Mayor calls off city’s fight; hires back fire chief

The three-month challenge by fired Colfax Fire Chief Ralph Walter to return to the post came to a sudden end Wednesday morning when Mayor Norma Becker announced she was reinstating him.

Mayor Becker’s dramatic announcement came just before the Colfax Civil Service commission began a second day of hearing witnesses in Walter’s appeal.

Reading a prepared statement, Mayor Becker said she learned Tuesday during the first day of testimony that Walter had attended a weekly meeting of the fire department volunteers last May, apologized for ill feelings caused by his lack of leadership and vowed to work to improve the situation.

Low morale in the fire department was cited as a key reason for Walter’s firing.

Walter, after the Mayor’s announcement, told the Gazette he was happy to be returning to the chief’s post.

“I look forward to going back to work for the city of Colfax Fire Department,” he said. “I will do as I have before to the best of my ability to serve the citizens of Colfax and the city of Colfax.”

While excited about the return, Walter admitted there was work that still needed to be done on a working relationship with city leadership.

“We’ll go day-by-day,” he said.

Walter will receive back pay and benefits from the city for the period of his dismissal.

Becker in her statement said until Tuesday she was unaware that Walter had met with the volunteers. She said she considered the session an indication Walter was attempting to correct deficiencies in his work performance.

The mayor pointed out she lacked the information when she conducted a long session with Walter and his attorney June 18, in which she concluded Walter was making no effort to improve faults he was asked to address over a four-month evaluation period which started in February.

After Mayor Becker made her statement, Ross White, Walter’s attorney pointed out a memo which was among evidence he prepared and presented to the commission. The memo, written by City Administrator Carl Thompson May 12, made note of a report Thompson had received from Scott Kruse on Walter’s appearance at the volunteers’ meeting the previous night.

White said the memo showed the city on May 12 knew, or at least Thompson knew, that Walter had attended the volunteers’ meeting and made an effort to correct his standing with the volunteers.

The commission hearing came to a sudden halt after Leslie Cloaninger, who presided as chair of the session, asked whether the group should reach a conclusion. Other volunteer members of the commission are Rob Aucutt and Jon Kehne.

Michael McFarland, Jr., who represented the city, said, under the circumstances, he didn’t think the commission had to issue an official decision on the appeal. White responded by saying in his many years of practicing law, he had never seen a hearing end in this manner.

The report of the meeting between Walter and the volunteers surfaced before the commission late Tuesday when Volunteer Jim Sakamoto referred to the session during his testimony. Sakamoto was the last witness in a long day of testimony before the commission. He testified on the drop in morale which he had seen in the volunteers over the past year.

Walter was fired July 2 after serving as Colfax Fire Chief for four years.

The hearing began Tuesday in the Public Service Building with Mayor Becker, Walter and their attorneys seated among boxes of records and notes.

The city, which was required to prove the firing was valid under civil service procedures, began its case by calling City Administrator Thompson, who was on the stand for more than four hours as he outlined the steps leading to Walter’s firing.

The appeal process began with Cloaninger disqualifying statements from members of the volunteer fire department after determining Walter’s attorney had not been able to interview them before the session began. Cloaninger pointed out at the August scheduling session the commission and attorneys for both sides decided witnesses would actually testify at the formal hearing.

White told the commission before the start of testimony he has been unable to question volunteer firemen who were included on subsequent witness lists provided to him by the city.

McFarland said that White had been offered a date to interview the witnesses. Questioned by Cloaninger, McFarland added he did not believe a civil service hearing format provided the right for Walter, or his attorney, to confront the witnesses who provided testimony against the former chief. He said many of the fire volunteers could not testify because of work or family obligations.

Cloaninger said she disagreed and later disqualified the witness statements.

McFarland, in his opening statement, said he would show Mayor Norma Becker's decision to fire Walter was in the city’s best interest because the former chief had lost the respect and faith of the city's two full time firefighters and the volunteer firefighters.

White opened by saying the city blatantly disregarded its own personnel policy by not giving Walter annual performance reviews, and that city officials were “hunting for his head" by the time an evaluation was conducted in February.

Witness testimony began when McFarland asked Thompson about a Jan. 28 meeting he and Mayor Norma Becker had with firefighters Jenny Jordan and Tim Tingley.

They did not like working with Ralph, said Thompson.

Thompson said Jordan and Tingley told him they did not believe Walter knew how to operate fire equipment because they had never seen him check the department's trucks or firefighter breathing equipment.

That also led to a lack of trust by volunteers, who responded less to calls when Walter was on duty than when Jordan or Tingley were on duty. He presented records showing the number of volunteers that responded to calls when each was leading the shift.

“He just wasn’t being a leader anymore, as far as the volunteers were concerned, as far as the paid staff was concerned,” said Thompson.

Fire department staffers are required to perform scheduled checks on equipment during their daily routine. Each truck is scheduled to undergo a weekly maintenance exam.

“So he was expected to do the job of a fire chief the same time he was doing the job of a firefighter,” asked Cloaninger.

“Yes,” answered Thompson.

Thompson testified to twice advising Walter to perform the checks in 2009, after seeing Walter fumbled with equipment at a transformer fire and the LaCrosse hardware store fire. Thompson said he told Walter the equipment checks would help him know the equipment better.

Those two instances were among the three times Thompson had verbally admonished Walter before a Feb. 8 performance evaluation.

Thompson had also said he advised Walter to stop hanging out at Taco Time while on duty after receiving complaints from City Councilman Earl Leland and several citizens.

The Feb. 8 evaluation was Walter’s first since he was named chief four years earlier.

Thompson said he had not evaluated any employees since taking the administrator post in 2006.

“I was learning my job. And I just did not do them,” said Thompson.

City officials also learned Walter had certified training exercises for the city's volunteer EMTs, though he was not certified by the state as a Basic Life Support evaluator.

Thompson said the city assumed Walter was certified when they hired him. They found he was not after EMT Kruse checked into the certification of several of the city’s EMTs.

Tom Pickett of Quincy, a personnel consultant for Canfield & Associates, the city’s insurance carrier, was the second witness. He testified on his role in advising the city on decisions leading to the dismissal.

Pickett said when the process began it was his understanding the aim was to get Walter to improve his performance.

Pickett said he consulted with Thompson after the initial February performance evaluation. He said Thompson wanted to know the next steps in helping Walter improve.

White in his opening statement had said Pickett was a “hatchet-man” brought in to see the city through the proper steps of firing Walter.

Pickett told the commission that he had seen and reviewed the city’s personnel manual as part of his consultation. Commission member Rob Aucutt asked about the protocol of evaluating the job performance of civil employees, as city policy mandates.

“If it says you should evaluate a person on a yearly basis, you should,” Pickett testified.