by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
A mayoral subcommittee charged with recommending former Fire Chief Ray Alfred’s replacement, asked the top candidates Tuesday how they would improve a department facing stagnant budgets, morale problems and a rapidly approaching leadership exodus.
During the campaign, Mayor John Peyton promised to replace Alfred — a former Washington, D.C. chief who was perceived by many as an outsider — from within the department. All four candidates interviewed Tuesday pointed to years of local service.
Committee chair Lynn Pappas said last week that she would interview the most viable candidates first, rating them according to education and fire/rescue experience. Tuesday, her committee granted 45-minute interviews to Lorin Mock, the department’s operations division chief who is in his 22nd year with the City; Alonzo McQueen, the district chief of inspections with 15 years of experience; Michael Geiger, an 18-year veteran who now coordinates departmental training; and Hastings Williams Jr., who spent 23 years with the department before leaving for the private sector in 1995.
The candidates are seeking to lead a department whose leadership structure will be decimated by hundreds of early retirements over the next two years as part of the City’s Deferred Optional Retirement Program. The program offers to defer retirement income into tax sheltered savings plans in return for early retirements.
Mock, McQueen and Williams told the committee that filling the DROP vacancies would be the department’s biggest upcoming challenge.
“The DROP system certainly presents us with a unique challenge,” said Mock. “Not just to fill those spots when they become vacant, but there are current members just marking time until they depart, and they see any change as a threat.”
The department will likely be forced to change its structure and organization to conform to the new administration’s request that it do more with less. Last week, Chief Operating Officer Sam Mousa said the City would not throw dollars at departmental shortcomings and that fixes would have to be made internally with existing resources. Further, he told the committee to recommend departmental leaders willing to endorse that approach to the department’s nearly 1,100 firefighters and rescue personnel.
While both Mock and McQueen recommended cross training personnel to handle firefighting, training, inspection and paramedic responsibilities, Geiger warned the committee not to expect first-rate results from a cut-rate policy.
“We’re smart managers,” said Geiger, who noted the department consistently ranks nationally among the top 10 rescue service providers despite below average funding. “You’re already getting the best for least; I’m not going to consider insane measures to cut the budget further when you’re already below average.”
The City’s fire and rescue budget breaks down to $79,325 spent on salary and resources for each of the department’s 1,185 employees, nearly $4,000 less per capita then Orlando, which spent last year about $83,000 on its 482 fire and rescue personnel. Jacksonville keeps 265 responders on call daily to cover an 840 square-mile area, including Atlantic and Neptune beaches.
Each of the candidates emphasized their experience as a possible means to repair a rift between the department’s leadership and its rank-and-file. Mock said the everyday fire and rescue personnel were never happy with Alfred and perceived him as “an outsider brought in to ride herd.” He said Peyton gained the department’s respect by visiting every fire station during the campaign and said the department trusted Peyton to appoint a respected figure.
Although he has been with the department since 1981, Mock said there were still some in the department who viewed him “as a damn Yankee” due to his Pennsylvania roots. He said his openness to change frustrated some members of the department dedicated to preserving the status quo.
While McQueen also presented himself as a change agent — he implemented a benchmark process to measure inspections against other departments — McQueen emphasized his Westside upbringing and community involvement. He presented his work with children as evidence of his belief in education.
Faced with the prospect of having to improve fire and rescue response times with less money, McQueen recommended educating firefighters as paramedics and inspectors, allowing personnel to perform multiple missions.
“People will only see what they are prepared to see,” said McQueen. “If we don’t prepare them for diverse perspectives, then I believe we’ve failed.”
McQueen credited Alfred with improving race relations, another consistent topic throughout the four-hour-long series of interviews. McQueen said racial differences pervade the city, not just the department, and said he would try to unite fire and rescue personnel under a shared commitment to make Jacksonville a safer city.
Mock said the department’s commitment to diverse hiring in the 1980s and 1990s would eventually bridge the racial divide.
“Unfortunately, the department has a history of exclusion throughout the 1960s and 1970s, which reduced the pool of qualified minority candidates to advance,” said Mock. “Now when I look around, I see bright young African-American officers.”
Before leaving in 1995, Williams became Duval County’s first African-American division fire chief. He said he had a proven track record managing diversity. According to his resume, Williams developed a four-year minority recruitment program, which increased by 110 percent the department’s minority work force.
Mock said the department needed to open its leadership promotional track to rank-and-file personnel of both races. He said the voice of the everyday firefighter was lost in the current structure and, by providing more opportunities for advancement, the department would give all its personnel a stake in the department’s improved operations.
McQueen echoed those sentiments proposing a promotional points system, which would give fire and rescue personnel points on advancement exams for completing an associate’s, bachelor’s or master’s degree.
Interviews for the chief’s job will close Tuesday when retired State Fire Marshal Charles Clark, Battalion Chief Richard Barrett and Battalion Chief Marvin Johnson interview with the committee.