Two members of the Westbrook Fire Department are contesting punishments recently handed down by the city.

Firefighter Matthew Lamontagne and Lt. Donald Trafford have both filed requests for arbitration with the Maine Labor Relations Board.

The punishments are the latest development in the city’s effort to resolve long-standing issues in the fire department that have resulted in two female firefighters being out on administrative leave for more than a year.

Howard Reben, attorney for the firefighters’ union Teamsters Local 340, said earlier this month that both men were recently given pre-disciplinary hearings by the city and that “any discipline that would be meted out to either Trafford or Lamontagne will be the subject of arbitration hearing.”

Disciplinary actions are not considered public information before employees have been given the chance to appeal them. Therefore, city officials cannot comment on them.

An investigation into sexual harassment claims made by female firefighters Kathy Rogers and Lisa Theberge led to the punishment last year of seven members of the department, including Lamontagne and Trafford.

In December 2008, Lamontagne was suspended for 60 days and Trafford was demoted from lieutenant to firefighter. Trafford, who received the harshest punishment of the firefighters, was the only member of the department to grieve his discipline. His demotion was overturned by the state’s Board of Arbitration and Conciliation, which will soon hear his case again.

In a lawsuit filed in October in Cumberland County Superior Court, the female firefighters accused Lamontagne of assaulting Theberge, masturbating in the fire station and inappropriately touching victims while in a rescue vehicle. They said in their suit that Trafford threw equipment at Rogers while she was driving a fire truck and used discriminatory language against women.

According to Roger Putnam, support staff and hearings reporter for the Maine Labor Relations Board, an arbitration hearing in front of a three-person panel is being scheduled for Lamontagne and could happen as early as February. Trafford still hasn’t completed some of the steps toward scheduling an arbitration hearing.

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