TURNER – Selectmen voted Wednesday to postpone for three months a decision on reappointing Fire Chief Steven A. Fish to the post he has held for more than 10 years.
Following nearly four hours of executive sessions, legal wrangling and the failure of motions to reappoint and not reappoint for lack of a second, postponement of a decision passed by a 2-1 vote, with two selectmen abstaining.
At 11 p.m., Selectmen Dennis Richardson, Lawrence House and Henry Gibbert emerged from the final executive session to vote on a motion by House “to postpone the decision to reappoint the chief for three months with the expectation that the chief will work with both fire and rescue to work out existing problems.”
House and Gibbert cast votes for the motion, Richardson opposed. Ralph Caldwell and Lori Fish abstained: Caldwell because he has been serving as a liaison between the board and attorneys during discussion of the issue; Lori Fish, chairman of the board, because she is the wife of the chief.
Richardson is the selectman who got the controversy surrounding the chief’s reappointment started back in June when he moved at a meeting to inform Fish by letter of the board’s intention “not to reappoint” him as chief. The motion passed 4-0 vote without discussion, with Lori Fish absent from the meeting, and with no prior notification to the chief that his reappointment would be considered at that meeting.
The board’s action set off a firestorm of controversy in town, with firefighters expressing nearly unanimous support for the chief, and supporters going door-to-door obtaining more than 275 signatures backing him.
More than 75 people packed the first floor meeting room of the Leavitt Institute Building Wednesday night, nearly all of them there to express their support for Fish, but none of them were heard. Billed as a public meeting, the special session of the board was immediately convened in its first executive session, and was followed by three more before a resolution was approved.
Twice, following executive sessions, motions were made by Richardson not to reappoint the chief. Both died for lack of a second. At one point, Gibbert moved that the board reappoint Chief Fish. That, too, did not receive a second.
Near the end of the meeting House attempted to draft a motion that closely resembled the one he finally made. When it was asked publicly if Chief Fish would be agreeable to that, the town’s attorney John Loyd suggested it be withdrawn, and another executive session be held do discuss that suggestion. When the board of three reassembled, House made his motion and it passed.
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