Fire chief change brings brings longtime secretary back to agency
By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER and CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD
Published October 21, 2004
Ousted Fire Chief Aria Green isn't the only one whose career was affected by Mayor Pam Iorio's recent decision to replace him with fellow fire department veteran Dennis Jones.
Green's forced resignation late last month led to the demotion of his secretary Lavern Logan and the return of 48-year-old Maureen Patricio. Patricio is the longtime fire chief executive secretary who went into deferred retirement days before Green took over the job last year, then went to work part time for the firefighters' union.
Logan, who has worked for the city for 15 years, is now working in the city's occupational health department. She said her annual salary is about $3,000 less a year than before, when she made nearly $44,000 a year.
"It's basically clerical work I'm doing now," said Logan, 53, a Middleton High graduate who studied business at Hillsborough Community College. "Naturally you feel it's unfair because you want to continue on. But the new chief has the right to choose who he feels like, I guess."
In July, Green gave Logan a glowing evaluation. He praised her "excellent attitude" and said her problem-solving skills are "trustworthy and reliable." Logan's personnel file contains many similar evaluations from years past, in which supervisors said her only fault was in taking more sick leave than they would have preferred.
Monday, Logan was replaced by Patricio, longtime secretary to five former fire chiefs including Pete Botto, Green's predecessor.
"She was the fire chief secretary for about 25 years, she had a lot of experience," Jones said. "Every chief has pretty wide discretion in choosing that individual."
Personnel records show that Patricio, who went to work for the city in 1975, submitted paperwork for deferred retirement on June 13, 2003. Four days later, Iorio announced that Green would be Tampa's new fire chief, and the first black person to hold the position.
"My husband was retiring, my longtime boss was retiring, so we all just left at the same time," Patricio said. "I'd had enough at the time."
Patricio then went to work part time for the union, whose leaders spent several months complaining to Iorio about Green's leadership.
But Patricio returned to her old job this week, after Jones asked her to come back. She'll make about $59,000 a year.
"It's great," Patricio said. "This is my family here."
Retired assistant fire chief David Keene said that for more than a decade leading up to her departure last year, Patricio was a lead planner of the fire department's annual awards banquet.
The party was canceled this year because only two dozen or so people bought tickets. Union officials pointed to the lack of banquet interest as proof that morale in the department had fallen to a dismal low under Green.
Jones said this week that he has already rescheduled the banquet for December.
"We're calling it a holiday awards banquet," he said. "We'll have a nice dinner, a DJ, music. It'll be a great time."
BALIFFS TO SHED GREEN BLAZERS: Starting this week, courthouse bailiffs are ditching their distinctive green blazers for the standard uniforms of other sheriff's deputies. The Hillsborough Sheriff's Office says the new uniforms are cheaper and will give the bailiffs higher visibility. Trouble is, they may be tough to distinguish from all the other deputies milling about the courthouse.
WRITE-IN ELECTION FLAP RESOLVED: In July, the Division of Elections disqualified lawyer Alex Stavrou as a write-in candidate for Hillsborough State Attorney. Stavrou had botched his paperwork, failing to note which judicial circuit he was running in. The result: Only incumbent Mark Ober and challenger Robin Fuson, both Republicans, qualified as candidates.
As the Aug. 31 election loomed, Stavrou filed papers allegedly he had been unfairly disqualified. He said elections workers should have given him more help getting his application right.
Ober beat Fuson handily in a universal primary, but the Stavrou matter remained unresolved, awaiting a Tallahassee judge's ruling.
It's tough to imagine what kind of electoral morass might have ensued, had the judge decided post-election that voters should have been able to cast a ballot for Stavrou. Making life simpler for everyone, however, the judge has ruled the Division of Elections made the right call in barring him from the race.
"I guess you could say I'm relieved, but relief would suggest I was concerned about it," Ober said. "Had he been allowed on the ballot, that's the American way and we would have continued with the campaign."
