Feb. 12--Sonny Jackson's 33 years at Decatur Fire and Rescue have seen him rise from a firefighter to a battalion chief to a division chief, but they did not get him an interview for the position of fire chief.
The Decatur City Council will interview three candidates for the post, but no internal candidates. One is from North Carolina, one from Birmingham and one from Texas.
"Chief Jackson is a fine candidate, and I would like to see him interviewed," personnel director Ken Smith said. "But that's a decision for the City Council, not for me."
Councilman Billy Jackson, Sonny Jackson's brother, removed himself from the process after a state ethics commission director said his participation is a violation of state law.
The only vote Jackson received was from Councilman Chuck Ard.
Ard and Council President Gary Hammon said at a Monday work session that Jackson, the only internal candidate, should be interviewed even if he was not among the top three candidates as determined by a point system. Councilmen Charles Kirby and Roger Anders disagreed.
There was little overlap in the councilmen's top five candidates, selecting from 41 applications submitted in November. Only three candidates received more than one vote. None received more than two votes.
Sonny Jackson, who on Tuesday afternoon had not been contacted by the city about the decision, said he was surprised the City Council did not at least interview him.
"I really expected at least to receive an interview," he said. "Given my credentials, given that I was an internal candidate, given the capacity I'm serving in now, there was nothing in my file that would suggest I shouldn't have received an interview."
The administrative division chief said he was looking forward to speaking to the council on possible improvements at the fire department, including methods of generating revenue.
"The financial crunch is one of the biggest issues we're facing now, so my focus in an interview would have been on revenue and efficiencies," Sonny Jackson said. "The city knows what I am capable of. Anyone they interview, they'll be basing it on an hour meeting with them and their paper. I'd be surprised if their paper would be any better than mine."
He said he was not aware of any conflicts with the council members and had no idea why he was not interviewed.
Ard said Sonny Jackson should be interviewed.
"He was the highest internal candidate," Ard said. "From my standpoint, the highest internal candidate should always be interviewed. I think we should always look at our internal candidates, choose our best one, and then compare him to the outside candidates."
Hammon said he believes Sonny Jackson should be interviewed, even though he was not one of Hammon's five choices.
"I think you give points for loyalty, and he's been there for 30 years," Hammon said. "But we had two people with PhDs apply and more than a dozen with master's degrees."
Sonny Jackson has two bachelor's degrees and a master's degree, teaches fire-science classes and has numerous certifications.
Kirby said the council members had agreed on a point system, and he saw no reason to depart from it when evaluating an internal candidate.
Kirby said in selecting his top five candidates, he favored those with military experience and those who attached copies of certifications, rather than just listing them.
"I think we've got to get to the point where we are bringing people up through the system," Kirby said. "Whether or not we had the right people in place to face this challenge is obviously the question in front of the council.
"I'm not saying Jackson is or is not qualified, but if he didn't have the right skill set, by choosing him we could have been setting him up for failure."
Charlie Johnson, who served as chief of Decatur Fire and Rescue from 2002 to 2012, said Sonny Jackson did his job well.
"I always left him in charge when I was gone," Johnson said. "It's too bad they made that decision, because I think he'd make a good leader."
Johnson said he recommended that former Mayor Don Stanford appoint Sonny Jackson as interim chief, but Stanford instead appointed Darwin Clark, then the fire marshal. In 2012, the council selected Clark as fire chief.
Thirteen months later, Clark resigned amid a dispute over the bidding process for a firetruck.
The point system used to determine which candidates would be interviewed assigned the most points for each councilman's first choice and the least for their fifth choice.
The candidates
The most points went to Daniel J. Gaumont, 59, of Ringgold, Texas, the first choice of both Hammon and Ard.
Gaumont's resume says he is an adjunct fire instructor at Columbia Southern University, an online university based in Orange Beach. His Twitter account states he is, "Unemployed, looking for work as Fire Service Professional." Gaumont was fire chief in Keller, Texas, 2009-2012. Keller, a city in the Mid-Cities between Dallas and Fort Worth, has a population of 40,000 that has mushroomed tenfold since the 1980s. It is one of the richest cities in America, with an average home income of $115,000. From 1999 to 2009, Gaumont was fire chief of the fire department in upstate Watertown, N.Y., population 27,000.
According to Arkansas Online, Gaumont applied for a position as chief of the fire department in Conway, Ark., in October. He did not get the position.
Gaumont served in the U.S. Air Force from 1990 to 1993. He received an honorable discharge and receives disability compensation for a 60-percent disability.
Gaumont has bachelor's degree, a master's degree and several certifications.
The next highest point total went to Floyd E. "Buddy" Wilks, a battalion chief with Birmingham Fire and Rescue.
Wilks has been a battalion chief at Birmingham Fire and Rescue since 2011. Birmingham's population is 212,000. He has served in various positions at Birmingham Fire since 1991. He has served with Alabama Fire College since 2011, where he is a program manager. Wilks received a bachelor's degree in fire administration from the University of Memphis in 2004. He has several fire college certifications, including as a public information officer, a health and safety officer, a hazardous materials technician and a rescue technician. He has training in flammable liquid firefighting and in responding to terrorist bombings.
The only other applicant to receive two votes was Robert C. Lands of Raeford, N.C.
Lands, who lists an Afghanistan address on his resume, has been employed as lead fire inspector at DynCorp International since December 2012. In 2011-2012, he was a crew chief and acting assistant chief at the fire department of KBR Inc., an engineering firm. For three years before that he held similar positions at two KBR subcontractors. From 2004-2008, he was a lieutenant at the fire department of Fayetteville, N.C., population 374,000. From 1996 to 2004, he was a lieutenant at the Lake Rim, N.C., volunteer fire department.
Lands has several certifications, including as a fire inspector, a fire instructor and a hazardous materials incident commander.
He has a bachelor's degree, a master's degree and a "doctor of business administration" degree, all from online Almeda University.
Lands received no votes from any councilmen in the first two straw polls. Hammon dismissed those polls last month after the director of the state Ethics Commission, responding to a Decatur Daily inquiry, said Billy Jackson's participation in the polls had violated state ethics laws.
Eric Fleischauer can be reached at 256-340-2435 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @DD_Fleischauer.
Copyright 2014 - The Decatur Daily, Ala.
