Inweekly has discovered the job description for the Pensacola Fire Chief was changed on March 14, six weeks before Beggs & Lane attorney Russell Van Sickle completed his investigation of Fire Chief Matt Schmitt and Deputy Fire Chief Joe Glover.
At that time, several key witnesses had not been interviewed by the attorney. Here are the interviews that were done after the job description was modified:
Edward Deas: 3/18/16
Brock Jester: 3/28/16
David Allen: 4/1/16
Melinda Grogan: 4/1/16
Stefan Andrews: 4/1/16
Despite the “independent” investigation being still active, someone in the city hall felt the job descriptions for the fire chief and police chief had be to modified to inject the Chief Human Resource Officer into their chains of command before a determination was made about the career of Schmitt.
The major change is the Fire Chief no longer supervises all hiring, assigning and discipling of personnel. Personnel matters are now “done in cooperation with Human Resources.”
Also knowledge for various areas of firefighting and the city no longer has to be “extensive” or “thorough.”
When other changes to the job description were made in 10/1/02, 2/10/04 and 9/18/13, the person making the changes placed his/her initials by the date. The 3/14/16 change has no initials.
This is the second HR document that has been uploaded to the city’s website after the chiefs were placed on paid administrative leave on Feb. 2. The two men were terminated by the mayor on May 10.
Read Fire _Chief.
Just another City Hall coincidence, I guess.