watched two other people - including one who was not a member of the department - make a phone call. It’s at least implausible enough that the circumstance should have been described explaining how it happened. It seems more plausible that six people heard that the event happened, which opens the question of whom they heard it from. 

It looks to me like the investigator jumped to a conclusion on this one, or at least did not lay out evidence that logically leads to the conclusion. The evidence would seem to lead to a more guarded conclusion.]

Exchanges with Firefighter <redacted> regarding his locker and helmet. 

Only a few sentences of this section of the report are available. Instead of black-out redactions all but one line of an entire page has been left as white space. Even the page number is missing. It’s unclear whether this was an intentional redaction. It looks like a page of the report got corrupted and the person preparing the redacted version failed to notice. This is just one of several problems with the redaction of the report. There’s an instance where a name should have been redacted and was not. The two lieutenants referred to in the document can easily be identified by the length of their redacted names. 

The event about the locker is undisputed. There was a concern that someone was going through the lockers at the fire station, which were all kept unlocked. The Chief sent an email to the staff reminding them that the lockers are personal and that no one should be going through someone else’s locker. 

Firefighter <redacted> subsequently put a lock on their locker before leaving for the weekend. When they returned they found the lock had been cut off.

At this point the text ends The text picks up a page later on a different topic. 

[ANALYSIS: I don’t know much about fire departments, but they have a public image of being high-trust environments where brave people rush into burning buildings relying on their co-workers to get them out of life-threatening danger. Even organizations such as college fraternities tend to have rituals associated with displaying trust. It’s easy enough to infer that everyone having an unlocked locker would be such a ritual and that putting a lock on one’s locker is a violation of ritual and a display of distrust. 

While no more information about this is available in the report, including in the report’s conclusion, I’m struck by the fact that it appears that it was undisputed that there were concerns about someone going through the lockers. There appears to be at least one employee engaged in trust-destroying, demoralizing behavior. If there’s someone doing that, why does the investigator give no analysis of witnesses' reputations or ever seem to present plausible narratives involving a saboteur as possible explanations for the facts - even if only to reject them? Why is such an important detail not mentioned in the report’s conclusion? In addition to whatever the failings of management have been identified, there’s evidence that there’s an untrustworthy employee who may be exacerbating the morale problems in the department. 

I find this to be a disturbing example of the investigator only looking for things that would corroborate the complaints she was investigating and ignoring any information that disconfirmed those complaints or which would make for an alternative narrative to those complaints.]

Unwarranted Discipline

The text resumes with a discussion about a large number of written warnings given to <redacted> in a very short period of time, and the petty nature of some of the warnings. One of which is for being two minutes late. Another was for failure to completely wash a vehicle. Also documented was a draft termination letter, which was not sent but presumably was in the employee’s personnel file. 

The Chief’s account of the incident was that the Chief intended to fire the employee but discovered that he had failed to give the employee the necessary preliminary written warnings. Realizing his error he generated the written warnings. 

[ANALYSIS: The documents referred to are from August 2022 and copy Chris Sterndale, the Town Administrator at that time, to whom the Chief reported. Why did the investigator not interview Chris Sterndale? Is it not obvious that Sterndale might have relevant information about these and other events?

I am unfamiliar with the protocols needed for a New Hampshire fire chief to fire a firefighter. My experience is that these protocols can vary widely. At one point in my career I worked for the Federal government in a human resources department. It was well-known that there that it was terribly difficult to fire someone and that managers needed to “wallpaper” everything leading up to a termination. At another point in my career I had a UK employee who reported to me. This was in the private sector. I could fire my US employees by calling them into my office and telling them to pack up and get out. For my UK employee, I got to experience what was to me bizarre foreign regulations about firing an employee that required me to fill their personnel file with carefully worded written warnings over a several-month period. What I came to learn is that almost nobody in the UK ever gets fired for performance reasons. Instead, an extended process of psychological torture is used to drive away the employee. 

Based on my own managerial experience, I cannot conclude that the Chief’s behavior is as obviously objectionable as the investigator assumes. Chris Sterndale’s opinion here would be highly relevant, but he was never asked for his opinion.

Not only was Chris Sterndale not interviewed, the town’s former Interim Town Administrator, John Scruton was not interviewed. The investigator said that none of the problems identified seemed to go back more than about 9 months. That means almost everything occurred while the Chief reported to Scruton. 

Was Scruton so unaware of what was going on in one of the major departments that reported to him that he had nothing relevant to contribute to the investigation? Alternatively, was the Town Administrator well aware of the Chief’s behavior and did nothing about it? Or worse, were the Chief’s actions consistent with his manager’s directives?

