February 21, 1999
Firehouse turmoil
By David Crawford
Staff Writer
An outside investigation of the Tiffin Fire Department conducted late last year uncovered evidence of rule violations and inappropriate behavior that led to the suspension and demotions of three Tiffin firefighters: Capt. William Wilkins, Capt. Matt Palmer, and Firefighter Mark Wagner last week.
The investigation was conducted by Claudia Denaro Graham, an outside investigator hired by the city. As a result of her investigation, she determined that Wilkins was resentful about not being hired by the city as fire chief after the retirement of former chief Tom Huss. It stated Wilkins used his position as a senior member of the department to influence others to sabotage the efforts of Chief William Ennis, who was hired instead of Wilkins, to implement change in the department.
Although a majority of the department did not agree with Wilkins' opinions and efforts, the investigator determined that his actions set a tone for firefighters on his crew to create a hostile work environment for the EMS employees who work on this crew, focusing on the female EMTs.
Kevin Greenfield, legal counsel for the firefighters, said they believe the evidence presented in the Graham report is not reliable or credible. He said his clients presented ''a lot'' of evidence at the disciplinary hearings with Ennis Jan. 15 to refute the evidence in the report.
Greenfield would not disclose what this evidence was, since he and his clients are not publicly commenting while they are involved in an ongoing arbitration process over the union grievances.
Ben Nutter, union president for the firefighters union, said that this report is filled with inaccuracies which are potentially damaging to all those involved.
The outside investigator was hired on the recommendation of the city's labor legal counsel, John Krimm Jr. of the Columbus firm of Millisor and Nobil. Her fees were paid by the city of Tiffin. For her investigation, Graham conducted interviews of fire department personnel, detailed the behavior of the firefighters and made recommendations on how the city could improve the atmosphere within the department.
Wilkins
Graham concludes that the hostilities within the department began with the hiring of Bill Ennis as fire chief in 1995. She reports Wilkins, who was one of the candidates for the position, was resentful that he did not get the position and began to influence others to undermine the efforts of Ennis to improve the department such as the merger of the EMS and Fire departments.
The report details numerous incidents in which Wilkins questioned Ennis's firefighting abilities:
- In crew meetings, he referred to Ennis as the ''idiot out front.''
- Wilkins called training scheduled by Ennis ''Mickey Mouse,'' and he told his crew not to listen, not to ask questions, and not to participate in any way. He would later instruct them on proper procedures.
- He told his crews to follow orders, ''even if they are stupid.''
Outside of crew meetings, Graham reported Wilkins would use profane language to describe other firefighters who worked with Ennis on projects. He described Ennis as a ''liar'' who does not know anything about fighting fires and does not follow through on commitments.
Graham wrote that Wilkins' behavior could most accurately be described asinsubordinate.
''As the chief tries to attempt to expand the fire fightings skills to the department with strategies and tactics for larger fires, ususual but potential for Tiffin, he is forced to contend with a senior member of the department discrediting his experience,'' Graham stated.
She felt these actions by Wilkins helped to set the tone for other firefighters working on Crew 1 to create a hostile work environment for the new firefighters, focusing on the female EMTs who have decided to become firefighters. By making the merger fail, it would make Ennis look bad in the community.
Merging EMS and Fire Departments
The EMS and Fire services were merged in January 1998 to improve the staffing and response times of Tiffin emergency services.
Since the fire service was exclusively male and the EMS service was mixed with male and female staff, the city began to prepare for the integration of women into the fire stations of the city.
To prepare the department for the merger of EMTs into the department, the city administration prepared special training sessions and new regulations for a joint fire department. In December 1997, they conducted a training session on sexual harassment and hazing for the firefighters that was taped for future viewings. The new regulations included rules for sleeping attire and the stricter enforcement prohibiting pornographic material from the restrooms of the fire stations.
Problems in the Fire House
Graham's report stated that the hostile work environment created on Crew 1 was based on an attitude that only fit, young men could be successful as firefighters.
When the EMS and Fire Departments were merged, all full-time EMTs had to be crosstrained as firefighters. Any EMT who wanted to go to fire school had the physical agility and civil service tests waived. A membership vote in the firefighters union approved the waiver.
But Graham stated there were some among the firefighters who felt that some of the EMTs would not be able to meet the fire school standards, since the EMS staff were older and less physically fit than usual firefighter recruits.
Although all the EMS staff who chose to go to fire school graduated, Graham found the perception continued that some firefighters felt the members of the EMS staff could not meet the standards for firefighters.
As the EMT staff was integrated into his crew, Graham stated that Wilkins was not initially friendly with any of the EMT staff but he later changed to only excluding the female members of the EMT staff. The report stated that the female EMT staff were excluded from crew activities, from crew meetings held in Wilkins' office with the door closed. When one of the women would enter the dayroom or kitchen, the rest of the crew would get up and leave.
In interviews with Graham, other Tiffin firefighters said Wilkins would make the EMT rookies fail before he would instruct them. One example Graham found was he would repeatedly tell one firefighter to start a saw, even though she said she did not know how, and would not instruct her until she tried and failed to start the saw.
Graham's report stated that other problems developed in the living arrangements after the merger. The firefighters told her that there was still pornography inthe restrooms that were used by both sexes in the stations. In the report, Graham stated that several firefighters witnessed the magazines left around the toilets turned to particularly graphic pages that were unavoidable to anyone entering the restroom.
