John Hacker
The Joplin Globe, Mo.
(TNS)
Sep. 12—CARTHAGE, Mo. — Despite unanimous support from the committee appointed to find a fire chief, and the support of current and past firefighters, the Carthage City Council this week failed to appoint current deputy fire chief Jason Martin to be the city’s next chief.
The city released on Wednesday the minutes to a closed session held at the Tuesday council meeting that showed the final vote was four in favor, one against and three abstaining. Six votes were required to hire Martin.
Council members who voted “yes” were Chris Taylor, Lori Leece, Dustin Edge and Alan Snow; the vote against was from Derek Peterson. The three abstentions were Tiffany Cossey, Jana Schram and Tom Barlow. Terri Heckmaster was absent.
Snow and several others declined to discuss the results of the vote as they left Tuesday’s meeting.
Taylor said he was “highly” disappointed in the results.
“Basically, it’s politics,” he said. “I think it’s really going to hurt the city because we all know that the majority of the firefighters in this town, who they want for fire chief. They keep coming in here and telling us every single meeting who they want and why. If you’ve never been in the military or if you’ve never been a firefighter, you have no idea what it entails to have to count on that man standing next to you every day, 365 days a year, for your life. These people have never been a firefighter. I have, I’m also a vet, and I know this is not a team — what this is is a secondary family. You have to trust that man day in and day out to bring you home safe. Not only that, your spouse and your family have to trust this man day in and day out to bring you home safe.”
A hiring committee consisting of Mayor Dan Rife, Snow, Heckmaster, retired 32-year firefighter Tom Nixon, city human resources Director Michael Miller and Assistant City Administrator Traci Cox voted unanimously to recommend Martin to replace Ryan Huntley, who resigned as chief in July to take a job with the Carthage School District.
Their recommendation came before the council at its Aug. 13 meeting and was tabled until Tuesday’s meeting.
Carthage firefighter Joshua Roberts, a 20-year department veteran, made a statement supporting Martin in the public comment period of Tuesday’s meeting.
“It seemed from our viewpoint that the hiring committee was formed with the right people and took their time to do the job the right way,” Roberts said. “After interviewing eight people and then selecting two people for a second interview, it seemed that due diligence had been done. They spoke to a select few members of the fire department to get our input on the internal applicants. After all of that, they selected Jason Martin as the top candidate. From our understanding, that was supposed to be the time-consuming part of the council appointment; the rest was essentially a formality.”
John Cooper, Carthage’s fire chief for 24 years before Huntley took over, also spoke in favor of Martin during Tuesday’s meeting, as did residents Steve Goodman, Carol Cooper and Joel Terry.
“The majority of the men want Jason to be fire chief, that’s No. 1,” Cooper told the council. “They’ve got to have somebody they can trust. He’s got to have people that trust him and he trusts them. The second thing is his experience and training. He’s been deputy chief for a few years, he’s trained to do that, he knows the job. Your hiring committee picked him, he was their selection, that’s No. 3. I think the majority of the people in the city want him, that’s No. 4. It’s the people that want him. … I’ve known Jason since he was little boy. I hired him as a fireman. I know he’s trained to do the job. I know people who trained him.”
Martin on Thursday said the vote “doesn’t change anything as far as my day-to-day duties.”
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