PUBLIC SAFETY
Colchester fire chief says he was pushed out over staffing disagreement with town manager
By Auditi Guha
COLCHESTER — Fire Chief Stephen Bourgeois said he was forced to resign last week amid a staffing dispute with the town manager.
The former Colchester chief’s departure further depletes the department, which recently lost one of its three full-time firefighters.
Bourgeois said he had pushed to fill the job but clashed with the town manager, Aaron Frank, who, he said, did not want it to be a union position.
“If I didn’t resign, he was going to fire me, to be honest with you,” Bourgeois said in an interview Monday. “Three weeks prior to that I was doing a great job in his eyes, you know.”
Frank declined to comment on the dispute or the chief’s resignation, calling it a personnel matter, but he confirmed that Bourgeois had stepped down and that he had appointed Seth Lasker, the assistant chief, to replace Bourgeois that same day.
The firefighter position will be filled soon, according to Frank, and will continue to be a union position. As for whether the town will fill Lasker’s previous position, that will be “evaluated as time goes on based on the needs of the department,” the town manager said.
Colchester has a population of about 17,000, and the fire department fielded roughly 1,100 calls last year. In addition to its full-time staff, the town relies on 45 volunteers who work on stipend and receives assistance from Saint Michael’s College Fire and Rescue.
Matters came to a head after the Colchester Career Firefighters Association, the union that represents local firefighters (but not the chief), published a statement April 4 about its staffing concerns, the vacant position, and the strife between Bourgeois and Frank.
The statement, signed by union President Tyler Cootware, describes the union’s advocacy for new firefighting positions, which it says are necessary in part to respond quickly throughout the town’s sprawling geography.
The union, Cootware wrote in the statement, “refuses to let the Town Manager continue to hold our third position hostage and we strongly believe the members of our community should refuse to let this happen as well.”
Frank declined to comment on the union statement.
Cootware, who is one of Colchester’s two remaining full-time firefighters, said the union was surprised to learn Bourgeois had resigned the following day.
“We did not expect him to leave,” Cootware said.
On Bourgeois’ way to visit his father in respite care on April 5, he stopped by the town offices where, he said, Frank told him, “I’ve had enough with you” and issued an ultimatum.
Frank told him he could work for two weeks until the assistant chief returned from vacation, Bourgeois said. “He slid across the table a one-line, typed-out resignation from me that he had already made up on town letterhead, and he said, ‘or you can sign this and leave today.’”
Bourgeois said he signed the letter and had hoped to send an email notifying the town but was locked out of his email soon after.
“Somebody had to stand up to him, and that’s what I did. And I am where I am now,” Bourgeois said. “It’s just a shame, but I wasn’t going to do something that was detrimental to the department.”
A Burlington resident, Bourgeois, 62, helped merge Colchester’s volunteer departments to create the town fire department in 2020.
He previously worked for the Burlington Fire Department as a deputy chief, retiring in 2011. He returned as a volunteer and became chief of the Malletts Bay Fire Department in 2015, until the merger. Frank then picked him to head the new town department.
“I’ve been in the fire service for 42 years, and I’ve never been treated like that,” Bourgeois said. “You hire a department head, you gotta let that department head do what he thinks is best for the department. I mean, he doesn’t know how a fire department’s supposed to run, you know?”
The town has not publicly announced the resignation, although it updated the fire department webpage Monday.
In a statement dated April 7, the Colchester Police Officers Association, a law enforcement union, said it “supports the endeavors of the Colchester Career Firefighters to advocate for an increase of their staffing levels.”
Frank said the town contributes about $487,000 toward the fire department — 48% more than before the merger. “So we’ve certainly added financial resources to it,” he said.
He spoke highly of the department and Bourgeois’ work.
“Steve was the town’s first fire chief from January 2020 to April 2023,” he said, outlining a long list of contributions from consolidating services during the merger to collaborating on jointly managed IT services.
“Steve did his consolidation work right at the onset of Covid,” Frank said. “It made everything — meetings, trainings — more challenging, and he was able to come up with hybrid trainings that were online and other ways to get people to come together. So I’m very thankful for what he did for the town as our first chief.”
Bourgeois drew a salary of $94,234, which is also what Lasker is receiving, according to Deputy Town Manager Renae Marshall.
Lasker, who also helped with the merger three years ago and previously served as Burlington’s fire chief, said he expects to fill the vacant firefighter position soon, in consultation with a hiring board.
“My priority is to hire and bring the paid staff back to its former strength,” he said.
Cootware said Lasker had a good working relationship with Bourgeois, so the union expects the new chief will take a similar approach to the position.
Selectboard members did not respond to requests for comment or deferred to the chair, Pam Loranger, who did not respond to emails and calls. Union members said they expect to attend a Selectboard meeting scheduled for Tuesday.
Frank said his goal now is for everyone to work together.
“I really want harmony for everybody involved in this, and so that’s what I would like to see, and I’m trying to work hard to do that,” he said.
Cootware’s Letter:
We will post the Town Manager & or the Selectboard response when one is available.
Selectboard meeting Tuesday 4/11/23 at 6:30p at Town Office, 781 Blakely Road, in the Outer Bay Conference Room/ 3rd floor
LCATVhttps://lcatv.org › colchester-selectboard
Update: 4/12/23 Digger article with Town response
Residents, firefighters pack Colchester selectboard meeting, demand accountability, staffing
By Auditi Guha
COLCHESTER — One day after a packed Selectboard meeting in which residents demanded increased staffing for the fire department, the town manager has announced plans to hire two new firefighters.
