08/16/2025
Well, the BOS took upon themselves to by pass the Oral Board one recommendation. What a slap in the face, not only to Chief Peter Varney, also to the entire Fire Dept. TWICE. Look out everyone! The one that they made a deal with long before the Oral Board interviews August 1st. So, as for public documents here is copy of that email sent to the BOS and town counsel from the Oral Board. Selectman Rudy exposed an email chain dating back to July 2, 2025 between TA Cecile Chase and their person that they are offering the position, Tim Wilder. Not a person to trust, he has no idea of our community. Be warned, he has been promised a Full-Time position. And that's him bragging about it to other local Firefighters. He applied twice in Rochester and never made it. Hmm... must be something that they know. Here you are, enjoy.
From: Kevin Ruel
Date: Aug 2, 2025 7:16 PM
Subject: Fire Chief Oral Board Results
To: nd admin ,David Swenson ,Dot Veisel ,[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]),[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]),[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Cc:
Good evening,
On August 01, 2025, oral board interviews were conducted with 6 candidates by the oral board panel of myself, David Stuart, Dot Veisel and Jarrod Wheeler.
The panel reviewed all of the questions together and went over the scoring criteria and any concerns. No one had concerns about any of the questions. A cut off score was set that all candidates had to meet.
Each candidate was asked the same questions in the same order. The panel members rotated reading the questions.
The scores were totaled for ranking and any disqualifiers. I wanted to make sure that the totals were correct, and I went through everything again today to double check. I found errors with the adding, so I went through everything a third time. The totals and disqualifiers are documented. The errors did not change the ranking, but the #1 candidate ended up with a score that was 83 points more than the #2 candidate. The difference between the #1 candidate and the #3 candidate was 149 points. The only candidate who the evaluators all scored very close to each other was the #1 candidate.
The panel members knew at the time they committed to participate that we would have a discussion about all candidates, their performance and their resumes at the end of the day so that we could make any recommendations to the BOS. This is standard in all oral boards.
Jarrod Wheeler finished the scoring on his sheets and did not take part in the recommendation discussion because he had to leave after the last candidate's interview..
Dave Stuart, Dot Veisel and I discussed recommendations. All three unanimously agreed that Peter Varney would be recommended to the BOS since he had the highest total score of all the candidates. Three candidates did not meet the cut off score and four candidates had disqualifiers. We could not come to a consensus for any other recommendation because of disqualifiers.
I am documenting the following concerns:
1. Dot Veisel's total score sheet for Peter Varney did not match the scores she gave him on the questions. The actual scores added up to 39 points higher than the scores she put on the total sheet. This did not change Peter Varney's rank, but it made a big difference when you compare his final score to the final score for the candidate who ranked #2. There were a few minor adding mistakes on a few sheets and that changed the total points , but not by much. It did not change anyone's rank.
2. Jarrod Wheeler committed to participating in this oral board panel and he knew that there were supposed to be 8 candidates. He has done oral boards before and he knew that it would be a long day. He knew that we needed to discuss all of the candidates and make recommendations as a group and that everyone was supposed to stay until our job was done. He did not complete the responsibility he signed up for, and it was unprofessional and unfair to the other members who committed to staying until it was done. Wheeler had a conflict with one candidate who is his friend and co-worker, and who was his superior in another department. There were other chiefs who were way more experienced and mature and would have taken the responsibility and commitment seriously.
3. Jarrod Wheeler would not complete one of the questions to one of the candidates. The question was given to every candidate, but when it was his turn to read the question to the candidate he has a conflict with, he would not read the whole question. I had to finish reading the question. The candidate admitted that David Swenson and Cecile Chase both told him the job would become full time even though the job was posted for a part time fire chief. When Wheeler refused to read the whole question and the candidate admitted that Swenson and Cecile spoke with him about applying and the job would end up being full time, that shows that Swenson and Cecile tried to bias and manipulate the outcome of the oral board unethically and they used Wheeler to try to manipulate the outcome unfairly. Wheeler refused to read the whole question because he knew that Swenson and Cecile made promises to the friend he recruited for the process. All of the other candidates got the same question and none of them had any conversations about perks that were not in the job posting or that the job would become full time after they were hired as a part time chief.
4. Cecile emailed all of us that she'd have a light breakfast and a selection of sandwiches. Cecile knew that we had to be in the community for many hours. She left 4 muffins and soda for breakfast. She did not have coffee ready for us, and she didn't have any bottled water available. For lunch, our Italians had just meat and cheese on dry bread with no vegetables or oil or mayo. Cecile didn't provide anything else for us for the rest of the day. All the oral boards I've been to, the towns always has coffee ready, a tray of muffins, donuts and bagels or pastry for breakfast, cold waters, healthy snacks for the afternoon and a couple different sandwiches with condiments and chips for lunch.
5. Pens and some yellow paper were the only supplies we found in the room.
It's embarrassing that the town did not do anything to organize a professional oral board and plan things so every candidate gets a fair shot. . A panel can't use the same questions that MRI just used in an oral board because it makes the process unfair. And the town chose a fire chief who wasn't qualified and had a conflict, and he didn't take the responsibility seriously to complete our job to make a recommendation to the BOS as a group. Dave, Dot and I did our job.
Dave Stuart and I worked hard to have a fair process with objective criteria so everyone would be treated equally and be able to earn the best score they could. We took our responsibility seriously. .
The candidate recommended to the BOS with consensus from the members who participated in the group discussion about all of the interviews is Peter Varney.
Respectfully submitted,
Kevin Ruel
Assistant Fire Chief
