Little contretemps before the Waterbury village trustees Tuesday night, as reported by the Burlington Free Press:

Police Chief Joby Feccia testified before Waterbury village trustees Tuesday night that he recommended the firing of officer Adam Hubacz because the Washington County state’s attorney refused to prosecute Hubacz’s cases.

State’s Attorney Tom Kelly “wasn’t accepting his cases,” Feccia said. Hubacz is “kind of like a watchdog without teeth. There’s no way to enforce the law.”

Every way I look at this, my rational, left-brain response can be stated colloquially as WTF??? A police officer who has so alienated the State’s Attorney that he might as well not try to catch criminals? It gets worse when you read through the details…

Kelly informed the WPD of this in late September, a good four months ago. Hubacz was put on unpaid administrative on October 1. On January 9, he was shifted to paid leave. Why did he start drawing paychecks again? “The reason was not immediately clear,” sez the Freep.

Also not immediately clear — well, absolutely opaque, really — is why Kelly refuses to have anything to do with Hubacz’ police work. Kelly failed to return “multiple messages” from the Freep, seeking comment.

This isn’t some big-city PD with hundreds of blueshirts on hand. Since Hubacz went on leave, Waterbury Village has had two full-time police officers including Chief Feccia. That’s two. T-W-O. A 50% reduction in staffing. I have to think that either law enforcement in Waterbury Village has taken a serious hit, or there was some substantial featherbedding going on before September.

(To clarify, Waterbury Village is a subset of Waterbury Town, including about 40% of the Town’s population and less than two square miles of land. The Village comprises most of downtown Waterbury. Some governance is shared, and some is split between town and village.)

So now Waterbury’s (town and village) manager recommends Hubacz be fired. Solely because of Kelly’s decision. Which has gone unexplained in public.

After the jump: legal gymnastics and unanswered questions.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Hubacz’ lawyer Dan Seff pulled off a masterful display of oratorical loop-de-loop. First, he filed a motion to dismiss the case because it relies entirely on Kelly’s decision, with no finding of actual wrongdoing by the officer. Village attorney Steve Cameron replied that Kelly’s reasons had been stated in a December 5 letter to Chief Feccia, and added that village trustees are “entitled to assume that there are serious reasons” for Kelly’s refusal to deal with Hubacz’ cases. (So, the trustees don’t know either.)

Then Seff objected, asserting that “Cameron had promised not to discuss the Dec. 5 letter at the hearing.” Cameron noted that he did not disclose the contents of the letter, simply its existence. So… Seff argued that the case against Hubacz hasn’t been specified… and then he objected to any specification whatsoever. This is one example of why I could never be a lawyer.

The meeting ended with a 20-minute closed session, after which the trustees announced they would issue a ruling later.

Now, I’ve written before about the widespread tendency in Vermont to sweep unpleasant things under the rug. It’s one of Vermont’s least attractive attributes. And this is a good example of why I feel that way. The skids appear to be greased for a quiet resolution: Hubacz will lose his job, probably with some kind of severance package (just a guess), and nothing further will be revealed. Privacy issues, y’know. We don’t discuss personnel matters in public.

Well, horse feathers. If I lived in Waterbury Village, I’d have some serious questions. How exactly did Hubacz lose the trust of the state’s attorney? Beating suspects, mishandling evidence, arresting the wrong people? How long has he been doing it? How long did Kelly complain about it before he finally put his foot down? How many prosecutions were compromised because of Hubacz? Why didn’t village officials do anything before the situation got so dire?

So many questions. So many brooms. Such a big, lumpy rug.