Windham selectmen unanimously upheld the town administrator’s decision to levy a one-day suspension of Planning Director Al Turner despite his public appeal on Thursday, Oct. 9.

Turner was given the suspension for his actions, deemed “unbecoming” a town employee, on Sept. 18 after failing to notify Town Administrator David Sullivan of a meeting with representatives for developer Herbert Associates over a detention pond on Porcupine Road. Turner also took criticism for not passing along to the town administrator a fax addressed to Sullivan from the developers asking for the meeting that had wound up in Turner’s possession.

“This particular case is a violation against me,” Sullivan told selectmen. “Whether or not the discipline levied was appropriate is something this board needs to review.”

Sullivan called three witnesses, Dave Poulson, Al Barlow and Dana Call, all town employees, to testify on his management style and his expectations for the behavior and conduct of his employees.

“Do your job, keep me informed and don’t embarrass me,” Call told selectmen during her testimony of Sullivan’s three tenets of management.

Turner told selectmen that the punishment did not fit the infraction. He testified that he had thought Sullivan had known both about the meeting and the fax. Turner also said the suspension may have come as retaliation for an investigation he had asked the state Attorney General’s Office to conduct this summer.

The request for an investigation came after Selectman Charlie McMahon said during a public meeting in June that the planning director’s office used extortion to force developers to perform off-site improvements. Both men agreed that their working relationship in the past had been a good one, with Sullivan praising Turner’s past performance and ability to keep the town manager in the loop.

“Every department head is expected to keep me informed. Frankly, Al has done the best historically, as I can show through numerous evaluations,” Sullivan said. “I have kept him very much appraised of my request to keep me informed.”

Selectmen ruled in favor of Sullivan after concluding that Turner should have kept the town manager informed about the meeting and should not have held on to the fax addressed to Sullivan without informing him. Turner maintained that he received many faxes from a number of different sources, which may have led to the confusion, and that he frequently met with developers and their representatives.

“Mr. Turner was taking actions that I believed I should have been involved in, that I was in fact asked to be involved in by a complaining party,” Sullivan said. “Mr. Turner held meetings to resolve an issue and I was not involved.”