Mayor postpones naming fire chief

With a brief statement at the City Council meeting, Mayor Jackie Crabtree postponed announcing his selection for fire chief Tuesday, April 16.

“We’re going to put that off for another month,” he told city officials. “We’ll make a decision on that next month.”

Naming a fire chief was on the agenda for the council meeting, according to Crabtree.

On Monday, April 15, the mayor met with interim fire chief Dino Collins and, after the meeting, said he was postponing naming a chief.

Collins changed the standard operating procedure requirements for chief and captain and promoted his son, Justin, to captain. Collins said Justin was named captain about five years ago.

None of the Fire Department officers receive a salary for their positions, according to Collins.

The qualifications for fire chief and captain were changed on Feb. 25 removing the requirement for Firefighter I and II for chief and captain making those “preferred but not necessary.”

The younger Collins was removed from the captain position.

Dino Collins said he was told by the mayor when he was appointed interim chief to make any changes in his command staff he wanted. He said Deputy Fire Chief Jim Cantrell approved the appointment of Justin to captain. Cantrell said he did not.

Deputy Fire Chief Jim Cantrell resigned his position as deputy chief.

The remaining Deputy Chief, Jack Wassman said: “I was never questioned about Justin at all.”

Wassman said he was notified after the fact that the elder Collins promoted Justin.

“The promotion of Justin (Collins) was the defining moment of why I resigned as deputy chief,” Cantrell said. “That, in conjunction with a few other things that have occurred in the last few months. By changing the requirements for each position Chief (Dino) Collins pretty much fast tracked Justin into that promotion.

“To me, this showed preference, favoritism and nepotism on Chief Collins’ role in doing that with the end result of making his son a captain. No consultation from his chief officers and officers staff was sought in that decision. By relaxing the certification criteria across the board, there are other more deserving guys that should have had a chance at the captain position. The departments SOPs that were in place have been in place for the last six years or so. These were established to raise the department’s training level over all, for motivation factor to promote to captain level and higher and above all training our first responders safely to Arkansas Fire Academy standards so everyone is on the same page doing fire fighting tasks.”

“Starting out 15 years ago on the department as a brand new

person, I was exposed to the EMS sector,” Cantrell said. “We have seen a lot of positive changes, experienced some growing pains, a few bumps as well on our department. Like most of our responders, I worked my way up through the ranks having no experience and received all the certifications I could. All the classes provided are free in the fire service. I just had to devote time and effort to do get them completed.

“The decision to step down was hard to make but could not in good conscience stand by with what had just transpired,” Cantrell said.

Crabtree said the fire department is volunteer and is not held to the standard that the Police Department is and he does not view the changing of the requirements as a problem.

Fire Chief Jamie Baggett resigned Jan. 28. Assistant fire chief Dino Collins was named interim chief. Crabtree has not advertised for a fire chief.