Updated Aug. 29 at 9:17 a.m.
Mayor Miro Weinberger asked Burlington International Airport Aviation Director Gene Richards to resign from his position after an investigation found he mistreated employees and misused city resources.
But Richards is refusing to resign.
Richards told VTDigger on Friday evening that he’s not resigning because he thinks the investigation into his conduct was flawed, and he wants to share his critiques of the process.
The mayor’s decision and the investigation’s report into Richards were sent out in a press release Friday evening. In the release, Weinberger said Richards’ treatment of employees is “unacceptable.”
“Mr. Richards can no longer serve the City in a leadership role, despite his many past accomplishments,” Weinberger said.
Richards was put on administrative leave June 30 after the city’s human resources department fielded a complaint against Richards, which prompted an investigation, as first reported by Seven Days. The reason for the suspension and the subsequent investigation has been kept from the public until now.
Because Richards refuses to resign, Weinberger said he is moving forward with a City Council termination hearing, which would require a two-thirds vote by the body to end Richards’ employment, as dictated by the city’s charter. A special meeting for the vote has been called for Sept. 9.
Richards has been suspended without pay. Deputy Director of Aviation Nic Longo will continue serving as acting director of the airport.
Richards said he hopes he can convince city councilors at his termination hearing that he should remain in his position until his term ends in June 2022.
“I’m not resigning because I’m not comfortable with the process or the allegations,” Richards said. “If you read the report … it says things that are very arbitrary. Like, it talks about an employee said this, an employee said that, but it doesn’t say when, where and how.”
He said he also does not think the investigation into the allegations has been transparent. He met Friday with Weinberger at the mayor’s home, where the mayor asked Richards for his resignation. Richards said he wanted to have a dialogue about the report into his conduct with the mayor, but the report was not provided to him until it was released to the public. (Following publication of this story, Weinberger spokesperson Samantha Sheehan disputed that assertion, saying that the city provided Richards’ attorney an advance copy of the report days earlier.)
According to the mayor’s press release, the investigation into Richards began when a Federal Aviation Administration employee reported that someone in a private vehicle was using a gasoline facility at the airport.
Human Resources Director Kerin Durfee and Chief Administrative Officer Katherine Schad investigated the claim and found Richards to be using the gasoline facility for his personal car. They found that Richards used the station 59 times in a six-month period, without documenting if the fuel was being used for work travel.
Through “preliminary interviews” with airport employees, Richards’ widespread mistreatment of staff was also uncovered, according to the report. Anita D. Tinney, an attorney with the Employee and Labor Relations Academy, was hired to conduct an investigation into Richard’s behavior.
Tinney found that Richards “violated City policy by regularly engaging in behavior that employees find humiliating and offensive, including yelling, screaming, name-calling, and using profanity.”
In her report, she found that Richards would use “physically intimidating” behavior in front of employees, including banging his fists on a table and screaming at them, saying that “they don’t know what they are doing.”
She also found that he would humiliate employees when he disagreed with them. He would tell employees that they were “disposable” and that he was the “big dog.” He allegedly said, “I run the goddamn airport and what I says goes,” according to the report.
When interviewed by the investigator, Richards said he did not intend to mistreat any employees. He said he sometimes used the “F-bomb” but only toward himself.
Tinney wrote that Richards’ denial was not credible because of the “widespread corroboration” of his behavior. She found that employees left the airport or are planning to leave directly because of Richards’ behavior.
Richards said the mistreatment accusations against him are “very exaggerated.”
“I am very passionate at work,” he said. “I would never purposefully try to hurt somebody or belittle them.”
On Sunday, city councilors received a petition signed by 34 AFSCME Local 1343 members who work at the Burlington Airport asking that Richards be fired.
“We have lost all trust, faith, and confidence in Director Richards and we urgently stress that the following signatures is a display of solidarity in saying ‘enough is enough’ and that he be terminated for cause,” members wrote in the petition, which was obtained by VTDigger.
While the investigator found that Richards’ use of the gasoline facility did not violate city policy because it was not determined if it was for work travel, his use of the facility without approval violated city practices and “created an appearance of misuse.”
Richards said he thinks he had authority to use the gas station because he heads the airport and that he only used it for work travel. He said the fuel was also sitting for months in this station because Covid-19 slowed business at the airport, so he wanted to put it to use before it expired.
Richards was also investigated for four other allegations of misconduct, although Tinney determined that Richards did not violate any other rules.
He was accused of hiring his daughter-in-law’s brother for an airport position, but it was found that Richards did not violate the city’s anti-nepotism rules. He was also accused of favoring certain contractors in bidding processes, but that accusation was dismissed. He was also accused of removing topsoil from the airport without proper permits, although it was found that the issue was reversed and rectified.
Multiple witnesses also accused Richards of allowing two city employees, outside of airline employees, to live in the Kirby Cottages close to the airport for a few months. The housing was slated to be demolished due to noise concerns but later purchased by the city.
While the employees temporarily rented the units, it did not directly violate any resolutions guiding the use of the housing while it was in the city’s possession.
Weinberger said in Friday’s release that being a manager is “stressful” but that he expects all employees to treat their colleagues “with respect, fairness, and professionalism.” He said he appreciates the airport employees for raising their concerns.
“I believe that Department Heads, in particular, must lead by example in order for us to achieve our best performance for the people of Burlington,” Weinberger said. “Regrettably, Mr. Richards did not maintain this high standard of service I require from City leadership.”
