Controversy in Haverhill, Massachusetts over secretly taped conversation. Audio of chief & lawyer talking about sick leave abuse.
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IAFF Local 1011 website where audio is posted
If you go to the IAFF Local 1011 website this morning you will find a YouTube video titled Haverhill Firefighters DO NOT receive fair hearing from Mayor James Fiorentini!. On the video is audio of Haverhill’s Fire Chief Richard Borden talking with the lawyer who presided over hearings involving four firefighters accused of abusing sick leave. These are the firefighters a private detective investigated and videotaped for the city.
How the audio was recorded is now part of the controversy in Haverhill. Here are excerpts from an article in The Eagle-Tribune by Mike LaBella (it is worth reading the entire article):
City Solicitor William Cox said it could only have been firefighters who recorded fire Chief Richard Borden and Attorney Michael Marks chatting about firefighters, the work they do and how they are perceived. The conversation happened at one of last month’s hearings where the sick time abuse was reviewed.
He said the behind-closed-doors hearings at City Hall were not recorded by the city or Marks, who was appointed by the mayor to preside over the hearings.
“I don’t know if they did it with a cell phone or how they did it,” Cox said. “The only ones in that hearing were city officials, the hearings officer and the firefighters, who secretly recorded this private conversation.”
A phone message left yesterday by The Eagle-Tribune with Capt. Paul Weinburgh, president of the local firefighters union, was not returned. Marks could not be reached for comment.
Cox said the posting was intended to divert attention from the fact that the four firefighters who the mayor suspended this week for abusing their sick leave refused to testify during the hearings. Cox said that during the hearings they “hid behind their lawyer.”
“The real story is this is a red herring put out by the firefighters who want to talk about anything but the facts,” Cox said. “This isn’t about whether they got a fair hearing. This is about whether they abused sick leave or not.”
This week, Fiorentini suspended firefighters Christopher Cesati, George Sarrette and Andrew Lafferty for 10 days without pay for violating Haverhill’s sick-leave rules. Fiorentini also has ordered a five-day unpaid suspension for firefighter Raymond Robinson Jr. Sarrette and Lafferty are former presidents of the firefighters union.
After what the mayor called a trend of sick time abuse in the Fire Department, the city hired a private detective in December who videotaped the now-suspended firefighters doing activities like moving furniture, shoveling snow and running errands on days they called in sick.
The posting, which can be found by entering “Fiorentini” in the You Tube search bar or the firefighter’s Internet site, shows an image of City Hall overlaid with this text: Hearing officer Marks…”I think since 9/11 firefighters are full of themselves.” Chief Borden…”Firefighters you see on the news putting water on a fire aren’t the real heroes.”
The posting came two days before the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, in which New York firefighters were proclaimed heroes.
Borden said the text does not reflect his true quote in which he talks about which part of the job makes firefighters heroes.
“Those are the guys working inside, where they can’t see their hands in front of their face and they’re feeling the heat,” Borden said in explaining what he was talking to Marks about. “The unfortunate thing is you don’t catch that on camera, you don’t catch that on film. And by the time you get there (to the fire) those aren’t the things you get to see. The guys who are the heroes are the guys who take a beating in less than ideal conditions. It wasn’t meant to cast a dispersion on anybody.”
