Committee sets timeline to make recommendation for fire chief

The Fire Chief Recommendation Committee has set a tight timeline to make its recommendation to the city administrator of Jefferson City.

At a committee meeting Monday, a tentative timeline was set for the process moving forward. The committee noted the timeline could change if candidates have conflicts with interview dates or panels.

The seven-member citizen committee is made up of former councilmen, a city resident, two representatives of the Fire Department, the Joplin fire chief and the human resources director for Columbia. The committee will eventually make a recommendation to the city administrator on a candidate for the position, which has been vacant since former Chief Bob Rennick retired in March 2013. It has been filled on an interim basis by Jason Turner, the division chief of prevention and public information.

Eight current Fire Department employees have applied for the position.

The tentative timeline has Gail Strope, director of human resources, send out written questions to applicants today, which are due back to Strope by noon Friday. The responses are then given to the committee members, who will meet July 15 to discuss and possibly narrow down the list of candidates.

Strope would then schedule interviews to take place July 22, which would be followed by further committee discussion and, again, possibly narrowing down the list of candidates.

On July 24, the city would hold two interview panels at City Hall, both of which would be open to the public and streamed live on the city's website. The first, from 1:30-3:30 p.m., would be for Fire Department employees, and though anyone could attend, only Fire Department employees could ask questions of the candidates.

The second, from 4-6 p.m., would be a citizen interview panel, where anyone could attend and ask questions of the candidates.

On July 25, the committee would meet again to discuss a final recommendation to the city administrator.

The committee also decided to keep applicant names confidential until the interview panels, where only the finalists would be named.

Also discussed Monday were responses to a three-question survey dealing with the department and chief position. The survey, which was available from June 23 to June 30, received 129 responses to the question "what is the most important issue facing the ... Fire Department," and 138 responses to the questions "what is the most important attribute of the next ... fire chief?"

A majority of the responses identified budget and funding issues as the most important issue and many cited experience, knowledge and leadership as the most important attributes of a fire chief.

The survey also asked whether the current internal only search should be opened to outside candidates, which received 146 responses with 57.5 percent saying the process should be opened to outside candidates. Committee members noted their role is to see if any current employees would be right for the chief position, but could make a final recommendation to the city administrator that the process should be opened to outside candidates if they do not feel the right candidate has been found.