This matter brings up broader concerns about the role of the Town Administrator. Based on the investigator’s choices, it appears that the Town Administrator engaged in almost no oversight of their direct report - the Fire Chief. Is the same true with the Town Administrator’s other direct reports? If one combines the allegations detailed in this report with the allegations made on Facebook about the town’s former Director of Public Works there seems to be a pattern of management failures on the part of the Town Administrator.]

Retaliation 

The investigator found wide-spread concerns about retaliation and several examples of the Chief engaging in retaliatory behavior in front of many witnesses.

The investigator also turned up reports that certain employees were trouble-makers who chronically ignored work assignments. There was also a report that one of these employees had falsified a TEMSIS report. The investigator did not pursue any inquiry about these claims.

[ANALYSIS: This is another example of the investigator choosing to focus only on corroborating one narrative and disregarding alternative narratives. The investigator ignores that there are employees who are believed to be troublemakers and does no investigation with regard to how these individuals may have been in any way responsible for any of the issues addressed in the report.

Based on the uninvestigated claims of employee misbehavior contained in the report there is reason for concern that the two firings may not solve the department’s dysfunction.]

Leadership, Trust, Micromanagement

Every employee interviewed described instances of micromanagement, failure to delegate, and poor management communications. Several employees described efforts by mid-level managers to address these problems but to no avail. Some have raised these concerns directly to the Chief, also to no avail. 

The investigator concludes that trust in the department is broken. Many members of the staff do not trust the Chief and Lieutenant Vilchock, and the Chief and Lieutenant do not trust many members of the staff. 

Unionization Issues

Two employees reported that they were threatened with termination if they were to attempt a union organization campaign. Another witness reported that the Chief was vocally anti-union.

The investigator does not conclude that these claims are true, but points out that if they are there’s a potential violation of the National Labor Relations Act.

---

This concludes the body of the investigator’s report. The remainder of this article is my further analysis of the report and commentary on the situation.

Additional Analysis

Failure to Consider Systemic Problems

Throughout the report there are many examples in which Fire Department managers are accused of things in the context of their lack of confidence in specific members of the department. The report makes no inquiry regarding whether that lack of confidence might be justified. 

The town of Nottingham has been struggling with staffing shortages. At the moment it has openings for a Director of Public Works, a Highway Director, and a Library Director. My understanding is that several positions other than these are also open. In October the Fire Department reported that they had lost an employee to Epping who lured the employee away with a 10% pay increase. This is just one example of surrounding towns poaching Nottingham’s employees because our pay is uncompetitive.

The investigator appears to have failed to consider that employees might be disgruntled with working conditions because they are paid poorly. 

Were employees being kept on the roster despite their deficiencies because they were irreplaceable? 

These issues seem relevant to the problems detained in the investigator’s report, yet they were never considered.

Commentary

I expect my analysis of the report will be controversial. In this blog I normally just write about what’s going on in town government. I seldom do analysis and even less do I do opinion. I could merely summarize the report, but the report writer has already summarized it and I have already published their summary. 

A problem with any analysis is that analysis requires a standard. A standard entails an opinion. What is a good investigation? There are individuals in Nottingham who have been communicating with me who have different perspectives than the one I have, and who have their own definitions of “good” that in the past have differed from mine. 

I have been accused on Facebook of being a long-standing friend of the Vilchocks. I have seen Jaye Vilchock many times in public but we’ve never been introduced. 

Sandra Vilchock took me to the emergency room once when I had a concussion. I have no memory of the event, but my wife tells funny stories of my odd behavior that happened after my concussion. I was unconscious for over two minutes. I was still lying on the floor when the ambulance arrived. The EMTs conducted a standard series of questions to assess my cognitive functioning, which included a question about what I had done that day. I said something about being home all day tending the fire that was in the nearby fireplace. The EMTs concluded that my cognitive functioning seemed okay. My wife and stepdaughter adamantly disagreed. I had not in fact been home all day. I had made that fire earlier in the evening. They insisted I was not at all cognitively functioning anywhere near my normal levels. “He’s making it all up because it sounds logical!” my stepdaughter exclaimed. My wife insisted that I be taken to the emergency room to have my head examined. I am told I was not happy about this and I made several nasty remarks to the EMTs. My wife reports that they behaved professionally. As my wife is an internist, she is in a position to have a professional opinion about the performance of other medical professionals. She was satisfied with the performance of NFRD.

I am confident that telling this amusing story will somehow in the future be held against me.

I think the story is instructive about what we all do all of the time. The employees who complained made up their logical story. The Chief and Lieutenant made up their logical story. The investigator has made up their logical story. I’ve made up one, too. Now it’s your turn.

My next article will be an analysis of the entire situation, starting with the documentary evidence that the town’s former Town Administrator should have been aware that there was a problem in the department no later than August 2022 to where we are today.

Anyone with insider information is encouraged to contact me to expand on these issues or to contradict what the investigator or I have reported.