The first resignation of a Mount Holly Fire District legal professional happened in February 2025. And that resignation letter provided this clue as to what caused the departure:
Sendzik had been with the Fire District for years and her letter made clear that the “fragmented” Board problem had arisen “recently”. And so, The Reporter asked Ms. Sendzik to be specific as to whether one or another Commissioner was at fault. Sendzik did not respond.
Since then, the District has cycled through another four counselors, with the most recent being Dom Rota, of Malamut Law. Readers will recall that even the selection of Malamut arrived with a controversy since there was a “bid spoiling” incident. Commissioner Saucier opened just the Malamut bid, causing the entire process to be redone.
Commission Chair Thiessen ruled that the incident was just an administrative mistake.
Like any good mystery, there are rumors circulating. Rumors about administrative conflicts that may have driven a counselor to distraction. For instance, a long-time company member was banned from entering the building due to a charge that was dismissed, but that decision is still somehow not resolved by the Fire District. Then there is the ongoing administrative chaos created by a suspended Director, which delays business because part-time Commissioner Thiessen has been “temporarily” in charge for the last 7 months, which holds up decision making.
Obviously the answer is to appoint a new Director, but as readers will recall, that position is in limbo because the Board has been unable to fire Director Carty [who remains suspended with pay] even though a special counselor determined that he should be terminated.
The Reporter is aware of other administrative problems, some of which were disclosed by Mr. Young in his “safety report” [see SAFETY CONCERNS AT FIRE DISTRICT RESURFACE]. When you take all of these administrative SNAFUs in aggregate, it would seem to provide enough centrifugal force to eject even the most determined counselor.
But that is speculation, so I contacted Mr. Rota in hopes of at least getting a generalized description of what drove him out. Unfortunately for our purposes here, Mr. Rota refused to tell tales that would compromise his legal responsibility to keep advice confidential.
For a moment I thought that the resignation letter provided a hidden clue. Mr. Rota made an oblique reference to a reason that might provide better understanding.
He said “the Firm [must] preserve the confidentiality of attorney-client communications and other protected information. AND FOR THAT REASON, it would be inappropriate to elaborate further on the circumstances giving rise to this withdrawal.”
Why would an attorney refuse to tell his own clients why he resigned? Was there some OTHER client who had a matter before the Board which produced a conflict of interest? Or perhaps Malamut represented a Commissioner as a private client which somehow got cross-wise with Board business? There are other permutations of these questions which might provide insight.
But Mr. Rota wrote back to the Reporter to say that neither of the possibilities I asked about were true.
And so, at least for now, this mystery remains unsolved.
Oh, we all know why he resigned. And it follows the same situation that happened with Parker McKay who had advised the commissioners that the Director should be terminated.
But some of the commissioners decided to act against the recommendation of the independently hired law firm that made that recommendation - because their loyalty is not to the people of Mount Holly but to a single entity.
Dom Rota - probably smarter than some of the others. After a couple of hours of deliberations about a "personnel matter," believed to be the same as the one that Parker McKay had advised on previously, he was seeing the same problem that many of us that attend regular meetings already understood - but at least two of the commissioners are there to serve the Director who is on suspension rather than do what any legal Counsel advises or what any reasonable tax paying Mount Holly resident would want the commissioners to do.
As a legal professional, when you are hired and asked for your legal/professional advice, and you provide it, and then your client does the opposite anyway, it doesn't leave you with much of a choice.
Seems like Dom Rota has a lot of integrity and wasn't going to just take the money and mail it in knowing that it didn't really matter what he said because he did not have the ear nor backing of 100% of the commissioners that had hired him.
Good for you, Mr. Rota. You're the lucky one in that you do not have to suffer through more of these meetings during the rest of 2026.