(This story was updated Sept. 5 at 11:15 p.m.)
[R]UTLAND TOWN — There appears to be no settlement for a Rutland Town administrator who was suspended last week and faces a termination hearing.
The Selectboard on Tuesday night went into executive session after its regular meeting for a little more than an hour and emerged without taking action. Earlier in the day, suspended Town Administrator Joe Zingale said his attorney had forwarded a proposed settlement to the board.
After the executive session held to discuss a “personnel” matter, Selectboard Chair Josh Terenzini said the termination hearing for Zingale set for Wednesday night would take place “as warned.”
Zingale did not attend the meeting Tuesday night. Reached at home after the board’s executive session, he said he wouldn’t be attending the termination hearing either.
“He advised that I not go,” Zingale said of his attorney, Paul Gillies.
Zingale added he hadn’t yet heard what happened at the board’s executive session Tuesday night. “I don’t know what went on,” he said. “I’ll have to speak to my attorney.”
Gillies did not attend Tuesday night’s meeting.
Terenzini would not answer questions after the executive session. “No comment,” he repeated to reporters.
Zingale said he could not discuss details of the proposed settlement, adding that his attorney told him not to.
Also not known are the details of what led to Zingale’s suspension.
Zingale has previously said Terenzini came to the town offices last week to deliver a disciplinary letter and told him it would be going into his personnel file.
The two exchanged words and, according to Zingale, he was told to take his belongings and go home because he was suspended.
Zingale said he later received a letter from the town stating he was suspended with pay pending the termination hearing scheduled for Wednesday night at the town offices.
Zingale has served as town administrator, under different titles over the years, for more than 30 years in Rutland Town.
