Fire union
Nicks said the information he downloaded helped him show that internal investi- gators were not accurately portraying what witnesses told them during the review.
He added that he would have had access to all the information he copied in coming weeks, and that “the evidence was kept confidential among a small group of people.”
A department spokes- woman said Tuesday that “given that the arbitration is a legal proceeding, Chief Kerr is going to reserve any
comments about it until after its conclusion.”
The most recent friction arose over the discipline of Lt. James Crowther.
Crowther agreed to a 60-day suspension after he was threatened with termi- nation last year in connec- tion with neglect of duty alle- gations that he had deliberately taken a fire engine out of service at inappropriate times, according to a disciplinary memo signed by the fire chief.
The memo states that Crowther also on several occasions would reduce the urgency of response levels for medical calls, that he violated conduct policies by questioning the need for firefighters’ presence at medical calls and that he refused to accompany medics to meet patients, the memo said.
Crowther’s suspension touched off a rift between Kerr and the union, with growing criticism from Nicks. A week after Crowther’s suspension, the union voted to censure Kerr over, among other things, recent disciplinary action. At the time, Kerr said Nicks was waging a “one-sided misleading personal vendetta.”
Nicks’ animus toward Kerr continued to grow after leadership at the Fire Department put in place a stricter disciplinary system after a spike in crashes involving department vehicles. Since the policy was enacted in
September, it has led to the suspensions of 30 firefighters, including eight lieuten
ants and one captain. When the Statesman first reported the policy change in December, Nicks criticized it. While all of the punishments were relatively light suspensions of two to 12 hours, Nicks said it was humiliating good firefighters and destroying morale.
Nicks said the disciplinary action against him is to continue until the end of the current labor contract between the department and union, which is set to expire this fall.