The attorney for Stowe’s ex-fire chief, who was accused by a woman of sexual assault while he was on duty as a police offer, demanded $900,000 to settle claims with the town after the chief was fired.
Eventually, Kyle Walker agreed to a $100,000 payout, according to town records.
The much higher amount the fire chief initially sought after his termination by Town Manager Charles Safford late last year was among the new details revealed in documents obtained this week by VTDigger through a public records request.
Not only did Walker settle for much less than he had first sought for agreeing not to sue the town, but also at least one town official could not believe the dollar figure he later agreed to accept.
Included in the records released this week was a text message in February from Lisa Hagerty, a Stowe Selectboard member, to Bill Adams, the board’s chair, after learning of the $100,000 settlement.
She stated in that text that the $100,000 figure was far lower than the up to $1 million she thought it might take to settle the matter.
“I’m in total shock. Charles must have had a pretty compelling case,” Hagerty wrote. “George’s (Hagerty’s husband) and my over-under was $500K to $1M.”
Safford said in December that he had fired Walker as fire chief because he had failed to “regain public trust.”
Nearly a year before that, Rachel Fisher accused Walker of repeatedly sexually assaulting her years earlier while he was on duty as a town police officer. Walker was removed from police officer’s position following the sexual assault allegations but was allowed to stay on as the fire chief.
Walker has said he had sex with Fisher, including while on duty as a police officer. However, he has claimed it was consensual.
Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault, following an investigation by Vermont State Police, declined to bring charges against Walker, citing, in part, not enough evidence to take the case to trial.
Christina Nolan, an attorney for Fisher, earlier this month termed the town’s $100,000 settlement with Walker a “reward for bad behavior.”
The town turned over 40 pages of records in response to VTDigger’s public records request seeking “any and all records, including emails and text messages” related to the settlement
between the town of Stowe and Walker.
The documents included about half a dozen pages that had previously been publicly released, including the five-page settlement signed by the parties involved and containing terms of the $100,000 settlement.
A letter from the town in response to VTDigger’s public records request stated that some of the documents had been redacted “in part to eliminate the substance of confidential attorney-client communications.”
Other documents, the letter stated, “principally emails and related attachments,” were withheld from release because “they are confidential attorney communication” and exempt from disclosure under the law.
The records publicly released this week provide a glimpse into negotiations between the parties.
For example, a two-page letter sent on Jan. 11 to the town’s attorney from Walker’s attorney, Lisa Shelkrot, stated that her client was willing to settle for $900,000. The letter also outlines why that figure was chosen. Had it not been for the “town’s improper action,” the letter from his attorney stated, Walker could have expected to remain in his fire chief’s position for 15 to 20 years.
She wrote Walker’s total compensation package with the town, which included pension and insurance contributions, was about $120,000 a year, according to the letter, and Walker could have “easily” expected to earn $1.8 million over the course of career with the town.
“For the purposes of settlement only,” Shelkrot wrote, Walker would be willing to resolve all claims with the town for a $900,000 lump sum “in exchange for full and final releases and nondisparagement agreements.”
Alternatively, the attorney wrote, Walker could take his job back as fire chief with the same compensation as he had been receiving.
Shelkrot wrote that a few members of the community, including some members of the selectboard, did not believe that Walker had been “adequately disciplined” earlier by Safford, the town manager.
“Thus began the Town’s quest for a do-over — an effort to impose a harsher punishment than Safford had meted out, and a corresponding effort to identify some basis for imposing new discipline,” Shelkrot wrote in her January letter to the town.
The town, she wrote, came up with the “mythical standard” that Walker had failed to regain the trust of the community.
The letter stated that the town fired Walker without providing a “statistical or empirical analysis” of who trusted him and who did not or a timeframe for when he needed to “regain” that trust.
The eventual deal among the parties was a mediated settlement, according to the documents made public this week.
Shelkrot, who was out of the office Wednesday, could not be reached for comment.
In addition to the $100,000 payout to Walker, the settlement said his departure as fire chief would be termed a “resignation” rather than “termination” and included a provision that he would not seek employment with town ever again.
Safford earlier this month did provide VTDigger with documents outlining the terms of the deal, but when he was asked where the funds would come from to pay the $100,000, he referred to a Stowe Reporter article.
That article stated that the $100,000 would be paid by the town’s insurer carrier through the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and that the town would have to pay a deductible, though that figure was not clear at the time of publication.
Among the documents Safford had provided earlier was one labeled “Agreed Upon Statement.” That two-paragraph statement did not offer details into why the town agreed to the $100,000 settlement. The statement ended by stating that Walker submitted his resignation and Safford accepted it, adding, “Neither intends to comment further.”
The documents made public this week provided a more specific breakdown of how the settlement would be paid to Walker.
According to the settlement, the town’s insurer would pay Walker $100,000, then bill the town to cover its $2,500 deductible as well as $12,460.80 in “back wages” for Walker from Dec. 16, 2021, which is when the town manager terminated him, until the date the settlement was reached through mediation Feb. 7.
As a result, the town paid a total of $14,960.80, while the insurer covered the balance of the $100,000, or $85,039.20.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Stowe’s ex-fire chief demanded the town pay him $900K to not sue after his firing, records show.
