New Details on Events Leading Up to the Termination of the Fire Chief
Conflicts between Interim TA and Fire Chief. Fire Chief filed a complaint about the Interim TA. Interim TA received employee complaints about Fire Chief at least as early as January.
In response to right-to-know requests, new details about the events leading up to the termination of the Fire Chief and Lieutenant have been made available, and are posted on Facebook. Here’s an overview of the major pieces of new information. Below this overview are more details.
The Interim Town Administrator received email complaints about the Fire Chief in late January, mid February, and early March. It is unclear what the Interim Town Administrator did about these complaints. Did he inform the Board of Selectmen? Did he counsel his employee, the Fire Chief?
The email chains show substantial friction between the Interim Town Administrator and the Fire Chief. In particular, the Interim Town Administrator and the Fire Chief clashed about a policy change, with the Interim Town Administrator blaming the Fire Chief for failing to address the underlying problem earlier, and the Fire Chief accusing the Interim Town Administrator of acting unilaterally. The Interim Town Administrator thought that the problem with the policy needed to be addressed immediately, but the Fire Chief thought the problem should be researched to learn how other towns handled it.
Another point of friction was a self-evaluation the Interim Town Administrator wanted the Fire Chief to do, which the Chief refused to do.
The Fire Chief submitted a formal complaint to the Board of Selectmen about the behavior of the Interim Town Administrator during the non-public session on February 27. Also, a Fire Department Employee reported to the Interim Town Administrator that something happened in a meeting on that day that made the situation in the Fire Department worse.
The Interim Town Administrator sent an email on March 2 to a Fire Department employee detailing the various personnel and grievance policies and the RSA information on how to remove a Fire Chief from office.
One or more Fire Department employees had a conflict with the Fire Chief two days after the March 20 presentation of employee complaints to the Board of Selectmen. The Interim Town Administrator blamed the Fire Chief for this and told the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen that an emergency board meeting was needed that very day to deal with the issue. Meanwhile, the new Town Administrator was on site at the Fire Station and reported that things there seemed to be operating smoothly.
The Public Works Department had substantial problems with employees. The Board of Selectmen was dissatisfied with 4 of the 7 employees, and 2 of the 3 other employees had resigned. Despite this, the board was supportive of the Director of Public Works and had just given him a raise. [Two months later the Director resigned.]
Some town officials have been using personal email addresses for town business, potentially allowing evasion from right-to-know requests.
Here’s a detailed chronological outline of the email correspondence.
On January 31 an email was sent to the Interim Town Administrator by a member of the Fire Department asking to speak privately about problems in the Fire Department.
On February 15 there was an ambiguous email from the Interim Town Administrator concerning the Fire Chief about a subject not referenced elsewhere in email.
On February 17 another person sent an email to the Interim Town also asking to speak privately about the Fire Department.
There was an extensive email exchange involving the town’s paid-time-off policy in which the Fire Chief and the Interim Town Administrator butted heads. The email chain begins with an email from the Interim Town Administrator on the morning of Wednesday, February 22 proposing changes in the time-off policy. Many of these changes have to do with the Fire Department’s creation of 24-hour shifts. It’s unclear from the email chain how much prior discussion there had been about the need for policy changes, but it is clear from an email the afternoon of February 22 from the Police Chief that the specific proposal made by the Interim Town Administrator was newly created and contained a lot of changes to the existing policy that had not been previously discussed.
Two days later, on Friday, February 24, there’s a response from the Fire Chief. Note the wording at the end of the email appears to indicate that the Fire Chief feels that the Interim Town Administrator is not handling the matter appropriately. Note also that unlike the other town employees, the Fire Chief and the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen appear to be using personal email addresses.
A few minutes after receiving the Fire Chief’s email, the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen responded saying that she thought a decision on the policy proposal should wait until the new Town Administrator started work, on March 20.
Later that day, the Interim Town Administrator sent the following email, with wording at the end that appears to put the blame for the situation on the Fire Chief.
The Chairman responded:
In reply, the Interim Town Administrator complained that the Fire Chief was not communicating with him about the Chief’s concerns, even though the Interim Town Administrator knew that the Chief’s concern was that the Chief wanted to know how other towns handled the problem and was in the process of gathering that information.
Late that night (Friday) the Interim Town Administrator sent an email from his personal email address to the Town Administrator's email address, perhaps for the benefit of the new Town Administrator, who would be starting work on March 20, saying:
On the following Monday the Interim Town Administrator sent an email to the Fire Chief, seemingly ignoring that the Chairman wanted to hold off on the issue and appearing impatient for the Chief’s input.
A few minutes later the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen wrote to the Interim Town Administrator telling him to back off.
The Interim Town Administrator responded to this saying:
Two minutes after this the Interim Town Administrator sends another email to the Chairman with another complaint about the Fire Chief.
The Chairman responded that the “overtime” policy issue should be addressed before the issue with the self-evaluation.
The next day - after the Board of Selectmen meeting - the Interim Town Administrator responded:
To which the Chairman replied:
Also on February 28 a firefighter visited the town office in person wanting to speak with the Interim Town Administrator, who was not on site that day. The Interim Town Administrator told the Town Secretary to give the firefighter his cell phone number.
On March 1 a (presumably) Fire Department employee wrote to the Interim Town Administrator, appearing to have new complaints about the Fire Chief and Lieutenant, saying things had gotten worse after a meeting that had happened on Monday, February 27 (perhaps the Board of Selectmen meeting that day).
The following day the Interim Town Administrator responded to this employee, sending copies of the personnel and grievance and dispute policies and RSA information on how Fire Chiefs may be removed from office.
On March 3 the Interim Town Administrator sent an email from his personal email address to the personal email address of the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen criticizing the Fire Chief. This email got made public because the Interim Town Administrator forwarded it to the new Town Administrator.
On Sunday, March 19, the Interim Town Administrator wrote to management at his employer, Municipal Resources, mentioning “widespread dissatisfaction” with the Fire Chief and Lieutenant that would be presented to the Board of Selectmen the next day. The email also remarks about issues in the Public Works Department: how one employee was just fired, another one was about to be fired, two more should be fired, the best employee in the department had just resigned, and another had just retired. As only 7 employees report to the Director, that left only one employee unmentioned. Despite this, the email says the board was supportive of the Director and had just given him a raise. Two months later the Director resigned.
On Monday morning, March 20, a Fire Department employee emailed the Town Administrator saying that they’d heard about the employees who would be meeting with the Board of Selectmen that evening. They would also like to express concerns in person, but that they could not attend the Board of Selectmen meeting.
Following the Board of Selectmen meeting on March 20, the Interim Town Administrator emailed Adam Gould, President and COO of Municipal Resources, about whether his employer could “do a fire chief investigation for disciplinary action.” Gould responded the next day, “yes, we do them all of the time….”
On Wednesday morning, March 22 - two days after the board heard employee complaints about the Fire Chief and one day before the board’s special meeting on March 23 to put the Fire Chief on administrative leave, the Interim Town Administrator wrote to the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, using the Town Administrator’s email account.
The new Town Administrator responded a couple of hours later, giving a contrary report:
