By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
Fired Nottingham Fire Chief Jaye Vilchock wants his day in court, and he wants his job back.
Vilchock filed a petition Thursday in Rockingham Superior Court seeking a hearing on his June termination from the job he’s held since 2007.
Vilchock and his wife, Sandra Vilchock, were both fired from the department in late June following a months long investigation into allegations of unprofessional and unsafe conduct.
Sandra Vilchock, who was a lieutenant in the department, has not yet filed any petition or lawsuit connected to her firing.
According to the petition, written by attorney Craig McMahon, Jaye Vilchock can seek a court’s review of his firing, as well as a judicial ruling to overturn the select board’s decision.
“Mr. Vilchock is entitled to judicial review of the decision to terminate him as Chief under RSA 154:5, and seeks to publicly clear the good name he built up during his thirty-five years of faithful service to the Town and its people,” McMahon wrote.
Jaye Vilchock’s petition states the court can reverse his firing after a hearing under RSA 154:5. He wants to have the select board’s decision to fire him overturned so he can go back to work.
The Vilchock’s were placed on paid leave in March after several members of the Nottingham Fire Department brought complaints about the chief and lieutenant to the board. The board then hired Human Resources consultant Charla Stevens to investigate the complaints.
Stevens interviewed several members of the department as part of her investigation, including multiple interviews with both Jaye and Sandra Vilchock.
Stevens handed her report to the board in June, and based on the findings, the Vilchocks were soon removed from their jobs. McMahon said Stevens’ report does not reflect the truth of the internal goings on at the department.
“The report is rife with factual errors, which Mr. Vilchock was never afforded an opportunity to address prior to his termination,” McMahon wrote. “The report demonstrates that the investigator accepted uncritically any accusation against Mr. Vilchock as fact, and rejected uncritically anything that Mr. Vilchock said in his defense during his interview.”
The report paints Sandra Vilchock as bigoted and vindictive, making numerous homophobic and transphobic comments while on duty. Jaye Vilchock is depicted as an incompetent micromanager whose poor decisions resulted in injuries for members of the public. The pair are also accused of harassing employees who cross them.
“The Nottingham Fire and Rescue Department is currently in a state of dysfunction with extremely low morale. There is evidence that this dysfunction has existed for a significant period, but things have deteriorated in the past six to nine months contemporaneous with the advent of a primarily full-time staff. The poor morale is attributable to both Chief Vilchock and Lt. both of whom have been identified as difficult to work with, albeit for different reasons,” Stevens’ report states.
In one incident Stevens investigated, Jaye Vilchock reportedly canceled a call for mutual aid at an accident in which a woman had a tree on her leg and needed EMTs to administer pain medication. Jaye Vilchock was not at the accident when he canceled the mutual aid request, but had a history of overriding such requests because he felt his firefighters were too reliant on outside help.
“The Chief justified his actions by stating that at least one of the firefighters on the scene that day had a history of calling for mutual aid prematurely and in situations where the response should have been within his ability to handle. He also believed the Department itself could have handled the matter without the need to call in support from other towns,” Stevens wrote.
Sandra Vilchock was known to spout inappropriate and hostile comments to patients and staff, using frequent homophobic and racist slurs, according to the report. In one instance, she allegedly used a slur for a lesbian patient who was being transported, before allegedly commenting, “Why can’t they be normal.”