Maine Fire Chief Says Town Manager Fired Him in Retaliation

April 29--ORRINGTON, Maine -- Former Fire Chief Mike Spencer has filed a complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission alleging he was fired in retaliation for concerns he expressed to the town manager about adequate ambulance personnel coverage and for an "unauthorized sojourn" to the Newport fire building.

Spencer's attorney, A.J. Greif of Bangor, on Thursday gave the Bangor Daily News a copy of the complaint that has been filed with the commission.

The fired fire chief also has appealed his termination by Town Manager Paul White to the Board of Selectmen, town attorney Edmond Bearor of Bangor said Thursday. Spencer has requested a hearing about his firing be conducted before the public.

"We want a public hearing because sunlight is the best disinfectant," Greif said in an email.

Bearor said a date for the hearing has not been set but he expected it would be held the week of May 9 when the board, which would "basically act as the grievance board," is scheduled to hold its regular meeting.

The town attorney also said town officials were aware of the complaint to the commission.

"We have no comment at this time," he said in an email.

A group of residents upset about Spencer's firing filled the selectmen's meeting Monday hoping to talk to the board about the action but were shut down before discussion began, according to a previously published report. At that meeting, Bearor said selectmen could not take comments on the termination because Spencer had not yet filed an appeal.

Spencer was suspended with pay on April 14 and fired on April 20, according to a previously published report.

His salary was approximately $50,000 a year.

In the two-page complaint filed Wednesday, Spencer claimed he was discriminated against based on "whistleblower retaliation." The former chief said that he clashed with White recently when Spencer reinstituted a schedule where ambulance volunteers would sign up to be on call, "which essentially meant that they would not leave town during their scheduled hours and would respond to any ambulance calls during that time and be paid a small stipend in exchange."

Spencer said in the complaint there is money in the budget to pay the stipends, which have been paid in the past.

"I began working on creating a schedule and signing up volunteers for coverage," he said. "I told Paul White what I was doing and he shut me down completely, telling me that I was not to create an on-call schedule, and that he was not going to pay people for on-call coverage. I protested that without a schedule, no one other than me would be responding to nighttime ambulance calls, but he refused to reconsider."

Spencer said that he was placed on administrative leave, then fired, after he visited the Newport fire building in his role as a member of the Orrington Public Safety Building Committee. White also is on the committee, which is charged with arranging for the design and construction of a new public safety building for the town.

"When Paul White learned that I had gone and toured the Newport fire building, he became very angry and told me that we were going to talk about that, and that I wouldn't like the result," Spencer said.

The former fire chief said in the complaint that the two never discussed it and Spencer was terminated on April 20 by letter delivered by a Penobscot County sheriff's deputy.

"The stated reason for termination was that I made an 'unauthorized sojourn' to the Newport fire station and that, while there, I had made derogatory comments about the town manager," Spencer wrote. "I believe the stated reason for my termination is pretextual and that the real reason is my pattern of whistleblowing activities outlined above, in violation of the Maine Human Rights Act and the Maine Whistleblower Protection Act."

Efforts to reach Spencer and White were unsuccessful Thursday.

"We believe that the decision to fire Chief Spencer is motivated by a town manager who has placed penny-pinching above public safety," Spencer's attorney said Thursday in an email. "Chief Spencer has always been willing to put his own safety on the line to assure the safety of the citizens of Orrington. We regret that the town manager has been far less concerned about public safety and is punishing someone who has been appropriately concerned about public health and safety."

Bearor disagreed with Greif's statement.

"Attorney Grief is misinformed," the town attorney said in an email. "It is clear that his comments are intended only to discredit someone he has never met or spoken to. The Town of Orrington takes public safety very seriously and its record of supporting both its public safety personnel with adequate funding and equipment purchases speaks for itself."

Spencer was disciplined by town officials three years ago.

In the spring of 2013, he was suspended without pay for two weeks because he allowed off-duty firefighters and others to hang out at the fire station, did not record 12 hours of sick time and drove a town vehicle to his other job.

Spencer said at the time that he informed those who gathered regularly at the fire station that they could no longer do so, that he forgot to write down the sick time and that he used the designated chief's vehicle to go to his job at R.H. Foster so that he could get back to town if there was an incident.

Those matters became public during an open grievance hearing conducted at Spencer's request.

Spencer was elected fire chief by the department's firefighters in 2004. The next year, he combined the town's volunteer fire and rescue departments into one municipal department and was appointed chief.

BDN writers Dawn Gagnon and Nok-Noi Ricker contributed to this report.

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