Brian Kubiel reached a mutual release agreement with the Board of Commissioners in a matter concerning several employees, an attorney said.
TOMS RIVER, NJ — The Toms River Fire District 1 Board of Commissioners approved a settlement and separation agreement with the district’s business administrator on Wednesday night, just days before a special run-off election to fill the fifth seat on the board.
The terms of the agreement with Brian S. Kubiel, who has been the administrator since 2011, were not released, nor was the date that he will be leaving as administrator.
The settlement agreement was announced by attorney Charles Schlager,. At the July 9 meeting the board had appointed him legal counsel to investigate employee complaints. A second attorney was appointed Aug. 9 “for workplace investigations related to employee complaints filed on July 25, 2025,” according to meeting minutes.
“As a special legal counsel in a matter concerning several employees, I would suggest to the chair to make a motion to accept and execute the settlement agreement and mutual release between Toms River Fire District 1 and Brian Kubiel,” Renaud said.
Kubiel, in response to a Patch request for the settlement agreement, vehemently denied that it was tied to employee complaints.
“To date, I have not been served any complaints or notices that I was being investigated,” Kubiel said, adding that he was in the process of preparing to file a defamation lawsuit against “the Cirz Campaign,” a reference to Saturday’s run-off election between Anthony Cirz and Michael Hopson for a seat on the Fire District 1 board.
The district has not publicly revealed the complaints, but they stem from a letter sent July 25 to Kubiel and Tim Carson, the administrator of Toms River Fire District 2, and members of the Joint Board of Fire Commissioners detailing what the writer described as “a pervasive hostile work environment” where female employees are “routinely infantilized and belittled” and treated as disposable, and subjected to gender discrimination and sexual harassment.
Christopher Koutsouris, the attorney for Fire District 1, acknowledged the letter but rejected an OPRA request for it under three exemptions in the law, including matters regarding sexual harassment; matters where there is an ongoing investigation, and matters involving “Internal Complaints Alleging Discrimination, Harassment or Hostile Environments.”
A copy of the letter was provided to Patch independently and its authenticity was verified, as were the complaints it contained. Multiple current and former employees described not only issues with female employees were treated, they also described the events of a 2024 Christmas party in the board offices where two commissioners engaged in a discussion about strip clubs, “objectifying women in graphic detail,” according to the letter.
The employees spoke with Patch on the condition their names would be withheld because of concerns about retaliation.
In responding to a request for comment regarding the issues raised, including pay disparity and the events of the 2024 Christmas party, Koutsouris provided the following statement:
“The salacious topics presented in the article you propose to publish are unfortunately, and rather obviously, driven by political animus — and designed to be so -– on this the very eve of a hotly contested election for the open seat on the Board of Fire Commissioners,” he said.
“While the Board of Fire Commissioners would welcome the opportunity to respond to many of these topics, to do so would benefit from a more formal interview so that these items can be fully addressed. The Board, through its representatives, would welcome the opportunity to schedule a sit down to discuss the workings of the Fire District, how items of remuneration are handled, the factual details concerning compensation for those whom are proposed to be addressed in your article, and how certain Joint District Employees are compensation (these items of remuneration involve not only the Board of Fire Commissioners District No. 1 but also those of District No. 2,” he wrote. “These are very subtly nuanced matters and would benefit from discussions).”
“To that end, while the Board appreciates the opportunity to reply hastily in writing given less than 24 hours to comment, the more prudent approach would be to schedule an interview so that these items can be discussed,” he wrote. The Patch request was sent at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, with a request for comment by 3 p.m. Wednesday.
The employees who spoke with Patch said the issue was in how the commissioners, in particular Richard Tutela and Leonard Minkler, along with Kubiel, treated the staff.
A longtime employee who retired a few years ago said there was a very dismissive attitude toward the women, who were seen as just existing to answer the phone.
“They’re the nuts and bolts of the operation,” the employee said.
While the inspectors are checking properties in Toms River for fire safety issues — there are more than 5,000 commercial properties in Toms River, in addition to thousands of homes — the staff in the office is scheduling inspections, billing property owners for inspections, and following up to collect unpaid fees. They are issuing permits for special events, food trucks, fireworks displays and the like, along with managing billing for state fees that cover certain requirements. They proofread inspection reports before they are released and check over and file site plans for the inspectors to review, the employee said.
They also field calls from the public, whether it’s just to schedule an inspection or it’s a business owner or an angry resident questioning a bill.
