Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
CLEARWATER - New fire Chief Jamie Geer shook up an already fractured fire department Thursday, ousting his two top deputies. He said their management style didn't match his lead-by-example attitude.
Less than three weeks after he replaced Chief Rowland Herald, Geer accepted the immediate resignations of Deputy Chiefs Terry Welker and Mark Weinreich. Below Geer, Welker and Weinreich were the department's highest ranking officers.
Had they chosen not to resign, City Manager Bill Horne said they would have been fired.
Geer, who previously ran the Franklin, Tenn., fire department, said he spent his first three weeks evaluating his department managers and decided he needed to make a change. Along with accepting the resignations of Welker and Weinreich on Thursday, Geer promoted training chief Robert Dube to deputy chief of operations.
He will replace Weinreich. Welker's position, deputy chief of administration, remains vacant.
"I lead by example. I believe I should embody the values that I hold valuable and what I believe is valuable to this organization," said Geer, 50. "When those don't match, I have to find solutions to that."
Horne said the city allowed the new chief time to evaluate his staff without input from other city officials. After that review, Geer presented his findings to Horne, who on Thursday said he supported the chief's position.
"We don't make decisions like this lightly," Horne said. "He (Geer) knows the kind of team he needs to have to make this department successful. He knows we are counting on him to transition the internal affairs of the department into a more healthy state."
The 200-member department is still recovering from a fatal Clearwater Beach condominium fire two years ago. An independent review after the Dolphin Cove fire criticized leadership, particularly for being slow to respond to major fires and for poor management at fire scenes.
The city is also at odds with rank-and-file firefighters, who have worked without a contract since 2002.
Then last February, Chief Herald abruptly decided to retire after he said he couldn't fix the problems in his ranks.
"This is a sign that we're going to do things differently," Geer said. "Does it mean it's a cleaning of the house? No. I have to put together a management staff that I can depend on to execute the direction of this department in a manner that's consistent with my own."