[R]UTLAND — Fire Chief Michael Jones said that even though he continues to not see eye-to-eye with the city’s new mayor, he intends to fulfill his contract, which expires later this year.
“It comes down to a fundamental difference on where we see the Fire Department going in the future,” the chief said Thursday. “We can keep it status quo and never really overcome the issues that are present or you can attempt to make the changes.”
Mayor David Allaire, reached Thursday, declined to comment on the matter.
Jones has a two-year contract that ends in November.
Those new positions, which Jones said he sees as critical for the department to move forward, are an assistant chief and a fire prevention training officer.
“There may be a thinking that once the new chief comes in, let him pick those people,” Jones said.
The assistant chief, according to a plan presented at budget time, would “act as coach, mentor, and liaison” between management and labor. The fire prevention training officer would focus on public safety and community outreach.
Shortly after Allaire took office in March after defeating incumbent Christopher Louras in the mayoral election, Jones said in an interview that he was exploring his options in light of differences with the new mayor.
“Anybody that would work for a boss you don’t see eye to eye on what direction to take something, it makes it really difficult to get things done,” Jones said in April. “That’s a real issue. Nobody wants to be micromanaged.”
On Thursday, the fire chief said, not much has changed.
“He hasn’t said that, ‘I’m going to fire you’ or those kind of things,” Jones said of Allaire. “He did say during his campaign that he thought it was time to replace me.”
Jones, retired from the Vermont National Guard, was appointed by Louras to the post of fire chief even though he had no firefighting experience. Louras said at that time that Jones had strong administrative experience and the goal would be to use those skills to help develop leadership within the department. Then, when Jones’ two-year contract expired, someone from within the department would be ready to become the next fire chief.
That hasn’t really happened, Jones said.
“It was doomed for failure from the beginning,” he said. “You take somebody from the outside that didn’t come from the fire service and get them to try to get people that are from the fire service, rooted deeply in the place, and say, ‘This guy is going to teach you all about leadership.’ They fought me from the beginning.”
Jones’ lack of firefighting experience drew criticism at the time of his appointment. He said he has since received firefighter training, adding that he has even gone above the level required by his contract.
The fire chief said he has had only a few conversations with the new mayor. And most of those conversations, Jones said, revolved around his position as the city’s emergency management director, which comes with being the fire chief.
A VTDigger public records request seeking email communications between the two revealed no bad blood in the relationship. There were few exchanges, with several of the messages being short, a sentence or two, dealing with events or scheduling time away.
