Editors Note: This article was originally published in the Jan. 10, 2024 issue of the Chronicle Progress. Some information may be outdated.
Delta City Council members tabled the appointment of a new fire chief last week over a conflict within the city’s personnel policies.
Outgoing Fire Chief Lynn Ashby said his replacement, longtime Assistant Chief Travis Stanworth, was recently voted into the top position by members of the all-volunteer department.
Stanworth happens to also be a full-time city employee in Delta’s public works department. The city’s adopted personnel policies seem to prohibit city workers from holding outside employment commitments.
Council members expressed a host of concerns with Stanworth’s appointment, including whether city officials will be able to distinguish work done on behalf of the fire department from work performed by public works, a budgetary concern more than anything else. Delta’s fire chief typically earns only about $12,000 a year.
“He’s an employee of Delta City. If you are going to give him another position…that becomes outside employment,” said Todd Anderson, Delta’s city attorney. “So you have to comply with that outside employment section of your personnel policy.”
City officials said they would appoint a committee of city employees to come up with amendments to the personnel policies that should smooth Stanworth’s transition to fire chief.
Meanwhile, Ashby will continue to be the city’s acting fire chief until the city council ratifies Stanworth’s appointment. Ashby has served 21 years as fire chief. He told officials earlier that 2023 would be his final year as chief.
“Travis has been working for 10 years or better to become chief of this department. It’s about his turn to do that. He’s definitely willing, ready and able to fill my shoes,” Ashby told council members at their first meeting of the year last Wednesday. “I’m stepping aside and having Travis take that position. You’re going to have to tell me when that time is right to do that.”
City council members debated ways to proceed and what types of personnel policy changes they would like to consider.
City officials acknowledged that though Stanworth was the choice of the fire department, because the fire chief is a department head the position needed to be advertised before any appointment could be made.
“The endorsement by election of the fire department weighs heavily on that decision. But nevertheless we have a requirement by law to put that out and let people apply to that,” Councilman Nick Killpack said. “We have to get our personnel policy in order.”
Two new council members, Kelly Carter and KC Bogue, weighed in with their own ideas, including tracking city employees much more closely.
Carter at one point said he was surprised when he first read the city’s personnel policies.
“I’m reading through it. It’s interesting because in the private sector I wouldn’t go to work for an employer that told me what I couldn’t do and can do after work. It’s an interesting policy,” he said.
Patrick Stefanoff, a 20-year veteran of the fire department, said he was concerned that a personality conflict or something like it was holding up Stanworth’s promotion.
“For our city to have such a hang up on trying to help our city, I have a real problem with that,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of volunteer firemen in the past work for the city. I don’t know why all of a sudden we are having an issue.”
Ashby was asked at one point by a council member whether he felt he was pushed out of his position. He declined to answer, adding that he chose not to run for fire chief again and was confident he was leaving the department in good hands.
“Until we get our job done, you’re still going to wear the hat of chief,” Mayor John Niles said.
The city revised its current personnel policies a few years ago when a committee of city workers was formed to hand up recommendations to city council members.
“That doesn’t mean it can’t be changed or amended. And I have a feeling we are probably going to get that taken care of here in the very near future,” Killpack said.
Killpack made a motion to table Stanworth’s appointment while accepting the election of other fire department leaders. No one seconded the motion the first time he introduced it, so no action was taken. But later toward the end of the meeting Killpack made his motion again.
This time the council unanimously agreed to ratify the election of all fire department leaders while moving forward with tabling Stanworth’s appointment until the city’s policies can be altered.
R.L. Robison was elected to be the fire department’s new lieutenant. Stetson Henrie was elected to the position of captain. Howard Webb was elected to serve as the department’s secretary. Bryan Christensen was elected to replace Stanworth as assistant chief.
It could take a few months, city officials lamented, before a new policy is in place that allows Stanworth to be appointed the city’s new fire chief.
