NICHOLASVILLE - The chairman of the Jessamine Fire District said he resigned after the district's board of trustees stopped an inquiry into allegations that volunteer firefighters were impaired by alcohol on the job.
A board member said the investigation was dropped for good reasons.
"My resignation was given because I felt I could not be a part of the way that they intended to proceed -- or not proceed," said Dave Eldridge, who resigned July 14 after a special meeting. " ... By and large, a majority of the board members did not want to pursue any further action on any of this."
"The job that I was charged to do was to investigate the complaints. That was the task assigned me by the board," Eldridge said. "And I had gathered most of the information I needed to present to the board, and it was presented, and the board decided not to take action on what was presented."
But board member Gary Sorrell said the district trustees decided to drop the investigation because there were no facts to verify complaints that firefighters had been impaired when responding to fires or traffic accidents.
"There just wasn't any evidence to substantiate anything," Sorrell said. "After we investigated the allegations, we found out there was nothing to it, so everything was just dropped, pretty much."
Eldridge said he does not agree with Sorrell's assessment. Eldridge had said last week that six complaints, some anonymous, had come from within and outside the fire department, which has about 60 volunteers. At least one complaint alleged that a firefighter had been impaired while driving a fire truck, but none of the allegations claimed injury to a firefighter or citizen.
Sorrell insists there was no proof of any of this.
"We had no live witnesses or anything," Sorrell said. "Nobody appeared before the board as a live witness. Everything we received as a tip, there was no name signed to it. But still we felt it was our obligation to investigate anything like that."
Under state law, it's the responsibility of the chairman of a fire protection district to conduct an investigation to determine whether there is "probable cause" -- good grounds for suspicion -- of inefficiency, misconduct, insubordination, violation of law or of the rules adopted by the board. If probable cause does not exist, the chairman "shall dismiss the charges," the law says.
But if there is probable cause, the chairman recommends charges to the board. It can then hold a hearing before the full seven-member board or before a committee of at least three members.
Eldridge, who is also publisher of The Jessamine Journal weekly newspaper, said his investigation had not reached the point of recommending charges to the board.
Because a fire district is a special taxing district, it is governed by a board of trustees with little or no oversight from anyone else. The Kentucky Firefighter's Association, which represents full-time and volunteer firefighters, doesn't interfere in local governance, said the group's president Bill Robbins.
"We have no authority on that," Robbins said.
The Governor's Department for Local Development -- formerly known as the state Department for Local Government -- cannot force the district to investigate further, either.
"Special districts are separate governments," said Rich Ornstein, staff attorney for the department. "A special district is its own independent body, like a city or county."
Eldridge, who lost a re-election bid among firefighters in June, had been a member and chairman of the board for four years. He was scheduled to come off the board in August, but he said he still plans to participate as a volunteer firefighter.
Asked whether there was a power struggle going on within the fire district, Eldridge said: "I had nothing to gain personally by any of this. I had no axes to grind."
Randall Norris, the attorney for the fire protection district, declined to elaborate on why the inquiry is not going forward. But he said a new chairman might decide to resurrect an investigation.
"I have told the board that I don't think any kind of discipline matter is ever fully put to rest if there is a reason to continue an investigation," Norris said.
Asked whether there was some belief among firefighters that the allegations were "trumped up" in some way, Norris said: "There have been statements both ways, I think. There's no lack of people with hearsay information that want to give their opinion about it, but I don't know that there's that many people that know the actual wherefores of it all."
Another board member, Joe Kinney, resigned a few weeks ago, Norris and Eldridge said. Kinney could not be reached for comment.
