Responding to ACES' Comments Regarding the Fire Chief Blog
In response to my previous blog regarding the Fire Chief position, ACES has sent another message to its members that includes inaccuracies that must be addressed.
ACES wrote:
“The two times “the issue was brought before Council” are:
The September 15th Council Meeting where the only issue addressed was whether the City would make an interim versus permanent hire for the Fire Chief position.
A Study Session on November 2nd, two weeks before the final vote, where the idea for an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with Fire District 3 and their hire of the new Ashland Fire Chief, Devon Brown was presented for the first time.
Until the presentation for a final vote two weeks later on November 17th, this idea had never come before a regular city Council meeting. There are no formal votes in a Study Session and they are not covered by the Daily Tidings.”
My response:
At the September 15th Council meeting, the council selected, by unanimous vote, from three options for moving forward with the process of filling the soon to be vacant position of fire chief. Council did not direct staff merely to hire an interim, we selected the third option:
Option 3 – Pursue a recruitment that would result in a limited duration appointment for Fire Chief in Ashland. Option 3 is the most flexible of options in that it replaces leadership in Ashland following David Shepherd’s retirement. Yet, it does not promise long term employment, which allows the City to continue with a review of the Ambulance Service while simultaneously working with Fire District #5 to determine the feasibility of merging services. A limited duration appointment would ensure that whoever the City hired understood the position was limited, and the individual employed could be a partner in determining the most sustainable future for Ashland Fire & Rescue while providing experienced leadership during a time of transition.
If you want to watch it for yourself, the video of that discussion is here: https://videoplayer.telvue.com/player/w9sPsSE7vna3XTN_39bs1rEXjVWF0kfP/media/587941?fullscreen=false&showtabssearch=true&autostart=true The conversation starts at minute 1:20 and ends at 1:34.
The Council communication about this issue for the September 15th meeting is here: https://www.ashland.or.us/SIB/files/09152020_Discussion_of_Fire_Chief_Recruitment_CC.pdf
They are right that there are no formal votes in a study session, but those meetings are official, noticed meetings of the Ashland City Council where staff brings ideas and gets direction from the Council before continuing forward with a process or idea.
There were questions, but no objections from any councilor regarding moving forward with both the idea of the contract and the applicant selected during the November 2nd study session.
The Council communication for the November 2 study session is here: https://www.ashland.or.us/SIB/files/110220_FireChiefRecruitmentUpdate_CCFinal.pdf
The video of that study session is here: https://videoplayer.telvue.com/player/w9sPsSE7vna3XTN_39bs1rEXjVWF0kfP/media/598331?fullscreen=false&showtabssearch=true&autostart=true and the discussion about this issue starts at minute 1:00.
ACES wrote:
“It wasn’t until the November 17th agenda came out 3 days before the meeting that the actual IGA Agreement, a resume, contract specifics about the hire of Devon Brown and how much it would cost the city were even presented.”
The agenda for the November 17th meeting was posted on the website and made available to councilors on Friday, November 13th. That’s four days. A minor point, but when tossing around numbers, it’s important that they are correct. Council receives contracts that it is expected to act upon in the packet ahead of the meeting. That gives us time to ask questions of staff or to bring questions we have to the meeting at which point we can also make other choices besides approving the contract.
ACES wrote:
“Adding insult to injury, we subsequently learned the city reviewed this specific plan with the Fire Union even before the November 2nd Study Session and that they had been exploring arrangements with another Fire District for months. Even the Fire Union was informed before we, the citizens, had an inkling!”
My response:
Management staff at the City are allowed, even encouraged, to think through items to some degree before bringing them to the Council for direction. In order to assemble the three options for how we might move forward with addressing the Fire Chief vacancy (that were brought to Council at the September 15th meeting), staff had to have some initial discussions to see whether that option was potentially viable. I would be severely disappointed if they didn’t do that and instead brought forward ideas that had not been vetted at all and turned out to not be even remotely viable.
ACES wrote:
“If our city is spending $450,000 over the biennium, paid to some Fire District under a new IGA, and putting in place a new Fire Chief who manages one of the city’s largest departments, it’s only reasonable that Ashland citizens would want some time to digest the plan, learn about the candidate and ask questions without a three-day time clock ticking in which to become informed or participate in any way.”
My response:
The applicant was named at the November 2nd study session two weeks before and we should remember that Ashland wasn’t hiring this position, we were contracting for it through a local fire district. The fire district was doing the hiring. That creates a different process than a standard hiring process.
ACES wrote:
“In the last months, Mayor Stromberg, with the consent of this lame duck Council, has been trying to ram through as many hires and appointments as possible, working behind closed doors to ensure his people are in place before this administration ends and the city manager form of government, overwhelmingly approved by city voters last May, is inaugurated on Jan. 1. It’s shameful, ties the hands of our incoming Council and Mayor and tells the citizens of Ashland that their votes meant nothing.”
My response:
It’s unfortunate that a statement that disrespectful needs to be repeated here, but I must include it if I am to respond to it. Leaving management positions vacant for months on end during a double emergency declaration and while heading into a budget process is a BAD IDEA. Any sitting council needs to do its job to keep the city running smoothly. To do otherwise is to neglect their oath of office. This line of thinking is not a great idea in good times, but it is a disaster in challenging times like what we have been in since March. If the new manager hired in 2021 doesn’t like a department head appointed by the current council, they can remove them. No one’s hands are being tied.
