Shepard removed as Lebanon town counsel

Former Town Counsel Alan Shepard smiles at the end of a Public Hearing in 2012. (Lebanon Voice file photo)

LEBANON - Alan Shepard, who for decades was the legal counsel for the town of Lebanon, was removed from his position at a Board of Selectmen’s meeting on Thursday.

Selectmen did not release the information immediately as they wanted to notify Shepard in person prior to their decision being released to the press.

Shepard, of Shepard and Read Law Firm of Kennebunk, Maine, was removed based on a “lack of confidence in legal opinions given (the board),” Selectman Ben Thompson said on Friday.

The law firm that will replace Shepard is Burke and Clegg of Sanford, whose hourly rate is about 20 percent less than Shepard’s.

Selectman Chair Karen Gerrish and Thompson voted for the change.

Shepard’s tenure the past couple of years had become increasingly contentious among townspeople and with The Lebanon Voice, which strongly decried his involvement in the Rescue Probe, which ultimately absolved Rescue Chief Samantha Cole and Assistant Chief Jason Cole in any misdoings or breach of professionalism.

The probe was conducted by Shepard and former selectman Robert Frizzell, who is a longtime political ally of Selectman Jason Cole, who was not in attendance at the Thursday meeting at which Shepard was ousted.

In fact, Cole has only been to one meeting in the past month, Thompson said, so he left the board little choice but to act in his absence.

The rescheduling of selectmen’s meetings to Thursday was enacted chiefly to accommodate Cole in connection with his full-time job as the chief of the Dispatch Office for the Rochester Police Department.

Shepard in recent years had also come under fire for a tight-fisted moderating style at Public Hearings.