Denver fire chief leaving top job
Tade is third public safety official to step down in six months
A third Denver public safety department will soon be without a permanent leader after Fire Chief Eric Tade submitted his resignation Monday amid controversy surrounding two parties reportedly rife with coarse humor.
Tade now joins the ranks of the former sheriff, Patrick Firman, and former public safety director, Troy Riggs, who also left their leadership positions within the past six months.
Tade will remain within the department, though at a substantially lower salary.
Similarly, Firman found a soft landing pad elsewhere in the city, also with lower pay. Riggs left for a job in the private sector.
Tade tendered his resignation in a meeting with Mayor Michael Hancock late Monday afternoon, according to a news release from the mayor’s office. His last day as fire chief is March 16, and he will then assume the lower position of assistant chief.
It’s yet another signal that Denver’s Department of Public Safety is “imploding” and that Hancock’s administration continues to reward bad behavior, said Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca.
“There’s a lack of leadership and competency, and what we’re witnessing is that it’s all at a
breaking point,” CdeBaca said.
In his resignation letter, Tade mentioned the controversy surrounding last year’s union-sponsored firefighters ball and his promise to Hancock that inappropriate behavior would not happen again.
“Strategies were implemented, and assurances were made to prevent these actions from being repeated,” Tade wrote. “Unfortunately, this year’s event did not prove to live up to those expectations or mine.”
A new direction and fresh perspective for the department can lead to improvement, Tade wrote.
Hancock accepted his resignation.
“When the chief told me it was time for a new set of eyes, as difficult of a decision as that was, I knew he meant it and I let him know that I appreciated his courage and wisdom in recognizing that it was time for a change,” Hancock said in the news release.
Tade’s new salary will be $145,365, a sharp decrease from his salary as chief, which was $205,144, city spokesman Mike Strott said. His switch back to assistant chief comes from a city charter mandate requiring fire chiefs to revert to their previous rank upon removal.
But Tade’s resignation is hardly a substantial change for the department if he remains as assistant chief, CdeBaca said. The inappropriate behavior at one party reportedly disparaged Latino firefighters as well, she said.
The demotion adds insult to injury and shows the culture hasn’t changed, CdeBaca said. It also highlights her call for a city charter change requiring sheriffs to be elected by vote rather than appointed by the mayor. That change should apply to other department heads, as well, she said.
“There has been a lack of process and now we are down a fire chief, executive director of safety and a sheriff,” she said. “We’re clearly not elevating real leaders.”
Theresa Marchetta, spokeswoman for the mayor, said she couldn’t speak to the culture within the fire department but vouched for Tade.
“He has been a champion of culture change within his department, and he will remain a part of setting and maintaining the high standards that he always had,” Marchetta said. “The chief making a decision to step aside and make room for new ideas and new leadership in no way indicates a lack of confidence in his leadership abilities or his success in the past decades.”
City Councilman Paul Kashmann said he enjoyed working with Tade and that he hopes the position won’t stay empty long.
“I would certainly hope that the mayor will put the pedal down and form a new permanent team as soon as possible,” Kashmann said.
The department worked to recruit women into its ranks even as it saw its share of scandals involving the treatment of female firefighters.
Denver paid nearly $1 million to Colley Fisher, a former fire captain, last fall after she filed two sexual discrimination claims before she was fired. Fisher described the department’s culture as a “boys club” and said she had been bullied and harassed.
A 27-year veteran and lieutenant retired last year after he was accused of placing a camera in a female firefighter’s room to watch her change clothes.
Fifty-nine of the department’s 1,042 firefighters are women, slightly higher than the national average for an industry historically challenged in recruiting women.
Other aspects of the department have improved since Tade was first appointed chief in 2010 by then-Mayor John Hickenlooper and reappointed by Hancock the next year: The department scored a top rating in a national audit evaluating operations, training, communications, water supply and response times.
Firman stepped down in October after nearly four years on the job, after weeks of intense scrutiny. A woman sued the sheriff’s office because she was left to give birth alone in a jail cell and then the city spent $1.5 million to settle with multiple female jail deputies alleging that the sheriff’s office didn’t protect them from sexual harassment.
Firman stayed on at the city, though, in a position newly created by Hancock to develop a strategy for technology-related initiatives across city departments. The job pays $160,000.
Hancock appointed department newcomer Frances Gomez to serve as interim sheriff.
He appointed Murphy Robinson, the city’s chief operating officer, to replace Riggs during the search for a permanent public safety director.
Strott said the open sheriff’s position was posted online Tuesday and that Robinson will review the fire department and identify possible internal candidates for Tade’s replacement. New appointments for both spots will hopefully be picked in March, he said.