By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Former Princeton fire official William Drake sued the town challenging his firing from the municipality earlier this year and alleging he was let go because he was a whistle-blower who refused to look the other way.
He went to state Superior Court seeking to get his job back, with back pay and damages against the town, who is named as one of the defendants along with Mayor Liz Lempert, Council President Lance Liverman, Councilwoman Jo S. Butler, town administrator Marc D. Dashield and Mr. Drake’s former supervisor, Robert Gregory. The suit, filed Nov. 11, opens a window into the highly secretive area of municipal personnel decisions and alleges there is a deeply ingrained culture into the municipality where silence is rewarded. Mr. Drake was fired May 25 after just more than 25 years on the job.
“A pervasive environment of discrimination exists with the defendant municipal entity, favoring those employees who are silent in the face of unethical and illegal conduct,” the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit alleges the town violated numerous state laws including the whistle-blower law and Mr. Drake’s civil rights, among other things.
“You just can’t steamroll over somebody without some due process,” said Allan Roth, an attorney for Mr. Drake, in a phone interview Tuesday. He said the procedural irregularities in this case were “so egregious.”
Town attorney Trishka W. Cecil could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Mr. Drake got his start in the former borough in 1990, “and received nothing but highly satisfactory performance reviews,” the suit said. But since consolidation, the suit claimed, he faced “unfounded” disciplinary actions for his “whistle-blowing activities.”
The suit claims he was issued a disciplinary action in December 2014 for “alleged harassment of employees and alleged inability to work with staff in a professional and efficient manner.”
The town made him take diversity and sexual harassment training and temporarily suspended his supervisory responsibilities. But Mr. Drake, who denied any wrongdoing, claimed the town never even investigated the complaints against him, the suit said.
Then in March 2015, he faced another disciplinary action and was suspended without pay for five days. The alleged misconduct involved a female employee claiming to feel threatened by Mr. Drake leaning on her car at the Princeton Fire Department, although Mr. Drake contends he was not at the fire department that day but was somewhere else, the suit said.
The final straw came in April of this year, when two fire inspectors allegedly told him they had seen fire code violations during Communiversity, the street fair downtown, “but did nothing to prevent or report them,” the suit said
Mr. Drake, the suit says, then told them would have to report their “blatant disregard of their duties” and prepared a memo to Mr. Gregory. In turn, those inspectors went to town officials to report comments Mr. Drake had made at an earlier event, Truckfest, a food truck festival, also in April .
The town then suspended him for seven days, put him on administrative leave and then fired him in May for what it said was “harassment and conduct unbecoming.”
A grievance hearing by the municipal personnel committee, including Ms. Butler, Mr. Liverman and Mayor Lempert, took place on Aug. 11 to consider the matter. The lawsuit alleged that none of the municipal employees who brought allegations against Mr. Drake testified at the hearing. In September, the committee upheld the decision to fire him.
Last December, in something town officials routinely do for him and other employees who reach milestones years of service, Mr. Drake was honored by the municipality. But less than six months later, he was gone. In the words of one his former co-workers, it was as if he “disappeared.”
