STURBRIDGE, Mass. — A temporary deputy fire chief resigned Tuesday after claiming the department is “being run by fear and intimidation by a misdirected, unpredictable police chief.”
The Telegram & Gazette reported that temporary chief Edward Bourassa said he refuses to be a part of “further destroying the morale, firefighters’ confidence and departmental readiness anymore.”
Chief Bourassa has 16 years of experience in the Sturbridge Fire Department, serving 14 years as a captain, according to the report. In a 3-2 vote on June 3, selectmen appointed the retired fire captain as the town’s temporary deputy fire chief, according to the report.
He was to serve through Jan. 17.
Police Chief Thomas Ford III has been serving as acting fire chief since April 25 after replacing 35-year veteran Leonard Senecal, who was placed on administrative leave after a consultant’s report was critical of his management, according to the report.
“I wish I could say that it is with great sadness, but it is not,” Bourassa wrote in his resignation letter. “I am relieved to be out of the pressure cooker the department has become under the supervision of your police chief.”
Bourassa alleged “in-fighting and backstabbing” are “out of control,” and everyone in the department lives in fear of being “the next one on the police chief’s hit list” amid “constant threats of investigations on just about everything that goes on,” according to the report.
Bourassa said that a police chief should not be allowed to manage a fire department, saying Chief Ford “has absolutely no fire, rescue or emergency medical service experience,” according to the report.
“The bottom line is that police and fire services are very different and need supervisors who understand and know what they’re doing,” Bourassa said.
Bourassa claimed he was not allowed to make “one real decision” and was “kept in the dark” on the selection process of all of those hired or promoted during his time as temporary deputy chief, according to the report.
“Why have someone with more than three decades of fire service experience come in just to have a police officer with no fire experience tell us how it needs to be done?” Bourassa said. “If this type of strong-armed leadership is so successful, why are police officers leaving or asking for demotion?”
Bourassa, who refers to himself as a “proud retired member of the once-strong Sturbridge Fire Department,” offered his “sincerest apology” to those in the fire department who had come to him in hopes that he could change what was happening, according to the report.
“When all of the members of the board ignore the issues and look the other way while only listening to the person causing the problems, there is no way for changes to be effected,” Bourassa wrote. “This is the exact situation that created the original problems under the former chief, a board who only listens to the one person who is creating the problems or trying to cover up his own ineffectiveness.”