{"id":12803,"date":"2026-09-21T22:31:06","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T02:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/?p=12803"},"modified":"2026-09-21T22:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T02:31:09","slug":"the-dismissal-of-town-manager-shawn-mulholland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/?p=12803","title":{"rendered":"The Dismissal of Town Manager Shawn Mulholland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">9\/21\/2026 another contentious town council meeting where a majority vote of the Town Council resulted in the immediate firing of Town Manager Shawn Mullholland. Councilors Ron Dunn, Shawn Faber, and Ted Combes voted for the dismissal. Town Council Chairman Ron Dunn justified the dismissal by citing numerous instances of insubordination, unauthorized spending, and charter violations discovered during a special committee investigation. To bypass a supermajority requirement in the local charter, the council relied on a legal opinion stating that New Hampshire state law takes precedence. The meeting was marked by intense conflict, with dissenting members Councilor Deb Paul and Dan Bouchard accusing the majority of orchestrating a secretive and illegal removal process. Following the termination, the board appointed Police Chief Kim Bernard as the acting town manager for a 120-day term despite vocal opposition from the minority and the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Town Council Votes 3-2 to Fire the Town Manager in Violation of Town Charter\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1eZyg6LhSKM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Town Manager was hired by Councilors Dunn, Faber and Combes  on 3\/3\/2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Town Council Appoints Shaun Mulholland Town Manager\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NnoGOGUsimE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>9\/21\/2026 another contentious town council meeting where a majority vote of the Town Council resulted in the immediate firing of Town Manager Shawn Mullholland. Councilors Ron Dunn, Shawn Faber, and Ted Combes voted for the dismissal. Town Council Chairman Ron Dunn justified the dismissal by citing numerous instances of insubordination,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12804,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12803\/revisions\/12804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}