Disability case before Retirement Board

LOWELL -- The city Retirement Board recently voted to reconsider its denial of the disability retirement application of former electrician/wire inspector Robert Sheehan, who has alleged the city unlawfully tried to force him from his job.

The board had previously granted the retirement before the matter was remanded to it by the state Retirement Commission. The city board will reconsider its more recent denial at a meeting Monday.

Through his attorney, Sheehan has alleged that in 2010, under then-City Manager Bernie Lynch, the city tried to force him from his position because he refused to sign off on inspections of work at the Lowell Housing Authority he never inspected.

Sheehan, 63, is the second former city employee to allege he refused to sign off on uninspected LHA work at North Common Village, where 132 units were renovated from 2008 to 2011 without a full set of permits pulled and inspections conducted.

Former building inspector Paul Welcome told The Sun in 2011 that he and Sheehan refused to sign off on non-inspected LHA work in 2010 despite pressure to do so from supervisors.

Sheehan's alleged date of injury was several months later, in late May 2010, which is when Sheehan received confirmation "of the city's intent to force him from his position," Attorney Richard Sullivan wrote in a letter to the Retirement Board.

Soon afterward, the city approved a reorganization plan to split Sheehan's two positions and allow him to only hold one of them.

Sheehan, who went out on sick leave and later retired, would have taken at least a $23,000 reduction in his salary if he took one of the new positions. Sheehan had worked for the city for more than 30 years.

Due to privacy reasons, the nature of Sheehan's alleged injury has not been provided to The Sun.

Lynch did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

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Disability case before Retirement Board