One would fill a vacant spot “as soon as possible” and another in July, according to a press release sent late Wednesday afternoon by Town Manager Aaron Frank. The second position would be the department’s “sole request for additional staffing” in fiscal year 2025 and “is being funded a year ahead in response to the changing needs of the department,” Frank wrote in the release.
The decision followed the selectboard meeting that drew more than 70 people in the third-floor room of the town offices at Blakeley Road Tuesday night demanding additional staffing and accountability.
Among them was Michelle Collins, who worked as a firefighter in Colchester for 16 months.
“I loved my job so much I moved my family to Colchester. I fell in love with the town and the recreational activities, particularly in the bay,” she said at a selectboard meeting on Tuesday night.
But she gave her notice in March and now works in South Burlington.
Hers was one of two full-time positions in the fairly new town fire department that was created in 2020 under the leadership of Stephen Bourgeois, the fire chief who resigned last week over staffing concerns and a disagreement with Frank.
Collins spoke highly of Bourgeois and said she was disappointed the vacant firefighter position was not yet filled.
Collins said putting out a structure fire generally requires at least four firefighters: one on the truck to operate the pump, two to enter the burning building with hoses to fight the fire and rescue people, and another for backup if anyone is compromised. Since her departure, there have been only two firefighters, plus Seth Lasker, who was appointed chief last week.
“When I was hired, Chief Bourgeois made it clear to me that his plan was to hire an additional person within the year and to hire additional people after that — and that gave me a lot of hope that I was in a growing department,” Collins said during Tuesday’s public comment.
She was “very disappointed” it didn’t happen after a year of her being on the job. The staffing problem was one of the reasons she left the fire department, she said. “As a mom of two 11-year-olds, I did not feel that three full-time firefighters was a safe staffing situation on a long-time basis,” she said.
Several others — many of them firefighter union members and former firefighters — spoke about the lag in filling the position and how understaffed the department remains.
Mike Gallas, who was chief of the former Malletts Bay fire department in town before it merged to form the current department, said he is concerned about the department’s strength and about “the adversarial relationship between employees and the administration.”
Gallas, now a consultant with Green Mountain Catamount Fire Training, questioned where town administrators are getting their information about how fire departments operate and said he’d be willing to offer his expertise.
Resident Cole Hayes read from a letter of concern he sent to the town government and posted on social media earlier this week.
“Having an inadequate number of firefighters on duty could result in inadequate responses to emergencies such as house fires,” he said. “This would not only put the lives and property of our residents at risk but also undermine their trust in the department’s ability to provide essential services in times of crisis.”
Some recommended commissioning an independent study to gauge the town’s public safety needs. The selectboard and Frank did not respond to an email on Wednesday asking if that is something they are considering.
Others took issue with Bourgeois’s departure, arguing he was unfairly forced out, and urged Frank and the board to do better.
After 45 minutes of public comment, Frank gave a lengthy overview of the fire department from before the 2020 merger to where it is today. He said the town is “fiscally constrained” and no town department is staffed to meet current needs.
Colchester, home to 17,500 people, covers the largest area in Chittenden County at nearly 60 square miles, more than a third of which is water.
It has a fire chief and 3.5 full-time firefighter positions. The half-position accounts for a deputy chief — formerly Lasker — who also had other duties in town. There will be 5.5 positions after the new hires, Frank wrote on Wednesday.
The fire department also relies on 45 volunteers who work on stipend, and receives assistance from Saint Michael’s College Fire and Rescue. The department fielded roughly 1,100 calls last year.
Colchester also has a separate rescue department with six full-time staff and 63 rescue volunteers, Frank noted on Tuesday and in Wednesday’s release. An apples-to-apples comparison with fire and rescue staffing in neighboring communities shows that Colchester has 12.5 full-time fire and rescue staff and 117 volunteers, according to Frank. Plus, voters have turned down requests to fund additional public safety positions in prior years, he said.
The neighboring Essex town (about 32 square miles with 11,500 people) and the city of Essex Junction (4 square miles with 10,700 people) each operate on-call fire departments and contract with Essex Rescue for emergency coverage. The town has more than 35 volunteers and responded to 932 calls last year, according to the website. The city’s department comprises 30 volunteers and it responded to 496 calls during the last calendar year, according to City Manager Regina Mahony.
The fire department in Winooski — only 1.5 square miles and a population of 8,300 — has three full-time firefighters and 13 on-call. They responded to 385 calls in the last fiscal year, according to City Manager Elaine Wang.
The city of South Burlington — under 30 square miles with a population of about 20,200 — has fully staffed fire, EMS and fire prevention departments with 32 full-time employees. Last year they responded to 4,500 calls, according to Deputy Chief Terry Francis.
Union President Tyler Cootware put out a statement last week about the Colchester Career Firefighters Association’s concern with the staffing situation and the strife with the administration a day before Bourgeois’ departure. After Tuesday’s public hearing, he said he hopes the officials heard what was being said.
“I’m excited to see the support from the community. I would love for the selectboard to reach out and have a conversation with us and not solely with the town manager,” he said.