Nearly a week after being placed on administrative leave for the second time in three years, the town’s fire chief has been fired.
Mike Spencer was terminated as chief on Wednesday, Town Manager Paul White confirmed on Thursday.
White declined to comment on the reason for the termination, whether an interim fire chief has been appointed and if the town planned to conduct a search for a new chief.
Spencer did not immediately return a call seeking comment on the matter Thursday afternoon. A message left for the fire department also was not returned.
Spencer’s salary was approximately $50,000 a year.
Spencer’s suspension with pay on April 14 was the second time that he had been disciplined by town officials.
In the spring of 2013, he was suspended without pay for two weeks because he allowed off-duty firefighters and others to hang out at the fire station, did not record 12 hours of sick time and drove a town vehicle to his other job.
Spencer said at the time that he informed those who gathered regularly at the fire station that they could no longer do so, that he forgot to write down the sick time, and that he used the designated chief’s vehicle to go to his job at R.H. Foster so that he could get back to town if there was an incident.