NEWTON, Mass. (AP) – Officials in a Boston suburb are investigating a former city employee they say shut down the police website during a pay dispute.
Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller said the former employee, who was the police department’s director of information technology, took down the department’s website in late June and July. The website instead directed visitors to a message urging them to contact Fuller and ask the mayor to reinstate him, The Boston Globe reported Friday.
Fuller said the employee controls access to the site and has not turned it over to the city. Newton has created a new police department website in its place. The old website was no longer active on Sunday.
Fuller told the Globe that the employee shut down “a vital resource for the city of Newton.” The employee notified city officials in March that he was quitting, the Globe reported. The employee felt he was owed $137,000 in comp time at the time he shut down the website, the newspaper reported.
The employee said in a statement that he was “disappointed with the city’s representation of the facts in this matter” and he would work with the city to resolve the issue.
