[T]he town of Springfield has fired its longtime police chief — but won’t say why.
Meanwhile, the attorney for the terminated chief says a lawsuit is coming to hold “the town financially accountable for his wrongful termination.”
Douglas Johnston has served as the Springfield police chief for nearly two decades before his firing Monday, and has been a member of the department for about 40 years.
Kristi Morris, Springfield selectboard chair, declined comment Tuesday on the matter other than providing a statement from Town Manager Tom Yennerell.
“Effective Immediately Lieutenant Mark Fountain is the Acting Police Chief at the Springfield Police Department,” the statement read. “Doug Johnston has been relieved of his duties.”
The statement added, “This is a very sensitive Human Resource matter and I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”
Yennerell also declined comment Tuesday, other than the statement.
A person who answered the phone at Johnston’s home Tuesday referred comment on the matter to Pietro Lynn, an attorney in Burlington representing the ousted police chief.
Lynn, reached Tuesday, said his client has provided many years of dedicated service to the town.
“We believe that the decision was based on politics and a desire to appease certain individuals, not any legitimate concerns about performance,” Lynn said in his own statement.
“Year after year, the Town renewed the Chief’s employment contract because his work managing the Police Department was excellent,” the statement added. “The Chief’s job performance has not declined over time. We expect to hold the Town financially accountable for his wrongful termination.”
Lynn declined further comment on the matter.
Acting Police Chief Fountain said Tuesday he also couldn’t comment on Johnston’s departure, calling it a “sensitive personnel issue.”
He did say the department has 18 full-time members as well as five full-time dispatchers, and a budget of more than $1 million.
Fountain, who has been with the department for nearly three decades, said his focus is on continuing to provide the public safety services residents in the town expect, as well as to “create some teamwork and bring about some positive changes.”
Asked if he was interested in the police chief’s job on a permanent basis, Fountain replied, “I’m not concerned about that issue right now.”
The police chief’s firing comes several months after the Eagles Times reported that members of the Springfield Police Benevolent Association voted “no confidence” in Johnston and called on the town to fire him.
The newspaper reported that Shaun Smith, the union president and a detective in the department, said a majority of the union members supported the no-confidence vote and a letter was hand-delivered to the town manager on July 23.
The Eagle Times also wrote that the union wrote in that letter that “moral(e) of the department is at an all-time low. … Chief Johnston has established a pattern of inequitable treatment of department personnel, and utilizes the internal investigation procedures and threat of disciplinary action as a means to intimidate and belittle members of the department and without warrant at times.”
Lynn, asked later Tuesday about the union’s no-confidence vote from last year, said he could not comment on the matter pending the filing of the wrongful termination lawsuit.
Smith, reached Tuesday afternoon, said he wasn’t sure why the police chief was fired, or if the no-confidence vote from the union in July had any role in it.
“Currently, the only thing that we can really say is that it is a town personnel matter, and that’s about as far as we can go,” Smith said. “Whatever the town decides to release, that’s on them. We try not to step on their feet at all.”
Windsor County State’s Attorney David Cahill said he was in court Tuesday, but he did state in an email that he learned Monday that Johnston had “ceased employment” with the Springfield police department.
“We understand that the separation from employment was not caused by an act of bias, dishonesty, or gross misconduct,” the county’s top prosecutor wrote. “As such, we expect there to be minimal impact on pending criminal cases.”
