Uncovering the process behind the fire chief decision
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - We’re digging into how the city of Augusta picked its finalist for fire chief. At first city leaders would only release information on their sole finalist. But yesterday under a judge’s order the city handed over documents on the other three men considered for the job.
Commissioners say it was a wide search but they ended up with these four candidates for Augusta’s new fire chief.
We learned today that the vote for Antonio Burden was not unanimous and even some commissioners still have questions about the process. A hiring process that took place in the dark is now coming to light.
“The way that this go round of interviews and search for a director wasn’t the way we normally do it was changed. And why it was changed? I have no idea,” said Commissioner John Clarke, District 10.
Yesterday we received resumes and the scoring chart for the other three finalists for Augusta’s fire chief some commissioners say that information was new to them too.
“We were never given any of the actual resumes the candidates prepared themselves, we were only given summaries that the headhunter group put together themselves. Which was very odd,” said Commissioner Brandon Garrett, District 8.
And a lot of other things were different too according to another commissioner.
“...Like I said it was done entirely different. And it wasn’t done correctly.”
The city hired an agency to narrow down applicants that agency selected these final four candidates. That’s normal according to leaders. But then the agency scored the candidates using a rating chart that commissioners didn’t even see until we got it released.
“The only thing I know is in the past we’ve gotten resumes from several candidates, and we narrowed those candidates down. This time we didn’t do that.”
Some leaders say the process went the way it was suppose to.
Do you think that anything went wrong in this process?
“Did anything went wrong? No ma’am. No ma’am. I may be a little naïve but I don’t recall or know of anything that went wrong. It didn’t go the way that some people wanted it to go but as a whole, it wasn’t wrong,” said Dennis Williams.
Leaders will vote on hiring burden two weeks from today.
In a committee meeting today the istrative services committee ed the motion to develop a standard policy for executive-level personnel. Commissioners Garrett and Williams both said they hope the next hiring process will be more clear. They also want the public to know they believe all the selected candidates are qualified for the position of fire chief.
Copyright 2021 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.
