Aug. 4, 2023 [updated]
The Massachusetts Civil Service Commission has ruled that fired Methuen police Captain Greg Gallant must be returned to duty and given three years back pay after being illegally fired by Methuen Mayor Neil Perry.
FULL RULING HERE Gallant v. Methuen, CS-22-388
Gallant was officially fired on June 9, 2022 after being put on leave in connection with his role in the police superior officer’s contract that members of the Methuen Council called “criminal”.
Gallant was the President of the Methuen Police Superior Officers’ Union at the time. Subsequently the mayor and council have approved police contracts for almost the same amount of money (or more) than the original contract they called “criminal”.
Gallant was initially accused of hiding language to the contract that was not approved during the initial negotiations with then-Mayor Steve Zanni.
He was also accused of pushing two different contracts with two different pay scales.
On this note the Commission found:
“The primary theory underlying the city’s termination of Captain Gallant is that his eleventh-hour revisions to the CBA were dishonest. The crux of the accusation is that Captain Gallant intended to trick the city’s bargaining team by concealing his edits—really, his calculation formula—from them. I find that this was not Captain Gallant’s intention. Although he made his edits very late in the day, Captain Gallant anticipated that the city’s bargaining team would see and consider those edits.”
The commission further found:
“Captain Gallant testified credibly that he expected the city’s bargaining team to read and consider his revised draft of the CBA. That expectation was natural. The mayor and the city solicitor were duty-bound to review the final copy of the CBA before its execution. Captain Gallant also placed his calculation formula where the mayor was most likely to see it— on the same page as, and immediately after, the new “0,2,2” language that the mayor had requested.”
Gallant complained at the time that the city was “retaliating” against him for his union activities which is prohibited by law.
Gallant said at the time that his frustration with members of the city council could cost the city more money.
“Councilor McCarty has made defamatory statement where he continues specifically to state that there was a criminal conspiracy and criminal activity taking place during the negotiation of the 2017 contract negotiations. These are statements he must know are not true or he should know they are not true. There were never two different contracts with different language to deceive anyone or conspire to commit a crime. We do have a civil attorney at this point gathering information.”
Gallant added at the time, that there may be a separate suits as the result and promised a wrongful termination and slander suit against individual councilors acting “outside the scope of their authority.”
GALLANT VINDICATED
Reached by phone today, Gallant said he just wanted to get back to work and was unsure if there would be any additional suits.
“I don’t know what I am going to do next,” Gallant told the Valley Patriot in an exclusive interview Friday morning.
“I just want to thank my family and those who stood by me during all of this. I know I didn’t do anything wrong, and it feels good to finally be vindicated after all the things that have been erroneously reported to the public. I’m looking forward to moving on with my life, my family has been through a lot.”
Gallant also said that after his firing he had obtained a security job but was fired after his new employer Googled his name and found out about the city’s actions against him.
METHEN’S HYPOCRISY
Gallant’s attorney Jim Simpson said that there seemed to be a bit of hypocrisy on the part of city officials after approving a new contract last year that was nearly the same as what Gallant had been fired for.
“The most recent contract they approved was pretty much what they approved three years ago. They complained all along about insane pay increases in the contract Gallant was negotiating for the superiors, but then a year later the city gives them more.”
Attorney Simpson added “Greg has had to be quiet over the last three years. He’s feeling vindicated because up until now, people have only heard one side of the story. It’s good to have someone objective hear all the facts of the case.”
ACCUSATIONS OF SOLOMON’S COMPLICITY
As for Mayor Perry and the City Council’s assertion that Gallant was trying to “hide” additional language in the contract the commission ruled:
“The charge that Captain Gallant attempted to hide his edits from the city’s bargaining team runs aground on the reality that, in Captain Gallant’s presence, city negotiator Chief Solomon in fact examined those edits. By way of a fallback argument, the city suggests that Captain Gallant hoped to obscure his revisions from other city bargainers; the city posits that Captain Gallant suspected that Chief Solomon would not zealously defend the city’s interests, because Chief Solomon’s own compensation was derived from the superior officers’ pay. This fallback theory is not supported by a preponderance of the record evidence.”
The ruling still has to be voted on by the entire Civil Service Commission, but Simpson said that this is usually a formality.
The City of Methuen can appeal the decision of the Civil Service Commission, but that appeal can only consider whether there were any errors of law in the decision.
Methuen Police Superior Officers’ Union Claims Retaliation