Mayor, firefighters spar over chief pick

For the second time in six months, Medford Mayor Danny Thomas has apologized to city employees for appearing to overstep his bounds.

In April, he made amends to the Medford Municipal Liquor Store manager for statements he made during an Easter weekend renovation. He said he was “brash, and I said something like, ‘I’m the boss, guys. What the heck’s going on, we had a plan.’ It was pretty loud; it needed to be apologized for – it was wrong.”

Last week, he apologized to the members of the Medford Fire Department.

“I think the firemen think I’m after them; I’m not,” Thomas said during the October city council meeting.

The first issue was the implementation of electronic horse racing at the city-owned liquor store, which was formally approved at the September meeting. Thomas said he “questioned how we did that without proper procedure.”

The main concern, though, was the process to select a new fire chief. Current Chief Rick Hager, who’s held the role for 27 years, told the council in May that he planned to step down on Dec. 31 – though he said at the time he wouldn’t retire from the department.

Hager also said that announcing his resignation several months ahead of the fact “should give the department and the council enough time to give some serious thought on who the next chief should be.”

“I would assume going forward here, our department is going to have some healthy and constructive conversations on who they will and will not support” in the role, he said.

But in what several people at the October meeting called “rumors” and “small-town Minnesota gossip,” the transition drew criticism.

“There’s concern from the general public of how the process has gone,” Thomas said last week. “I heard some (candidates) get asked questions, and others were not asked the same questions. Is that true? I can’t say that, and I’m not going to try to say it’s true, but there’s concern from the general public.”

Because the last selection of the chief was done nearly three decades ago – predating all current city council members and most current firefighters – Hager said at the May meeting that the firefighters would come up with their own recommendation, but the final decision would be made by the city council. He was selected in a similar way.

This summer, the members of the fire department agreed on their process, Hager said. Any eligible firefighter could throw his hat in the ring and would be asked to provide a 15-minute presentation or introduction of themselves at a meeting set aside for just that.

An informal question-and-answer session would be held, allowing the candidates to speak directly to any questions or concerns put forth by their fellow firefighters, then after three weeks, another Q&A round, if it was needed.

“We all agreed,” Hager said. “The candidates knew what we were going to do before they put their name in the hat. What we decided as a department worked very, very well, and we thought we could come out with a recommendation that we could all support.”

Three “very good candidates” are in the running, he said.

The final step would be Nov. 6, when the department would meet without the candidates present, to make a decision.

“We planned to ask if (city council member) Nick (Sorensen) could come in and oversee it, to ensure a fair discussion,” Hager said. “The whole time, though, we planned to come to your Nov. 27 (city council) meeting to present our recommendation, because we wanted to give you a month to decide.”

Hager and the four firefighters who joined him at the October meeting agreed that was how the plan had been proceeding, but at least one firefighter must have disagreed – and complained to Thomas and other residents.

“Do you get to pick your boss? They’re employees of the city, so people were asking that,” Thomas said of the complaints he heard.

“It’s becoming a nightmare for me, to be honest,” he said, alluding to the fact that at least one of the three candidates for the role has ties to him and council member Chad Merritt.

Thomas then pitched an idea of his own.

“I want to have an independent council sit down, and whatever them people decide, that’s the new fire chief,” he said.

He suggested five people, including two other fire chiefs, a member of the Medford Fire Department, a member of the city council, and a resident of Medford.

“I already checked two communities to see if they could help: Kenyon and Morristown,” he said, and those chiefs were willing to help.

“That way, we know that everybody in the community’s not saying, ‘Danny’s friend is getting (the role), or ‘Chad’s backyard buddy is getting it,’ or ‘the fire department was wrong,’ or ‘the council is trying to run the show.’ It’s a community effort,” Thomas said.

“That’s what I’m proposing, but I’d like to see something that is fair to everybody, so we don’t have to hear any backlash, OK?”

Hager, who first heard of the complaints a few days earlier, was visibly frustrated.

“If you’re hearing complaints about how we’re doing things, you could have very easily called 22 firefighters who sat in on the damn thing,” he said to Thomas, “and got their opinion. They would maybe tell you that we did just fine with this and felt very comfortable with the process.”

Thomas pushed back.

“Firefighters came to my house,” he said. “I can’t run back to 22 other firefighters. I’m not saying I’m right; I’m not saying I’m wrong. I’m just saying it got out of your walls, and I got to figure out how to get the council to decide something… I really thought you would probably call me with the procedures, and we could’ve had it ahead of time.”

Hager turned up the volume a bit.

“Nobody told me I had to come back to get approval for that,” he said. “This doesn’t sit well with me. We’re going to continue with the way we planned, and we’ll come with a recommendation to your Nov. 27 council meeting, and it’s simply going to be: This is who the fire department would recommend as chief.

“You can do with it what you want.”