ACES wrote:
On the contrary, Akins expressed concerns whenever the issue was brought forth - in both the Sept 15th and Nov 2nd meetings and again in the November 16th Study Session.
My response:
Questions were asked during those two sessions, but there was no move on the part of any councilor to change the direction to staff. See the links above if you would like to see the discussions for yourself.
ACES wrote:
Consider that Mayor-Elect Akins inadvertently found out that a vote was imminent on the IGA when she heard Councilor Graham was interviewing the candidate for Fire Chief, Devon Brown. Akins was not offered the opportunity to interview him but elbowed her way into doing a joint interview with another Councilor that was scheduled the day before the vote.”
My response:
This is patently false. On November 10, our HR Manager, Tina Gray, sent this email to all councilors (I checked to make sure that all councilors were included on the email - and they were):
Dear Council,
Next Tuesday, the IGA with Fire District #3 for Professional Fire Chief Services is on the Agenda for your approval. I wanted to see if any Councilors would like to meet Devon Brown in advance of the meeting (Monday or Tuesday) via zoom? We recognize this is a unique way to fill a vacancy for Fire Chief, so if there is interest in meeting him in advance of the Council meeting, I would be happy to coordinate.
He’s very excited about the opportunity, and we think he will be a great addition to the executive team and Ashland Fire & Rescue. We want you to feel equally as confident about this collaborative hire.
Thank you,
Tina
I had an interview time scheduled with the applicant because I replied to Tina’s email and she set it up. Councilor Seffinger was available at the same time, and had also responded requesting an interview slot, so we were on the Zoom call together with the applicant.
ACES wrote:
“It’s also all our elected officials’ responsibility to live up to their commitments, in this case, to abide by the Diversity Equity Inclusion Resolution passed this year and the Council’s stated commitment “to reduce overhead management costs with potential gains through pooled resources and staffing”
My response:
The City of Ashland was not the hiring agency - the fire district is the hiring agency in this situation and the applicant selected was someone who brought the system assessment skills we needed as well as what the fire district was looking to bring into its organization. Again, the point of this contract was to investigate the potential of pooled resources and staffing with a local fire district.
ACES wrote:
“Is Councilor Graham saying that our current Fire Department and those in charge are incapable of ensuring the safety of our citizens? This is an alarming suggestion and contrary to a statement in a recent official city publication on the fire chief hiring process:
“Through this process, Acting Fire Chief Ralph Sartain, has stepped in and is providing strong management leadership to the professional and dedicated staff of Ashland Fire & Rescue.”
Secondly, no process was derailed. The Council approved IGA with District 3 still stands.”
My response:
There is no ignoring the fact that our fire department is down two leadership staff positions since 2019 with our fire marshall now taking on the jobs of interim fire chief, fire marshall, and deputy chief. We are also in the worst days of a global pandemic that puts our fire fighter/paramedics on the front lines of the emergency. Yes, they are doing the very best they can. Yes, they will continue to do everything they can to keep us all safe because they are dedicated public servants. But we should not ask them to scramble like this for longer than necessary. Council and staff had gotten through the negotiations of the contract and selection of the applicant and were right on the verge of signing the contract when the applicant withdrew from consideration because of the actions of a sitting councilor.
ACES wrote:
In response to my comments about inaccurate salary information being posted, they wrote: “Additionally, public employees’ salaries are a matter of public record.”
My response:
The salary figures for positions in local government are a matter of public record, but asking an applicant for their current salary during an interview is specifically prohibited by Oregon’s Pay Equity Act , no matter whether that person’s position and salary are public or not.
Oregon's Pay Equity Act says it is an unlawful practice … for an employer or prospective employer to seek the salary history of an applicant [except to request] from a prospective employee written authorization to confirm prior compensation after the employer makes an offer of employment to the prospective employee that includes an amount of compensation.
ACES wrote:
ACES is unaware of any statements made in its Action Alert on November 17th that were untrue.”
My response:
See previous blog: https://www.tonyaforashland.com/tonyas-council-blog/2020/12/6/hiring-our-next-fire-chief. In the discussions it was clear that should we move forward with an independent fire department after the departmental assessment is complete, our fire chief under this contract would remain as our chief, and move to our payroll, assuming both parties were agreeable. If the City chose to utilize a regional management and operations structure, our fire chief would then likely take on a different role within the region and may not be an employee of the City.
ACES wrote:
“First, how can someone who has never been a fire chief and doesn’t know the Ashland system, its organization, its people and their knowledge/capabilities not require training? Furthermore, in the meetings of Sept 15th and Nov 2nd, the stated major advantage of this arrangement was that it was interim and not permanent.”
My response:
It is not uncommon to hire someone from the outside to come into a department or company and lead an assessment and potential restructuring. Part of the benefit of hiring someone from outside that department or company is that they will not have personal relationships that could cloud their judgment in terms of any potential restructuring. The applicant had extensive experience doing just this type of departmental assessment and restructuring, which is why he was selected for the contract.
It is my hope that these types of messages that alarm our citizens will be based in fact in the future. Healthy debate is a good thing, but we need to be working together and we need to disagree respectfully basing our respective positions on accurate facts.
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please send them to me at my council address: tonya@council.ashland.or.us.