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Owosso to eliminate fire marshal position
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Tuesday, December 20, 2005 10:47 AM EST
KELLY FOLLEN, wife of Owosso Fire Department lieutenant Todd Follen, addresses the Owosso City Council about the issue of management in the Department of Public Safety during Monday night’s meeting.
Owosso City Manager Gregg Guetschow plans to eliminate the city fire marshal position as soon as he can hire a new deputy fire director - essentially forcing embattled former deputy director of public safety Charles Schaufele to retire.
During Monday's council meeting, Guetschow explained that once the position of deputy fire director is filled, the fire marshal position will no longer exist.
“We won't have a place for (Schaufele) once the deputy fire director is in place,” Guetschow told The Argus-Press. “He's eligible to retire. He will have to decide if he is ready to do that or not.”
City officials will immediately begin searching for someone to fill the vacant deputy fire director position in the Owosso Public Safety Department.
Public safety director Michael Compeau presented the council with an internally generated report on the state of the department. The study was required by an agreement signed in July that moved Schaufele, deputy director, to the position of city fire marshal amid allegations he verbally abused firefighters.
The fire marshal position is defined in the city charter but was vacant 15 years prior to Schaufele's transfer.
Guetschow proposed the creation to a public safety department when veteran fire chief John Kenney was preparing for retirement. Under the department of public safety model, the police department and fire department were consolidated into one department. With each division of the department - police and fire - managed by a deputy director who reports to the director of public safety.
The position of deputy fire director, however, has remained vacant since Schaufele was transferred to the position of fire marshal.
One of the firefighters' chief concerns with the public safety department is that Compeau is not a trained firefighter.
“I'm not going to sit in front of you and say I know how to fight fires - I don't know how to fight fires,” Compeau told the city council.
He said he believes the addition of a deputy fire director who is trained as a firefighter will resolve many of the problems between the city and its firefighters.
Filling the deputy fire director position will also provide him the opportunity to focus on the public safety department's long-term goals, he said.
“I've been doing two jobs since July,” Compeau said.
Councilman Matthew Harvey said he also believes it is necessary for the firefighters to have a supervisor who is trained as a firefighter.
“They do a very dangerous job,” he said. “They have to rely on each other for their lives and they have to rely on their supervisor to maintain safety.”
Councilman Michael Bruff said it is in the interest of all city residents to quickly resolve the problems that have plagued the public safety department.
“Personally, I have only been on the council a short time - this is my third meeting - and I'm already tired of the firefighters and the city bickering,” he said. “It's disgusting. It's a black eye for the city.”
Bruff also agreed that hiring a deputy fire director with a firefighting background may help solve many of the problems between the firefighters and the city.
“I just don't think at this point we should abolish the program,” Bruff said. “We should fill all the positions and see how the entire administration works.”
Harvey disagreed.
“I think a lot of people, myself and my constituents included, want to see the public safety department revert back to separate police and fire departments the way it used to be,” he said.
Although the city council took no action regarding the public safety department Monday, Guetschow said the city council may revisit the issue at any time.
“The department is established by a city ordinance and at any time you can amend that ordinance,” he said.