FIRE COMMISSIONER ON WAY OUT
Days from mandatory retirement age, Santiago loses bid to stay on job
After 6½ years of leadership stability under fire, there will be a changing of the guard at the helm of the Chicago Fire Department.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is saying goodbye to his second fire commissioner after trying and failing to find a legal path to keep Jose Santiago as a civilian fire commissioner, even after Santiago reaches the mandatory retirement age of 63.
Sources said Santiago has already had his “goodbye conversation” with Emanuel after joining the mayor Tuesday for what could be their last official act together: the somber ceremony that retired the badge of former Chicago Fire Department diver Juan Bucio, who died during a Memorial Day rescue on the south branch of the Chicago River.
Emanuel has not yet settled on a replacement for the $202,728-a-year commissioner. City Hall sources flatly denied the job has been offered to at least one high-ranking official, who turned it down.
The selection is complicated by the fact that Santiago was one of the few high-ranking Hispanics in the mayor’s cabinet and that a wave of retirements — tied in part to a pay differential — soon may leave the Chicago Fire Department without a single deputy commissioner.
“Our plan was to keep [Santiago] around. But you just can’t do it,” said a top mayoral aide, who asked to remain anonymous.
“A civilian commissioner is not allowed under the code. We tried to find a way to get there. But you can’t get around that.”
The top mayoral aide pointed to Section 2-36-120 of the Municipal Code: “Membership of the uniformed service.”
It states: “The following employees of the fire department, namely, the fire commissioner, deputy fire commissioners, all chief officers and all subordinate officers, and all firefighters, fire engineers and paramedics, shall constitute the uniformed service and shall be known and designated as members of the fire department.”
Santiago refused to comment on his imminent departure.
Sources close to the retiring commissioner said he wanted to stay on and even “showed them where an executive order would work” to make that possible.
Emanuel reportedly refused without explaining why.
Former Mayor Jane Byrne had a civilian fire commissioner in William Blair, who famously gave the order to spray water from a fire hose on Dan “Spider-Dan” Goodwin as the daredevil climbed the John Hancock Center in 1981.
Santiago’s reign hasn’t all been smooth sailing.
Fire deaths are up — from 27 all of last year to 31 already this year, even before the most deadly cold weather season hits.
Mayoral challenger Paul Vallas has accused Santiago of treating emergency medical services, an overwhelming majority of 911 calls, as a poor “stepchild” as Emanuel dragged his feet for years on a promised five-ambulance expansion.
Earlier this year, five female paramedics filed a federal lawsuit accusing their superiors of sexual harassment.
The suit alleged the fire department “directly encourages” the illegal behavior by failing to “discipline, supervise and control” its officers, and by intimidating and punishing women who dare to report the harassment.
Discrimination against women also forced the Chicago Fire Department to change its policy impacting pregnant employees and nursing mothers and spend $2 million — and $1.7 million more in legal fees — to compensate dozens of women denied firefighter jobs because of a discriminatory test of upper body strength City Hall has now scrapped.
As if all of that wasn’t enough of a headache, 32 members of the Fire Department’s exempt ranks returned to their career service ranks after Emanuel discontinued the longstanding practice of boosting the pay of exempt-rank members in response to union contracts that increased pay for the rankand-file.
The fire officials are seeking pension changes, expanded health insurance benefits and pay raises. They recently got a four percent pay raise, far short of the 11 percent they were seeking.
Ald. Nick Sposato (38th), a former Chicago firefighter, noted there are “a lot of engineers and battalion chiefs” who made more money than the commissioner.
“Until the city straightens out the pay of the exempts, it’s gonna continue to be difficult to get exempts,” said Sposato, who described himself as a friend of Santiago and talked to the commissioner five times a week.
Santiago is a former U.S. Marine decorated for his service in Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm. He ran the 911 center for the final year of former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration — and presided during the Blizzard of 2011 fiasco that shut down Lake Shore Drive — before returning to the Fire Department under Emanuel as a deputy commissioner. He became commissioner in 2012.