SULLIVAN, OH—Six firefighters were put on "administrative leave" after a Sullivan Township meeting on Aug. 5, and, according to a video of the meeting, one of the trustees said the decision in effect "crippled" the Sullivan Fire Department and EMS.
In the video, Sullivan trustee Duane Jenkins said the six firefighters were put on administrative leave for a variety of offenses, including the unauthorized tapping of a fire hydrant, making "derogatory" comments on social media about the fire department's employers and "insubordination."
The Sullivan Township trustees voted 2-1 to pass the resolution that placed the six volunteer firefighters and EMS personnel on leave.
"We want to be sure no one's First Amendment rights will be violated," Jenkins read in a statement at the Aug. 5 meeting. "Therefore we will have an investigation conducted by an unbiased officer of the court. The fire chief will formally inform each person they have been placed on administrative leave and collect radios, keys and pagers."
Jenkins said in the video of the meeting that the township would hire Jennifer Arnold to investigate the six firefighters and EMS personnel, and would focus on the allegations of "derogatory" comments on social media, the tapping of a fire hydrant and "insubordination."
When called about the placement of the firefighters on leave on Thursday, Jenkins said he could not speak about the situation, and could only talk about the administrative leave of the firefighters during the next township trustee meeting on Monday, Aug. 19 at 6 p.m.
"I can only answer to those questions in a (public) meeting," Jenkins said on Thursday in response to whether firefighters and EMS personnel at the Sullivan Volunteer Fire Department had been suspended.
The other two trustees, Glen Goff Jr., and Douglas Campbell, did not respond to phone calls for this story.
In the video, Campbell voted against the resolution.
"I think if you do this you cripple your EMS .. you're taking, one, two, three, four, five EMS numbers out of rotation and that puts people in danger," Campbell said in the meeting, according to the video. "I know you've got mutual aid, and I understand you can bring in another department ... I'm just saying this discipline, putting them on leave, if you want to do this investigation, it should have no effect on their performance."
Three of the firefighters spoke to the Times-Gazette about their suspension, and said the trustee's decision put the township in danger.
One of the firefighters put on leave was Jeremy Brandt, a former fire chief for Sullivan Fire Department.
Brandt said he felt he worked hard for the department and worked to increase connections to the community, and improved the response times for the department when he was chief.
The department had been on automatic mutual aid for calls for seven years, Brandt said, and he had worked to make the Sullivan Volunteer Fire Department reliable enough to respond to calls on its own. He started as interim chief in September 2017, Brandt said.
One of the other firefighters, Erica Bloom, said the department ran 98.7 percent of its calls from September 2017 through the end of 2018.
"Some of the calls that we missed were because we were out on other calls, we only have one squad," Brandt said. "There was a huge turnaround between 2017 and 2018, a night and day difference. Other chiefs and firefighters in the area would tell us that ... we were finally back, we weren't the laughing-stock of the county."
Brandt said he was removed as fire chief toward the beginning of 2019, but was never formally notified by the trustees of the decision.
"I was never formally told, I heard it through the grapevine that they were going a different route and that I wasn't chief," he said.
Erica and Tab Bloom, who also was put on administrative leave, along with Brandt, said they were concerned with the safety of the community. Tab, Erica and Brandt said the six firefighters who were put on leave were the most experienced on the department, and the ones who most frequently went on calls.
Tab said the danger is Sullivan Township will have to rely on more mutual aid calls again, with the assistance of the Nankin Fire Department, Polk-Jackson-Perry Fire Department and Spencer Community Fire Department. Tab is running for Sullivan Township trustee.
"We were running at three- to seven-minute response times. Now you're looking at 20 minutes," Tab said. "It is not these department's fault ... the more mileage you are adding, the more time. It's just basic numbers."
The three firefighters said they want to be able to serve the community they care about and continue to serve as volunteer firefighters and EMS personnel.
"I grew up in Sullivan and know a lot of the older people up there," Brandt said. "To see them be put in danger because of response delayed, and not having the fire department, it's an abuse of power."
An interim fire chief, Dan Fayak, was put in place on the Aug. 5 meeting after another interim fire chief, Jonas Miller, refused to tell the firefighters that they would be put on administrative leave, according to the video of the meeting.
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