Woodstock Police Chief Joe Swanson listens during a hearing about his job performance held by the Woodstock Village Board of Trustees on March 19, 2025. Photo by Jennifer Hauck/Valley News This story by Clare Shanahan was first published by the Valley News on Feb. 26. WOODSTOCK — The Villag e Trustees will try once again to demote Police Chief Joe Swanson, who has been embroiled in a legal battle with the village since the first effort to remove him from his role more than a year ago. A Windsor County judge ruled in December that the trustees did not follow the appropriate steps to remove Swanson from office last year and reversed the decision. But Superior Court Judge Dickson Corbett left it up to the trustees to decide how to resolve Swanson’s employment status. The trustees will hold a quasi-judicial hearing at 9 a.m. Monday at the Woodstock Masonic Lodge, similar to the one held last April. But unlike last time, if the hearing does not finish by 5 p.m., it will resume at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, according to a Wednesday news release from the Village Trustees. The hearing last April stretched for 14 1/2 hours and finished around midnight. The trustees are expected to begin deliberations after the hearing concludes and to issue a written decision within two weeks, according to the release. That decision will not be publicly available unless Swanson chooses to share it. The village’s news release stated that Swanson requested the hearing and asked that it be public, but Swanson’s Attorney Linda Fraas disputed this. Fraas said she requested only that if there was a hearing that it be in public but did not request the hearing itself. Fraas plans to attend Monday’s hearing on Swansons’s behalf and “under protest,” she said Wednesday. Swanson himself cannot attend because he is recovering from surgery for a shooting injury sustained while working for the department in 2022. Fraas said the Trustees’ have refused to reschedule the hearing. “Chief Swanson’s due process rights are being run over in many ways,” Fraas said. Several of the trustees’ have conflicts of interest, Fraas contended, and she said it is clear that trustees are going into the hearing having already decided an outcome. “We expect that they will rubber stamp their decision, it will be unlawful like the previous one and we will be off to Superior Court,” Fraas said. An attorney for the trustees declined to comment Thursday. Long-running dispute This is only the latest chapter in legal fight that began after Municipal Manager Eric Duffy placed Swanson on paid administrative leave in October 2024 after a road rage incident involving Swanson’s husband. Duffy had promoted Swanson to chief the year before. Vermont State Police and the Vermont Criminal Justice Council investigated the traffic incident and found no wrongdoing. But Duffy hired an outside investigator to look into Swanson’s performance and the municipal manager opted to demote him to patrol officer. Swanson requested the first personnel hearing last March to contest his demotion, and the Village Trustees upheld the move. But after the decision, Swanson took the case to court, alleging that the village trustees and municipal manager unlawfully ousted him from his job. Swanson and Fraas have maintained throughout the process that the trustees and town are acting out of personal biases and homophobic discrimination against Swanson and have no legitimate grounds to remove him from his job. In his ruling, Corbett found the trustees were incorrect when they decided they did not have to establish “cause” to demote Swanson. Under Vermont Law, a police chief cannot be removed without “cause,” which would include “that they have ‘become negligent or derelict’ in their official duties, or have engaged in ‘conduct unbecoming an officer,’ or if they have otherwise become unable to perform the functions of their jobs,” Corbett wrote in a separate decision in the case. Many of the complaints lodged during the marathon hearing last April, and later rehashed in a written order by the trustees, focused on Swanson’s management style, including that he did not always adhere to specific working hours or was absent during the day, kept a messy office and sometimes reported for duty out of uniform. Police employees also alleged that Swanson did not respond to investigatory matters in a timely or thorough way and was inconsistent or unresponsive in exercising discipline. Corbett’s December order left it up to the trustees to “decide whether to pursue further removal proceedings and how to handle petitioners’ employment duties in the meantime.” After the ruling, Duffy again placed Swanson on administrative leave with patrol pay and Fraas quickly filed a contempt order against the trustees for not following the judge’s orders. She withdrew the motion in January after the village agreed to change Swanson’s status back to chief, though he is still on administrative leave, she said Thursday. Read the story on VTDigger here: Woodstock Village Trustees to hold second hearing on police chief’s demotion. ...read more read less