This story falls outside my sports and athletics beat, so I want to be straightforward with readers: the Woodstock police chief case is a local governance and legal story, not something that connects to Big Green athletics or Ivy League sports coverage.
That said, the case does touch something that resonates across small Upper Valley communities, and for a fourth-generation Vermont resident, the Woodstock story is hard to ignore. Small-town institutions, whether police departments or athletic programs, carry enormous weight in communities like this one. When those institutions fracture publicly, everyone feels it.
Here is what the source material tells us.
The Woodstock Village Board of Trustees upheld the demotion of Police Chief Joseph Swanson to patrol officer for the second time this week. Their 126-page decision, issued Monday, determined that Municipal Manager Eric Duffy had just cause to demote Swanson, citing what trustees described as “serious and egregious violations of numerous workplace rules.” They also found Swanson “negligent” and “derelict” in his duties and ruled that he engaged in conduct unbecoming an officer.
Swanson is a nearly 26-year veteran of the Woodstock Police Department. His legal fight began in October 2024 when Duffy placed him on paid administrative leave following a road rage incident involving Swanson’s husband. Both the Vermont State Police and the Vermont Criminal Justice Council investigated the traffic incident and found no wrongdoing by Swanson. Duffy then hired an outside investigator to examine Swanson’s performance more broadly. That review produced the demotion.
The trustees held their first hearing on the matter in March 2025. That hearing ran 14 and a half hours. The board upheld the demotion after the first hearing as well. A Windsor Superior Court judge later reversed that decision, finding the trustees had not followed proper legal protocol when they initially concluded they did not need to establish cause for the demotion. That ruling sent the matter back for a second round of hearings, which took place March 2 and 3 at the Woodstock Masonic Lodge.
The trustees issued their second decision Monday. The day after, Swanson’s attorney Linda Fraas filed an appeal in Windsor Superior Court.
Fraas’s petition runs over 60 pages. She argues the demotion constitutes an unlawful breach of contract, that no just cause exists as a matter of law, that Swanson received no prior notice before his demotion, that no egregious acts were actually committed, and that due process failures and evidence of bias taint the proceedings.
“I would say the demotion is another futile and destructive decision to once again try to illegally demote him from his contracted position,” Fraas said.
Fraas expressed confidence that the appeal will succeed. “We’re not surprised at all,” she said of the board’s decision. “We fully expect the decision to be reversed just like the first one.”
The case has now stretched well past a year and a half. It has consumed significant village resources, generated a 126-page trustee decision, produced a competing 60-page legal petition, required two separate multi-day hearings, and already resulted in one superior court reversal. Whatever the underlying facts, the procedural cost to Woodstock is real and ongoing.
For Upper Valley residents watching from Hanover or Lebanon or any of the small towns between here and the Connecticut River, this case illustrates how quickly institutional disputes can escalate when proper process breaks down early. The first reversal came precisely because the trustees skipped a step. That single procedural failure reset the entire process and extended the conflict by at least a year.
Windsor Superior Court will now take up the appeal. Given that a judge already reversed the first demotion on procedural grounds, the village faces genuine legal uncertainty again. Fraas has been consistent throughout in her public statements, and the court gave her client a meaningful win once before.
Swanson continues to serve as a patrol officer while the legal process plays out. He joined the Woodstock Police Department nearly 26 years ago. How this ends will likely depend less on the underlying conduct questions and more on whether the trustees got the procedure right this time.
