Behavior at a fire has raised issues about the way the Turner Fire Department is run.
TURNER – A letter containing “charges and/or accusations” aimed at Fire Chief Steve Fish and Assistant Chief Shane Arsenault prompted an executive session that included testimony from witnesses this week.
Town Manager Jim Catlin began the meeting by explaining that selectmen would go into executive session to address issues raised in a letter to selectmen from citizen Charles Mock.
“This meeting is strictly a fact-finding mission,” Catlin said. “No votes are expected. It is not a meeting to remove anyone.”
Catlin also explained that Fish and Arsenault could decide whether the session was held in private or public, but that much of what was to be discussed had already been discussed during a March 15 public meeting. Fish and Arsenault both requested that the session be private.
Neither has commented publicly on the letter or its contents.
The March 15 meeting centered on events that occurred at a March 2 fire at the farm of Bob and Bev Leavitt on Plains Road when Fire Department Captain Rodney Guptil reportedly took a firetruck and left the scene during the fire.
Guptil later returned with the truck, but was subject to discipline for his actions. Selectmen directed the fire chief to impose discipline for the incident.
Fish was not at the fire and Arsenault was in charge of fire operations there. Two firefighters were injured in fighting the blaze. Mock, who is the training officer for Turner Rescue, was in charge of the ambulance at the fire scene. Turner Rescue routinely stands by at fires.
Mock said he wrote the letter as a citizen concerned about how Fish handles some aspects of the fire department. Mock’s only involvement with the rescue department is that his volunteer work for it put him at the March 2 fire scene, he said.
“I am hoping that the board will take the appropriate actions I am asking for because I am committed to this,” Mock said Tuesday. “If they do not, I am prepared to take further action.”
Selectman Lori Fish, wife of the fire chief, excused herself from the executive session. Selectman Ralph Caldwell also excused himself. “I fought fire for 36 years,” Caldwell said. “I have a personal conflict with the way the department is run.”
Caldwell said later that he has no personal conflict with Fish, but with the way he runs the department.
Several witnesses, including the fire chiefs of Buckfield, Leeds and Greene, were called in to testify. The two firefighters who were injured also were called as was Bill Hammond, whose house caught fire less than a week after the Leavitts’ house burned.
At almost 10 p.m., the selectmen reconvened in public session. They explained that after listening to two and a half hours of testimony and due to the lateness of the hour, they wanted “time to mull over” all of the information they had heard.
They voted to reconvene the session on Monday, April 5. At that time, Catlin said, there would be discussion among the board members, and if needed, more witness testimony would be taken.
There would be no public discussion or comment on the letter or the executive session until the matter is resolved, Catlin said.
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