Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward challenged in a memo to the City Council, dated Saturday, May 28, statements made about his investigation and termination of Fire Chief Matt Schmitt and Deputy Fire Chief Joe Glover at the May 26 special council meeting. For the first time since he announced the terminations over two weeks ago, the mayor indicated in writing why he fired the leaders.
Mayor Hayward stated that the findings of the report by Beggs & Lane attorney Russell Van Sickle demonstrated that Schmitt and Glover “improperly retaliated against a lower ranking firefighter (Edward Deas) merely for making a complaint about Glover.” The mayor said the chiefs did not provide Deas an investigation into his concerns and demoted him for reasons that Van Sickle stated were “unsupported” and “knowingly false.”
“The former chiefs’ unfair and severe retaliation toward the firefighter is behavior that will not be condoned by our Administration,” said Mayor Hayward. “Dismissing someone from their job is never easy or pleasant task, but when behavior such as that demonstrated by the former chiefs is revealed, action must be taken for benefit of all the firefighters.”
Note: Deas’complaint did not involve Pensacola Fire Department business or any allegation that his job was impacted by Glover. Deas had resigned as president of the fraternal organization Pensacola United Fire Fighters Association (PUFFA) in 2014 after Glover and several senior African-American firefighters questioned how he was handling the organization’s finances. Read more.
When the mayor terminated the fire chiefs, he did not meet with them to explain his decision. In his interviews with the media, Mayor Hayward has refused to give any specifics on his decision or how the report impacted it. The mayor did not attend the May 10 council meeting or the May 26 special meeting to explain his decision.
In the memo, the mayor clarified what he meant when he said the investigation was “independent.” Beggs & Lane invoices have shown that Van Sickle did work for Human Resources much of last year. The mayor said that “independent” meant the investigation was “conducted independently of City input” and had “no predetermined outcome.”
He also pointed out that the fire chiefs had not followed hiring guidelines in January and failed to reach out to HR for guidance –“what the former chiefs did was knowingly improper.”
Note: The PFD had eight candidates for six positions. All were passed, according to Glover, but Sisson halted the process. The two not hired would have been hired soon as more positions were expected to become open soon. BTW: Schmitt is in charge of the hiring process, not Glover.
The mayor questioned the veracity of Council members Sherri Myers and Gerald Wingate. He said if Myers statement that she “witnessed intimidation and abuse of many employees” that she needs to come forward, “otherwise her comment is nothing more than an unsubstantiated allegation that breeds cynicism about public officials.”
He was surprised to hear Wingate say that former City Administrator Colleen Castille told him Glover would never be promoted to Fire Chief because he filed a discrimination complaint.
“If that had really happened, I would have hoped that he would have done something about it at the time,” said Hayward.
The mayor added that annual evaluations would have had no effect on the circumstances that were investigated.
Note: Inweekly has reported that Mayor Hayward has not done written performance evaluations since he took office.
“If Council was truly concerned about retaliation and the failure to follow policies designed to ensure fairness, the Council would have fully supported the actions taken on May 10 to remove the former Interim and Deputy Fire Chiefs,” said Hayward. “Our Administration is going to do the right thing for the employees of the City, even when that means discharging management employees.”
