Thomas MacMillan File Photo
A firefighter terminated last year after he was convicted of bribery charges may ultimately get his job back.
The city’s Board of Fire Commissioners violated the Freedom of Information Act not once, but twice as it moved to terminate Aaron Brantley, and that decision should be vacated, according to a hearing officer’s report.
The report was produced by a hearing officer in response to a complaint filed by Brantley and his attorney the day after the Board of Fire Commission voted to fire him. The complaint alleged that the board went into executive session twice during a public hearing held to consider Brantley’s termination. (Read about that here.)
Brantley had been on paid leave since Jan. 14, 2013, when he was arrested on two felony charges of attempted bribery. He was accused of trying to pay off two fire department officials, Deputy Fire Marshal Faustino Lopez and Fire Inspector Corey Bellamy, to help him win a discrimination complaint he had filed with the Commission of Human Rights and Opportunity.
The termination hearing was open to the public, at Brantley’s request, but board members failed to give a reason for their closed door sessions. The complaint asked that the FOI commission void the board’s termination action against Brantley.
A Not So Public, Public Hearing
On June 2, 2014, when the Board first went into executive session, “the presiding officer took a voice vote, asking for ‘ayes’, but not asking for ‘nays’,” FOI Commission hearing officer Clifton Leonhardt wrote in an April 14 report. “It is also found that this voice vote of only those in the affirmative did not permit a determination as to whether two thirds of the members present and voting were in favor of convening the executive session. Moreover, no reason was given for the executive session.”
At a hearing of the complaint, an attorney for the city and the Board of Fire Commissioners told Leonhardt that the reason for the first executive session “was to effectuate a ‘time out’,” following a testy exchange between Deputy Corporation Counsel Christopher Neary and Brantley’s union attorney at the time, Patty Cofrancesco.
Firefighters Local 825 President James Kottage and former fire board Commissioner George Longyear testified that the city’s explanation was not why the board went into closed session. Longyear, who participated in the first and second closed session, testified that at the first executive session Corporation Counsel Victor Bolden, Neary and Fire Chief Allyn Wright discussed Brantley’s criminal conviction. Bolden made no recommendations and no votes were taken at the first closed session, according to Longyear.
Voting Before The Vote
But that was not the case during the second closed-door session. Board members voted to go into a second executive session in the same way it did for the first, with no call for dissenting votes, or a stated reason for going into closed session. “There was a moving and a second, though the moving and seconding commissioners are not recorded in the minutes,” Leonhardt noted in his report. “It is also found that this voice vote of only those in the affirmative did not permit a determination as to whether two thirds of the members present and voting were in favor of convening the second executive session.”
Longyear testified that Corporation Counsel representatives “made a forceful presentation to sway the respondent Board,” Leonhardt wrote. “Chief Wright, who had previously been undecided, recommended termination of complainant Brantley’s employment.” Longyear said ultimately there was a vote of all commissioners during the second executive session, resulting in a four to one decision in favor of firing Brantley. Longyear was the lone dissenting vote.
The union had asked the board to slow down the termination proceedings for Brantley because he was appealing his conviction. Kottage testified that the board is usually responsive to his requests and open to allowing him to comment during deliberations, even seeking his opinion. But not this time. Immediately following the second executive session, the board held a public vote that broke along the same lines as the private vote. Longyear, again, was the lone dissenting vote against terminating Brantley.
In separate affidavits filed after the hearing of the complaint this year, board Chairman Rev. Eldren Morrison (pictured) and Commissioner Wendy Mongillo told the FOI Commission that the decision to terminate Brantley was based on his conviction and not anything that happened in the closed sessions. Those who supported Brantley’s termination argue that he would have been fired regardless of the executive sessions. Brantley’s supporters argue that the outcome would have been different if the board had conducted the entire session in the open.
Leonhardt wrote in his report that, “the commission can only find that, because the decision was taken to conduct the two executive sessions, what the outcome would have been concerning complainant Brantley’s termination in the absence of those executive sessions will always be a matter of speculation and can never be known.”
He recommended that the commission declare the board’s decision to fire Brantley be “declared null and void,” and that the board “shall conduct executive sessions only as permitted by the FOIA.” The full board is expected to consider Leonhardt’s report during it’s May 13 meeting in Hartford.
Kottage said in a phone interview that the hearing officer’s report is a good sign for Brantley, who is currently appealing his conviction. He said if the commission upholds the hearing officer’s report, Brantley would be reinstated as a firefighter and entitled to the back pay of his benefits, health care, and vacation. Instead of going through the process of firing Brantley again, Kottage said the union is asking that Brantley be placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of his appeal.
“This was a very big decision,” Kottage said. “Anyone who reads this report will see that it exposes the illegal executive sessions that the Board of Fire Commissioners committed under the guidance of Corporation Counsel and another lawyer. This is a very good decision for Aaron Brantley and does not reflect well on the city.”
Attempts to reach Morrison and Chief Wright were unsuccessful.
Read previous coverage of this case:
Firefighter Fired
Convicted Firefighter’s Dismissal Hearing Delayed
Chief Seeks To Terminate Firefighter
2 Firefighters Suspended; Public Pays Twice