The Selectboard has unanimously announced its intent to not reinstate Svoboda come next July.

'What we've done is give notice,' Chairman Edwin Murray said after the weekly Selectboard meeting Wednesday. 'A year's notice from the time he was not reinstated' (last July).

But, at the same time, according to Murray, the board has left open a slim chance that the embattled police chief might possibly retain his job. If 'vast improvement' is seen in Svoboda's performance between now and then, the board has the option to reinstate, if it chooses to.

'This is not written in stone,' Murray said.

Svoboda has been accused of sexism and racism and was the subject of a range of complaints by his officers in a letter of no-confidence.

Without reinstatement, Svoboda's tenure as chief will expire June 30, 2010.

Conway dairy farmer John Wholey, in his cow barn.

The pitch-black darkness is as thick as the mud along Wholey Road as Conway dairy farmer John Wholey starts up his Massey Ferguson tractor and heads a few hundred feet downhill from his house to the cow barn. There, his herd of Holsteins, Jerseys and mixed-breed cows are waiting for their morning milking.

It's about 5:30 a.m. and raining lightly. Minutes before, the 53-year-old Conway farmer had slipped on his black rubber boots and a work jacket to start the day at Wholey Cow Farm.

Now the tractor roars against the early morning silence, with only the brown, black and white faces of the cows in the open-sided barn awake and lively.