By Rod Hansen
Staff Writer

After a three-year tenure often plagued by controversy, Goffstown Fire Chief Frank Carpentino announced his retirement to selectmen on Monday, Oct. 23. Carpentino said he will work until the end of this year.

Although Carpentino gave no official reason for his departure, some colleagues said it may have resulted from his tumultuous tenure as the town’s top firefighter.

Selectmen said he’ll enter the state retirement system.

“He’d taken his beatings, and it was starting to take a toll on him physically,” said Deputy Fire Chief Mark Hurley in a telephone interview.

“We’ve just started the budget process, and right away (selectmen) take $500,000 out of his CIP budget. That’s got to have an effect,” Hurley said.

Hurley’s comments referred to recent budget deliberations in which selectmen recommended cutting some fire department vehicles and a fire facilities study from the town’s Capital Improvements Program. Carpentino was not present during those discussions.

Carpentino, 47, came to the Goffstown Fire Department as chief in August 2003 from the Hudson Fire Department, where he’d also held the top spot.

The chief was the subject of a recent controversy when e-mails became public in which he complained about his department’s inability to provide mutual aid to neighboring towns.

In one of those messages, labeled “Disgrace,” Carpentino spoke of how the town was unable to meet a mutual aid request from Bedford and relied exclusively on other departments to answer one of its own alarms.

“Both of these incidents did nothing more than disgrace the department and tarnish its reputation,” Carpentino wrote in the e-mail, dated July 18, and sent to various members of the fire department and Nick Campasano, the department’s representative to the board of selectmen.

In a second e-mail sent 10 days later, Carpentino said he was “sad and embarrassed” to inform five neighboring fire departments that Goffstown would have no fire or EMS coverage the upcoming weekend and would rely solely on mutual aid for fire coverage.

Selectmen have since adopted a policy directing Carpentino to staff the stations with full-time firefighters as well as call force on weekends if necessary.

Carpentino also sat at the center of a firestorm of dispute when selectmen voted to eliminate his position last November and consolidate the town’s fire, police and EMS departments under the umbrella of a public safety department.

A Hillsborough County Superior Court judge later ruled that voters had to approve such a move, and a Town Meeting vote of 2,350-792 swept Carpentino back into the chief’s position in March of this year.

Campasano said Carpentino has offered no recommendations for a replacement, and selectmen have not discussed how they will advertise or recruit for that position.

“That’s something we’ll have to discuss at our next meeting,” he said.

The position paid Carpentino $74,000 per year.

Hurley spoke highly of Carpentino on the day following the announcement of the chief’s retirement, praising his efforts to answer a town request for around-the-clock fire coverage.

“When they asked him for a 24/7 report, they gave him 30 days to do it,” Hurley said of the request selectmen made in the summer of 2004. “That’s a really short time frame to give a good report. He worked nights and weekends, and turned in a 100-plus page report.”

“I’m happy for him that he’ll be relieved from the duties of being a fire chief after he worked so hard for this town,” Hurley said.