Dayton Daily News
DAYTON, Ohio — A Sugarcreek Twp. Fire Department lieutenant was fired Wednesday following an investigation into alleged sexual harassment.
A local union representative said the former supervisor is expected to fight the termination.
Lt. Chris Keene was fired by the Sugarcreek Twp. Board of Trustees during a special meeting Wednesday, according to a resolution signed by the township trustees.
The township conducted an internal investigation into the claims made against Keene by a former firefighter within the department. Following an initial investigation, the township hired Duckett Law Firm, LLC, based in Cincinnati to conduct an independent investigation.
“The immediate action was to start an investigation on this,” said Barry Tiffany, Sugarcreek Twp. administrator. “It appeared to be one particular shift that was the biggest offender.”
The township outlined the findings of the investigation related Keene in a letter to him.
According to the letter, Keene was accused of 15 violations of the Sugarcreek Twp. personnel policies and procedures, which included sexual harassment and abusive language as it applies to a person’s sex, age, race, nationality or religion.
The investigation also assessed township Fire Chief Randy Pavlak’s leadership of the department.
The township’s fire chief has “failed this test of management and leadership,” according to the investigation.
Pavlak submitted his intent to retire from the department effective March 1, 2016 and it was accepted by trustees earlier this month, but his resignation letter did not refer to any portion of the investigation as a reason for his decision.
John Harvey, district vice president of the Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters, said the township’s fire department has more widespread issues, and Keene’s termination does not fix the problems.
“You can’t realize the system’s broke and try to fix it by terminating one small piece of the puzzle,” Harvey said. “This is just picking at one small piece of the puzzle and trying to make an example of them.”
Two other firefighters, Thomas Gilven and Jeffrey Gaylor, were included in the sexual harassment investigation. Both resigned their positions within the department prior to the conclusion of the investigation.
Keene was promoted to fire captain Oct. 13, 2014, and was a shift commander. He was demoted to lieutenant May 18, shortly after he was placed on paid administrative leave for the allegations of sexual harassment.
Keene worked for the department full-time since 2006 and earned $56,360 annually.
Harvey said he is aware of the investigation conducted by Duckett Law Firm.
“The township paid $23,000 to have this report done and it’s one sided,” Harvey said.
Tiffany confirmed the investigation cost the township’s fire department approximately $23,000. The money came from the fire department’s already budgeted fund for legal issues.
Harvey told the Dayton Daily News he expects grievance and wrongful termination to be filed in this case.
“If this is a situation that’s been bad enough that they promoted the guy to Captain several months ago and in the last month they demoted him, and fired him, to me that just says there’s a lot more problems than that one guy,” Harvey said.
Tiffany denies there are additional issues involving sexual harassment within the department saying “the rest of the department is full of very good people.”
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