August 12, 2020

To: Town Administrator, Board of Selectmen 

From: Hingham Firefighters Local 2398 

Re: Chief Steve Murphy

On Tuesday August 11th, 2020 the members of Hingham Firefighters Local 2398 held a
meeting to discuss the current status of the union membership. During this meeting a
motion was made to hold a vote of “No confidence” against Chief Steve Murphy. The
motion was seconded and a lengthily discussion followed. The motion to hold the vote
ultimately passed and a secret ballot vote was held. The results of the vote, with a
majority of the voting body present, was unanimous in favor of the vote of no
confidence. The key points of discussion from the meeting and issues that led to the
vote of no confidence against Chief Murphy are as follows: 

When Steve Murphy was first appointed to the position of Chief, the union body was
optimistic he held the safety and well being of the members in mind. He quickly made
promise to meet with every member of the department individually and to hold group
meetings. The intent was to get a feel for where the department stood, as a whole, and
how it could be improved. Chief Murphy stated at that time this department is all of
ours and I want everyone to have a voice. Disappointingly, several years later only a
handful of these individual meetings ever occurred. Several attempts have been made
over the past few years to prompt Chief Murphy to complete these meetings, but these
efforts were to no avail. 

During his tenure as Chief, Steve has been able to spare time for the betterment of his
own career. He has made several trips to the National Fire Academy in Maryland, which
are generally trips for several days or weeks. He has spent many days, days he would
normally be in his office at the fire station, teaching classes at the Mass Fire Academy.
And finally, he was able to complete a 90 page paper for one of his National Fire
Academy programs, much of which was done while on duty in his office at
headquarters. While we do support the progress and enhancement of ones own skills
and career, Chief Murphy never then shared his expertise with the members of the
department. Chief Murphy never conducted trainings with members, shared his
expertise to move members of the department forward, and didn’t in fact build or
strengthen the Town of Hingham resource. Chief Murphy’s advancement should be
reciprocal for the Town and Departments enhancement. 

Communications with Chief Murphy have been an issue for much of his time as Chief.
On issues that Chief Murphy is looking to discuss or resolve he is able to respond in a
quick an timely manner. However, when an issue is brought to him from a member of
the union or the Executive Board it is not met with the same timely response. Often
times members are told “I’ll have to check” or “I’ll get back to you”, which may take

 several days or weeks for a response, if at all. Many times there is simply no reply to an
email or Chief Murphy has to be reminded of the request. Issues brought to the Chief
of a Fire department from an employee should bear the same importance as those
initiated by Administration. 

For more than two years, Station 2 at 230 North st has had mold in the ceilings and
duct work of the living quarters. This originated from a leak in the roof over the sleeping
quarters of the station. The leak in the roof has since been fixed and administration is
in possession of bids to perform the mold remediation and station repairs. The bids for
the repairs have been in the Chiefs office for several months with no timeline for when
the repairs will begin. During this time, in excess of two years, the Chief has been
pressured several times to ensure the repairs are completed in a timely manner.
However, the mold at the station remains and the members stationed there continue to
spend one out of every four days of there life in these poor living conditions. The
absence of action on this matter makes Chief Murphy negligent in his duty to protect
the health and welfare of his firefighters. 

Recently a discussion was brought to the Chief regarding a staffing issue the Local
finds to be a potentially deadly safety issue. The issue brought forth was in reference to
the hiring practice for the Lt. position when a vacancy occurs, the details of this can be
found in an attached document marked “Lt. hiring practice”. When this issue was
brought to the Chief for discussion he made it clear his position was solely based on
fiscal decision making priorities. He refused to bring our concerns to the town
administration level despite our concerns for firefighter safety. The safety of the
firefighters of any fire department should be a Chiefs top priority, and every effort
should be made to protect that. 

When the COVID 19 pandemic began earlier this year, public safety at all levels was
faced with the biggest challenge many of us will ever face in our careers. As it has
been said many times, this is truly an unprecedented time in our history. A time when
leadership is needed most and is expected to rise to the occasion and lead. As a paramilitary organization, the fire department depends on a chain of command to operate
and function properly. Leadership starts from the top and works down. This leadership
is expected to be a strong, decisive, command presence. It is not a person who
retreats to the safety of their home, leaving behind a third in command who is granted
no decision making abilities and is not communicated with by the Chief. Chief Murphy
may have been ordered to do so, but he made no efforts to maintain a leadership
presence amongst the firefighters of this department or to continuously monitor the
well being of this department during the more than three months he was absent from
the station. Chief Murphy was able, and spoke about it openly, to travel across state
lines to his vacation home in New Hampshire during this time. We find this to be a
grossly negligent display of leadership for a Fire Chief during what is most likely the
most challenging time in his departments history. 

Most recently, the issue with the “Thin Blue Line” flag resulted in irreparable actions,
and lack there of, by Chief Murphy. Initially, when he received the complaint he was not

 even aware the flags were on the apparatus, which they had been for several weeks,
even though he had began to return to work on some days. This points to the fact that
even when at the station he has little to no contact with anyone outside of his office.
Chief Murphy then made no attempt to discuss the reasoning behind the flags being
placed on the trucks with any member of the department. He instead chose to show no
support for his own firefighters and signed a letter condemning the action and thus
labeling it as political in nature, instead of coming to some sort of defense for his own
department. He then posted a memo stating the Local had violated a “long standing
town policy”, a policy which does not exist. Several attempts were made to obtain the
policy via email, these emails received no response from Chief Murphy. In the days to
come the lack of action only continued. During a Board of Selectmens meeting held on
July 28, 2020 several members of the community called in to comment on the thin blue
line flag that was on the fire apparatus. There were several instances of callers labeling
the thin blue line flag as a sign of racism, communism, and white supremacy. At no
time did Chief Murphy, who was on the zoom call, speak up to defend the firefighters
of his department. He made zero effort to clarify the reasoning behind us flying the flag
or to simply state that the firefighters of Local 2398 are not racist, are not communists,
and are not white supremacists. It is disgraceful to this Local that our Chief, who is
expected to be the ultimate leader and protecter of the fire department, would sit in
cowardice while these labels were being placed on a symbol of heroism. A symbol that
similarly could be used if our own department was to suffer such a tragedy. The image
and reputation of the firefighters of Local 2398 was being called into question and our
Chief chose to separate himself from the amazing firefighters of this department to
protect himself and his own image. A true leader could maintain their disagreement
with what had been done while also defending the great men and women of their
department. There has been zero effort by Chief Murphy since the beginning of this
issue to speak with the union and attempt to move forward. Even after being told that
his own fire department is in complete disarray and morale is at an all time low. We find
these actions, and lack of action, by Chief Murphy to be irreparable to the firefighters
of the Hingham Fire Department. 

To summarize, this vote of no confidence against Chief Murphy is the result of lack of
leadership, inability to communicate, failure to recognize the concerns of the
department, fiscal decision making priorities, and general failure of the overall concern
for the well-being and safety of the firefighters of Local 2398. As was stated prior, we
find Chief Murphy to be negligent in his duty to protect the health and welfare of the
firefighters of Hingham. For these reasons the members of Local 2398 have no
confidence in Chief Murphy to be an effective leader of this fire department. 

We want to be clear that this vote of no confidence will in no way have an effect on the
service and protection this Local provides to the residents of Hingham. We take pride
in providing the highest quality fire and medical services to our community. We do
believe this fire department deserves better leadership and support from the top. 

Respectfully, 

Hingham Firefighters Local 2398