While their duties were wide-ranging, they were treated like “they’re just girls who answer the phone,” another employee said.
That dismissiveness on the part of the commissioners carried over into salary and benefits discussions, employees said. During the most recent negotiations, which started in 2024 and weren’t resolved until April 2025, at least one commissioner was overheard suggesting the clerical staff be fired and replaced with new employees.
In the end, they received pay raises of 2.8 percent, according to emails shared with Patch.
While some employees of the fire district have union representation for their wage and benefits negotiations, others do not; yet those without union representation were treated as though they were part of a bargaining unit. That in particular affected the staff in the district office, where emails show requests to negotiate individually were rejected.
The fire inspectors, meanwhile, received a range of raises, with some of the highest paid inspectors receiving no raise in 2025, while others received raises of $10,000 or more. The negotiations were short, employees told Patch.
In a comparison of 2021 salaries to 2025, some inspectors had seen their base salary increase by more than $20,000 over the four years, while female employees had risen by less than half of that, according to salary records obtained through an OPRA request.
Patch could find no records in meeting minutes in 2024 or 2025 of any contracts being approved by the commissioners in a public vote.
Employees told Patch the $10,000 raises were for licensing for fire inspectors to perform inspections under the Uniform Construction Codes. Those inspections, however, are not performed by fire inspectors in Toms River; they’re performed by the township’s building code inspectors.
The former employee who retired after years of working for the district said there was always an argument over what to pay the administrative staff, and a refusal to acknowledge their work.
“When you deal with the public you have an enormous responsibility,” the employee said. “You have to tune yourself to make them happy. That’s what they do, every day dealing with real estate agents or irate people questioning why they have to pay for smoke detector inspection.”
“They are the ones who are the first buffer when people call in,” the employee said. Paying the administrative staff “is a drop in the bucket when you’re talking about an $8 million budget.”
The employee said there was a pervasive attitude of disrespect toward women and that Kubiel and the commissioners, particularly Minkler and Tutela, simply did not view the women as worthy of respect.
According to records circulated publicly and verified by Patch, Tutela received a letter of reprimand in 2002 for inappropriate remarks to female students at the then-Dover Township Fire Academy. The letter does not detail the nature of the remarks but says the incidents were reported by other students who overheard the remarks.
Tutela was one of the commissioners involved in the issue at the 2024 Christmas party, employees told Patch. Multiple employees said the Christmas party, which amounted to a potluck gathering where people brought desserts to share for a mid-day get-together at the office of the board of commissioners, deteriorated into a discussion, primarily between Tutela and Minkler, about strip clubs they had visited in the past.
The discussion included hand gestures demonstrating how they had touched women at the clubs, and lamenting that alcohol was no longer permitted at clubs where the women were performing nude.
The employees said the discussion was extremely distressing but did not feel comfortable addressing it because of ongoing wage and benefits negotiations and because they needed their jobs.
Retaliation was a real issue, several employees told Patch, citing multiple lawsuits and threats of lawsuits by Kubiel. One of those was a drawn-out fight between Kubiel and former commissioner Jesse Sipe over Sipe’s personal emails and text messages. Kubiel was demanding a search of Sipe’s those over a two-year period for any mentions of himself during a controversy within the fire district. The matter ended up before a state appeals court in 2022, after Kubiel dropped the complaint and Sipe was no longer on the board.
“If he has an issue, he goes after that person,” the former longtime employee said.
The attitude toward women in the fire district also was visible in a letter sent anonymously to the fire district and several other entities, including Berkeley Township Mayor John Bacchione, in August.
In that letter, copies of which were provided to Patch, the writer describes himself as having been in attendance at the March 4 commissioners meeting where the controversy of who won the February commissioners’ election heated up.
The letter criticizes the commissioners for “letting it happen,” and includes a brief criticism of Kubiel, saying he should just “stop trying to fix everything to keep the district and the commissioners out of trouble.” But the writer attacks several women by name as well, calling one a homewrecker and dismissing another as “just paying the bills” for the district, while alleging she committed an illegal act with the election results.
The county Board of Elections concluded nothing illegal was done in its review of the controversy surrounding the write-in vote for Anthony Cirz, court documents show.
An appellate court ruled the vote should not have been counted because the write-in votes are not accepted for a person whose name is on the ballot, even though by writing in a candidate they are making clear their choice of candidate. The appellate court did not label the action to count the vote illegal.