By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
Nottingham has settled the defamation lawsuit brought by former Fire Chief Jaye Vilchock, who claimed he was fired after two of his firefighters conspired to falsely accuse him of racism.
As first reported by Doug Bates on his Nottingham Blog, Vilchock is getting $37,500 from the town to drop the lawsuit he filed last year. On the town’s side, the agreement allows Nottingham to deny any wrongdoing.
Vilchock filed the lawsuit in early January of 2025, almost two years after he was pushed out of the post he’d held for decades. He claimed that Nottingham firefighters Francis Bruno and Vash Rosfield concocted a story that Vilchock used the racial slur, “spic.”
Vilchock denied he used racist language.
Vilchock’s lawsuit claims Bruno conspired with Rosfield to tell the selectboard that the chief directed the slur at Bruno. Both Rosfield and Bruno disliked Vilchock, according to the lawsuit, and Bruno was allegedly angry that he had been denied a raise. Vilchock’s lawsuit accuses the firefighters of cynically using race to target a hated boss.
But Bruno and Rosfield were not the only members of the Nottingham Fire Department with concerns about Vilchock’s management, according to town records.
The town fired Vilchock in 2023 after several members of the fire department came forward with complaints about him. The town hired attorney Charla Stevens to conduct an independent investigation into the department. Stevens found overall Vilchock’s poor management created a dysfunctional fire department.
“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. [Sandra Vilchock] , both of whom have been identified as difficult to work with, albeit for different reasons,” Stevens wrote in her report.
Sandra Vilchock, Jaye Vilchock’s wife, was also pushed out along with her husband as a result of the Stevens report.
Vilchock first responded by taking the town to court in an attempt to get his job back, but Rockingham Superior Court Judge Lisa English ruled in 2024 there was ample cause for the town to terminate.
“The Court finds that [Vilchock] ‘lost the confidence of … those who served under him’ and his ‘course of conduct in this entire matter’ rendered him unfit for the position of NFRD Chief, ” English wrote.
According to English’s ruling, and the Stevens report, fire department staff went to the select board with concerns about “public and employee safety, unfair discipline, retaliation, questionable personnel management, and creation of a hostile work environment.”
Vilchock reportedly micromanaged the staff to the extent he called off mutual aid for an incident where he was not on scene, overruling the decision of the actual on-scene responder. English also cited incidents in which: Vilchock ordered an employee to drive a department truck that did not have working brakes, Vilchock got into an accident with a department vehicle and did not report the damage, and Vilchock left staff members’ in constant fear of retaliation.
With his firing seemingly cemented, Vilchock then filed the defamation lawsuit. The settlement brings an end to case.