City’s first full-time chief presided over contentious two years
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
City of Burlington Mayor Bob Miller announced Tuesday night that Fire Chief Perry Howard will resign in June of 2016.
In a news release distributed Tuesday evening, Miller stated the city and Howard had “worked out an arrangement to ensure continuity in the fire department’s leadership structure.”
It indicated that both the city and Howard had addressed Howard’s “pursuit of other opportunities,” and during the transition, the city would begin the process of looking for its next fire chief.
According to source who requested anonymity, fire department members were meeting Tuesday night to receive the same information.
Howard’s anticipated last day of service, according to the news release, is June 4.
The announcement ends what has been a contentious 2-1/2 years under Howard. Shortly before Howard was hired, the city completed a cooperative study with the Burlington Area Rescue Squad and the Town of Burlington Fire Department through McGrath, a consulting firm.
That study identified a number of ways the three departments could better work together. However, as the first full-time chief for the City of Burlington, Howard found himself in at-times contentious situations with some members of the Rescue Squad and the fire department.
The situation with the Rescue Squad became heated – and very public – in the summer of 2014 as the fire department began rolling out first responders to rescue calls in an attempt to improve response times. The relationship eventually cooled with both sides pledging to work with the other.
There were also numerous volunteer firefighters who resigned over that period.
On Tuesday night, however, Miller said what had happened prior to that evening and this process was inconsequential.
“It doesn’t matter what the past is,” Miller said. “We’re looking to the future.”
In the news release, Miller said the transition period would allow the city to find a high-quality replacement for Howard, and that the city didn’t “want to rush.”
“We want to get this right,” Miller said, “because we know how important this position is to our fire department members and our community.
“The new chief will have new challenges to address,” Miller added.
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Miller stated, “It doesnt matter what the past is”. That is a poor outlook. If we don’t understand and reflect on the past, we are bound to repeat the same mistakes. I encourage the city leaders to keep the past (good and bad)in mind and use that to make the operations better every day. The citizens deserve it.
Wow, does this story fail the smell test or what! Six months to pick another chief? I think it took less time to build the pyramids. Makes you wonder what blunders the City made either in the contract or in the manner in which they decided to terminate the chief. But yes, Mr. Mayor, as DJ said, the past does matter . . . it is a past filled with mistakes which seemingly continue unabated. At the expense of the taxpayers.
The Burlington Fire Department had great history, camaraderie and efficiency up until the recent few years. These recent years have resulted in fracturing, if not totally destroying the very fiber that was an awesome organization. This failure of leadership is to blame for many of Burlington’s Firemen, who were strong morally, ethically and full of compassion, to quit.
Hopefully the City Fathers will learn from HISTORY and take a much closer look at one of BURLINGTON’S HOMEGROWN FIREFIGHTERS, who can handle the Fire Chief’s position, plus have a much more realistic HANDLE on the community and it’s citizens, both within and without the Fire Department.
Please take a long hard look, with both your hearts and heads, at those who have been, and continue to be dedicated to The Burlington Fire Department.
I can’t help but wonder if McGrath’s study created an opportunity for some outsider from a larger dept. to come in and muck things up. Then to have city leadership state it doesn’t matter what happened in the past shows true ignorance on its part. You will repeat the same mistake again because you didn’t learn the first time.
I wonder why he is resigning,or is he being forced to resign? Burlington has always been good at pushing things under the rug…Maybe tell the people the truth for once.As Steve Hausner stated above,look to one of the homegrown firefighters as a chief,they have always been there to answer the call.It is a darn shame that all the volunteers that retired or quit in the last 2 years was because of this so called chief,thinking he had to fix something that wasn’t broken.