PLAINFIELD — A month after he submitted it, Plainfield Selectboard Chairman Eric Brann said he would rescind his letter of resignation.

Instead of departing, Brann said he would remain on the board until the next election at Town Meeting next March.

In the meantime, he said, he plans to recuse himself from participating in personnel matters concerning the town’s police chief. A falling out between the two had been the catalyst for Brann initially announcing he would step down.

“With reservations, I will rescind my resignation … for now,” Brann said at Wednesday evening’s regularly scheduled Selectboard meeting.

Brann did not give a reason for his change of mind but noted that the attention that followed his surprise announcement last month had been difficult on his family and he “had no intention of putting them through that again,” according to draft minutes of the meeting.

“It is the first time in my life I got to sit in the passenger’s seat and see how this affects Kris,” Brann said, publicly thanking his wife, Kris Brann, who was seated nearby, for her support.

“Eric agreed to rescind his resignation, noting that work continues on a complex personnel matter that is now in the hands of the other two Selectboard members,” the minutes recorded.

Those two members, Ron Eberhardt and Amy Lappin, spent in hour in private session on Wednesday night “to discuss an employee issue,” according to the minutes; they were then joined by Brann at the beginning of the public session.

Police Chief Anthony Swett was seen entering the town hall building before the closed-door session began and exiting after it was concluded. He declined to comment when approached by a Valley News photographer as he was leaving.

Brann, first elected to the Selectboard in 2019, stunned the town when he submitted his resignation on June 19, explaining that he had reached “a difficult crossroads” and had been “forced to choose” between resigning or “compromising” his personal integrity in order to remain on the Selectboard.

Brann has never publicly detailed the crisis in conscience that he thought would prevent him from continuing to serve on the board, but people with knowledge of the situation said that Brann had lost confidence in Swett, when Swett allegedly had not been truthful when Brann asked about a personal relationship the married police chief had formed with another now town employee. (In Plainfield, as in many smaller towns, the Selectboard directly oversees town workers.)

Brann had been provided convincing evidence about the relationship and was not convinced by Swett’s denials, people familiar with the matter said.

The relationship did not violate town rules because the individuals involved worked in different departments and there was no evidence any town policies had been violated. But it ruptured the bond between Brann and Swett, who in addition to their professional association, had been close friends whose families socialized together.

At Wednesday’s Selectboard meeting — attended by more than 15 people — several residents spoke in support of Brann.

“If you leave, it is not fair to (other Selectboard members), not fair to us,” Townline Equipment founder Bob Marrazzo implored. “Please stay.”

That sentiment was widely echoed by other attendees, including Larry Holdsworth, who like Brann is a former New Hampshire State Trooper.

Holdsworth, who moved to Plainfield in 2018, said that he had been Brann’s supervisor at the Keene barracks and shared his impressions after having worked with him.

“Whenever we’d get a hot call for a domestic (assault), shots fired, something like that, I’d ask dispatch who we have going that way, and if they said ‘Eric Brann’ I would breathe a sigh of relief,” Holdsworth said in an interview on Thursday, reiterating the message he had given the Selectboard members the prior evening.

“He was that competent,” Holdsworth said. “If there’s a tough path to take, but it’s the right path, he’d take that path 100 out of 100 times.”

Holdsworth said he asked Brann to reconsider his resignation and told the board members and attendees alike that “we need more Eric Branns in that position who are not afraid to do what’s right, regardless of the impact it may have on friendships and coworkers.”

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.