Even after the new regulations banning the magazines and Ennis requesting their removal at a captain's meeting, they remained. Graham stated that eventually Ennis had to play an active role in their removal from the station.
The other major problem in living arrangements was the inappropriate sleeping attire of Mark Wagner, or lack of attire. The regulations stated that firefighters, both male and female, must sleep in a T-shirt and shorts while on duty. Many witnesses told Graham about Wagner's sleeping without any clothes. Both male and female firefighters were offended by his behavior.
One firefighter told Graham that the firefighter was approached by both Wagner and Palmer after the firefighter had joked about Wagner's sleeping attire. They told the firefighter in a very intimidating manner that the firefighter did not see what the firefighter thought had been joked about, the report stated.
Firefighters told Graham that Wagner often referred to one of the female firefighters frequently in an obscene and derogatory manner.
When it came time for evaluations of firefighters, Ennis asked the captains to conduct the evaluation meetings with the members of their crews. Wilkins offered to meet with two male former EMTs on his crew about their evaluations. But for a female member, he said that ''she could write any little goal that you want to accomplish, write them on the back. I don't care what you do.''
A final example from the Graham investigation concerns the atmosphere within the department. In her interviews, two firefighters told her about Captain Seitz. The report stated Seitz was a very intelligent, but overweight fire captain in the department. According to the report, firefighters stated Wilkins could never have outscored Seitz to be deputy chief. However, Wilkins and Huss introduced a SCBA training drill for all firefighters to compete, the report stated. Seitz had a heart attack and retired soon after the attack, it stated.
These firefighters said that Wagner joked about how ''we got rid of Seitz and we can do it again,'' the report stated.
Graham's report stated she was not able to verify the allegation, but that Wagner's alleged jokes about the situation were considered intimidating by other firefighters.
The Breaking Point
From all accounts, the issue that brought the problems within the fire department to the attention of city officials was a union meeting in August 1998.
At this meeting, Graham found there were many different versions of what exactly Matt Palmer said, but most firefighters present at the meeting felt that it was a threat to one of the female firefighters.
Palmer told Graham that he said something to the effect of: ''the person that you just &emdash;&emdash;&emdash;&emdash;&emdash;&emdash;&emdash;&emdash;&emdash; off could be crawling into a fire after you.''
In her interviews, Graham found that neutral firefighters felt this statement was personally threatening to a woman firefighter and feared for her safety.
After this meeting, two female firefighters told Graham that they went to Ennis to discuss their concerns for their safety and about the harassing atmosphere within the department.
After hearing their concerns, Ennis ordered all firefighters to watch the taped sexual harassment training from December 1997.
He also took each separately to meet with City Administrator Wayne Stephens.Under the city's sexual harassment policy, the city administrator was responsible for the overall enforcement fo the city's sexual harassment policy.
Both women told Graham that they found Stephens to be impatient during the meeting and felt that there would be no action as a result of their concerns.
It was soon after this meeting, that a women firefighter filed the sexual harassment complaint with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission.
Graham's Conclusions
It was the filing of the complaint that led to the city's hiring of the outside investigator who uncovered the above incidents and statements.
After conducting the interviews and viewing the tape, Graham made separate conclusions on the sexual harassment and on the hostile work environment within the department.
On the sexual harassment, she found that it had existed in the past with the pornographic magazines in the joint restrooms, Wagner's lack of sleeping attire, and in his frequent derogatory comments about one female firefighter. She found that these situations no longer existed at the time of her investigation.
On the hostile work environment, she found that it also existed in the past and had continued until Ennis reassigned firefighters to different shifts prior to her investigation. But she found that Wilkins' resentment towards Ennis was still continuing and that two of the female firefighters are still concerned about their safety if they were required to fight a fire with Palmer or Wagner.
Graham's report concludes with a list of recommendations to address the situation within the Tiffin Fire Department. (see sidebar)
The Firefighters' Response to the Graham Investigation
Kevin Greenfield, attorney for the three firefighters, said this was not ''a one sided affair.''
''We believe that the evidence presented in the Graham report is not reliable or credible in light of the evidence we have gathered,'' said Greenfield. ''There was a lot of evidence that my clients brought forth in their hearings with the chief to refute those allogations.''
Greenfield said the firefighters are ''purposefully not talking because of the pending arbitration.''
City's Response to the Graham Investigation
Stephens said that he was unaware of the situation within the fire department until the meeting in August 1998 with the chief and female firefighters.
He admitted that he was impatient during the meeting, but that was due to the vague information and generalities about what was happening to them in the department.
''In order to substantiate claim, we needed to know the who, what, when, where, and how,'' said Stephens. ''They didn't give specific information on who did what, only general complaints about harassment and inappropriate behavior.''
Stephens said they never went into the depth or details with him in August that they did later with Graham or in the Civil Rights Complaint.
His response to the meeting was not to conduct an immediate investigation, but ask Ennis to speak about sexual harassment at a captain's meeting and to reissue a city memo on sexual harassment.
He said the Ohio Civil Rights Complaint did spur the city's investgation of thefire department because the city had to find out what happened, address the situation, and answer the complaint.
If there had been no complaint, Stephens is confident that what was occurring in the department would have eventually came out but it would have taken longer.