PLAINFIELD — Town officials faced sharp rebukes from residents who are irate over the handling of personnel issues in the police department that left the force with only one police officer and led the former Selectboard chairman to announce his resignation for the second time this summer.

“I’ve lived in this town for well over 50 years. I was raised here … I felt safe. I don’t feel safe anymore in all the years I’ve lived here. And that’s not right,” Alita Grace told the Selectboard at a tense meeting Wednesday night that also saw testy exchanges between residents.

Town officials came in for withering criticism over the departure of Tony Swett, a generally well-regarded police chief who resigned earlier this month after a public falling out with Eric Brann, the former Selectboard chairman.

(Brann, who submitted, then rescinded a resignation letter earlier this summer, quit for good this month, citing “defamatory attacks” made against him and the need to step aside in order to end the “toxicity” embroiling the town.)

On Wednesday, several residents defended Swett and took town officials to task for the subsequent departure of former part-time police officer Roland Daniels and his wife, Wanda, who worked as the part-time police administrative assistant.

Another officer left in July to join the Hanover police force. So Plainfield, which as recently as June had a full complement of three officers including a chief, currently has a single full-time officer.

“Let me make it clear,” said Daniels, rising to his feet and reading from notes. “I did not resign. I was told the Selectboard no longer needed my services as a police officer as they were going to bring the department in a different direction.”

The Danielses said they were speaking to correct information circulating in the community that they had “resigned” from their positions.

Selectboard members Amy Lappin and Ron Eberhardt refused to be drawn into a discussion about why the Danielses were let go, although they pointed out that the town reserves the right to hire and dismiss “at-will employees” as it pleases.

“Like it or not, the people who work in this community are at-will employees, and Plainfield has never, to my knowledge, made a practice if an employee is asked to resign or terminated or says that their services are no longer needed, we never make a public discussion out of that. It’s bad practice,” Eberhardt said.

Roland Daniels went on to question the qualifications of the remaining police officer, Rob DePietro, to become the new chief — if that should be what the Selectboard is weighing.

“He is a veteran in firefighting, not police work. Approximately five to to six years between Hanover PD and Plainfield PD with only the minimums in training do not make him a veteran law enforcement officer or make him capable to run this department,” Daniels said only a few feet away from DePietro, who was seated at the table with the Selectboard members and town administrator Steve Halleran.

“Officer Rob DePietro did not like to be corrected by Officer Roland Daniels because I was a part-timer,” Daniels said, referring to himself in the third person, contending that he had worked with Swett “to improve the department since he took over.”

“Comment was when (my wife and I) came back from (time in) Florida, ‘all he does is come back and manipulate the chief and get the chief to do things the way he wants to have them done.’ Well, goddamn it, I had 40 years of experience. I was a captain with over 20 officers and ran the administrative office when the chief wasn’t around up there. So I knew what I was doing. All right?” Daniels said.

When it came his turn to speak, DePietro defended his training and record, saying that Daniels had misrepresented his qualifications. DePietro did not deny the issues with Daniels.

“When (Daniels) came back (from Florida) this spring, I did believe that we had some personnel issues in the police department, primarily between myself, Tony and (former Plainfield officer) Anthony Casale that always got worse when Roland was manipulating Tony’s view of how he did things. So I did make that public to both Roland and to Tony in the spring,” DePietro said.

After Daniels criticized his former colleague, Halleran, the town administrator, voiced his support for DePietro. “I’ve had the pleasure of working with Rob DePietro for three years and I feel very safe in this community with Rob DePietro here,” Halleran said.

Plainfield’s police department and Selectboard have been under scrutiny since Brann submitted a resignation letter in June that said he could not continue on the board without compromising his principles.

Brann never explained the reason for his decision but people familiar with the situation said that Brann had lost confidence in Swett — who had been a close friend and professional associate — after Swett was said to have misled Brann about the nature of a personal relationship he had developed with a former town employee. But in July, Brann rescinded his resignation, saying he would remain on the Selectboard until his term expires in March.

Brann again gave no explanation why he changed his mind but the decision coincided with a Selectboard meeting at which more than a dozen Plainfield residents showed up to voice support for him.

In his second resignation letter submitted to the Selectboard on Aug. 14, Brann expressed appreciation for the outpouring of support but said his hope that the town could “move forward” was dashed by “defamatory attacks” made against him from some in the community. “For more than two months our community has been in turmoil over recent events, it has become abundantly clear that without my resignation the toxicity will continue. That is not my desire, nor what this community needs,” Brann wrote.

The town’s two remaining Selectboard members, Lappin and Eberhardt, said at Wednesday evening’s meeting that residents who have an interest in serving on the Selectboard to fill the vacant seat’s term until next March’s Town Meeting must submit a letter by Sept. 17.

Plainfield has also posted a want ad for a new police officer. Eberhardt dismissed Daniel’s speculation that announcing the town is looking only to hire a second police officer automatically means that DePietro is in line to become the next police chief. “That’s just not the case,” Eberhardt said.

“We don’t know who we’re going to get for that second officer. He or she may be highly qualified to be the chief (or) they may not be interested in being the chief. So having two officers in place we felt would put us in a better position to decide what to do moving forward,” he explained.

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.

CORRECTION: Ron Eberhardt’s last name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.