WOODSTOCK — As Vermont State Police investigate legal spending by municipal officials, separate litigation filed by married residents Joe Swanson and Nicholas Seldon continues.
From July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025 — the 2025 fiscal year — Woodstock spent $234,000 in legal fees — $180,000 by the town government and $27,500 by the village government.
Reached Friday by phone, Municipal Manager Eric Duffy explained that while all the legal fees were originally intended to come out of the town budget, the town and village still share a bank account.
“At a certain point, once the audit is complete, you can’t go back and make changes,” said Duffy of the specific line items.
The prior fiscal year, the town only spent about $14,000 on legal services, according to the annual town report, and the village spent under $800.
Swanson and Seldon have something to do with the uptick, because of their lawsuits against Woodstock.
The village of Woodstock is a smaller entity within the town of Woodstock, and they have separate budgets. However, municipal officials argue that they overlap in many ways, and often so does funding.
Last year, Duffy placed Police Chief Joe Swanson on leave during a road rage investigation and ultimately demoted him to patrol officer because of leadership concerns. Though the investigation cleared Swanson of wrongdoing, the village board upheld his demotion after a 14-hour hearing.
Swanson appealed in court, where a judge reversed the decision. The ruling said that, to demote Swanson, Woodstock officials needed to demonstrate a legal basis for the decision. So, the village board held a second lengthy hearing, this time specifying what it saw as the legal basis: Swanson’s limited availability and poor professionalism as chief.
Now, everyone’s waiting for Judge Kerry McDonald-Cady to affirm, reverse or modify the decision. At a two-hour hearing June 30, Woodstock’s attorney John Klesch and Swanson’s attorney Linda Fraas each argued their cases.
Swanson has a pending lawsuit alleging discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and is seeking $5 million plus attorneys’ fees. So far, Woodstock has spent more than $100,000 in legal fees on the personnel issue, and some residents are concerned over how funds have been allocated.
In response to multiple public inquiries of about town expenses in the case, Duffy has published a breakdown of the legal fees and outlined the processes behind them.
According to Duffy, the municipality spent about $108,000 directly on the personnel issue with Swanson during the 2025 fiscal year — $7,000 for the investigation report, $28,000 to Monaghan Safar law firm, and $74,000 to the SP&F firm.
Duffy also wrote that all the financial actions in question were either “spoken about publicly, shown on public documents at public meetings, or done with the knowledge of numerous people.”
“Could there have been a vote? Yes. Was the vote needed? I don’t think so,” Duffy said Friday by phone.
Toward the end of his report, Duffy wrote it “appears” that $118,000 of FY2025 legal fees regarding Swanson and Seldon were allocated to town funds — public record requests, references of litigation, and the “employment issue.”
Meanwhile, Vermont State Police are looking into those finances after two complaints from residents, one of whom is Seldon, he said.
On July 10, state police began investigating an allegation of “financial improprieties” in the village of Woodstock, Adam Silverman, spokesman for the Vermont State Police, confirmed Monday.
The investigation started with the Woodstock Police Department but was ultimately referred to state police to avoid any conflict of interest. The investigation is still active, and no other details are available, Silverman said.
Duffy has not been contacted by state police at this point, and does not believe any elected officials have either.
On Aug. 18, the selectboard voted unanimously to find a forensic accountant who can work internally alongside the investigation, a decision that drew mixed opinions from the public. Vice Chair Norm Frates Jr. said the central questions involve the precise amount the town paid toward village legal fees, how the situation occurred, and how to prevent a recurrence.
Seldon contends the transfer of money relating to Swanson’s case is not the only thing that has happened behind closed doors.
The village is also a party in a lawsuit over Public Records Act requests filed by Seldon, who comments regularly at municipal meetings about transparency and points out what he considers misconduct by Duffy and other officials.
Duffy noted in his fee report that, between November 2024 and June 2025, one town resident sent, at minimum, 132 emails to the municipal manager and made at least 99 public records requests.
Seldon confirmed Sunday by email that he is the resident Duffy was referring to. He specified that 65% of his requests were intended to help build his husband’s case; 25% sought documents relating to the issue state police are investigating; and the remaining 10% of the requests were for “personal entertainment.”
From July 2024 to June 2025, the municipality spent nearly $27,000 on legal fees for public record requests from Seldon. For the last fiscal year — which started July 1, 2025 and ended June 30 of this year — the total expense for Seldon’s requests is about $16,500, for about the same number of requests as last year, Duffy reported.
Seldon contends that none of the documents he asked for should have cost any money, but Duffy intentionally runs everything through attorneys, who charge for their time.
Duffy explained that attorneys review requests for documents that include confidential or potentially confidential information, or when a request may be connected to litigation.
Beyond the actual cost, Duffy said the labor associated with a high number of requests is another issue, with each one typically taking over 30 minutes to an hour. He added that when requests come in frequently and aren’t actually in the interest of the public, it can negatively impact staff morale.
“If we’re spending 100 hours on a public records request, that’s 100 hours we’re not spending on doing the business of the town,” said Duffy.
As for Seldon’s lawsuit against the town, he’s asking for invoices from law firms, two documents involving alleged wrongdoing by Trustee Jeffrey Kahn, an email he believes he was named in, employee surveys of Duffy’s performance, and resumes of Woodstock police chief candidates.
At public meetings and over email, Seldon has repeatedly accused Kahn of “physical assault of an elderly woman,” based on what he described as a heavily redacted police report.
When the Valley News asked Kahn about the situation as he was leaving the joint board meeting May 28, he declined comment, but said no charges were ever brought against him.
The village responded to Seldon’s third amended complaint on Aug. 12, calling on the judge to deny his several record requests.
As for Swanson’s second appeal request, McDonald-Cady is expected to submit a reversal, affirmation or modification of the village board’s decision soon, as she noted on June 30 that she intended to respond within 60 days.
