Former Fire Chief Files Pre-Trial Statement

Former Fire Chief Jaye Vilchock’s suit against the Nottingham Board of Selectmen is expected to be heard in Rockingham Superior Court sometime during the week of June 11. Vilchock seeks to have his firing overturned under the provisions of RSA 154:5. 

According to the pre-trial statement, Vilchock is not seeking to be re-instated as Fire Chief. Instead, he seeks to “to retire from his thirty-five years of service to the Nottingham Fire and Rescue Department with a “clean record,” rather than the ignominious and illegal “termination” to which he was subjected….” He also seeks “reimbursement of his reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs in connection with resisting his illegal removal….”

The statement claims that Vilchock’s termination was unlawful for two broad reasons:

1. The ‘investigation’ into Mr. Vilchock violated the Board of Selectmen’s own policies and procedures for such investigations….”
2. regardless of the procedures used in terminating him, the Board’s stated reasons for terminating him do not rise to the level of cause required by the governing statute.”

The pre-trial statement makes the following claims:

• The Board of Selectmen “ignored its own recently-promulgated procedures, rushed through a sham ‘investigation,’ and terminated Mr. Vilchock for reasons which do not rise to the level of substantial cause….”
• Vilchock “disputes substantially all of the ‘facts’ purportedly ‘found’ by the Board of Selectmen’s outside ‘investigator,’ Charla Stevens, Esq.”
• The Town Attorney’s argument that Vilchock is not entitled to a hearing because the Board of Selectmen had failed to formally re-appoint Vilchock as Fire Chief for the 17th year lacks merit. 
• The Board’s stated reasons for terminating Vilchock “do not constitute ‘good cause’ under that statute, as ‘good cause’ has been interpreted [as] … failing to act reasonably and in good faith with regard to unspecified ‘complaints’ lodged against him.”

See previous coverage of the pre-trial statement issued by Nottingham's Town Attorney.

Photo byDoug Bates