`Unusual’ Hiring Process Spawns Questions

Valley firefighters promise to throw support behind their new chief when he arrives on March 2, but that doesn’t stop them from questioning the hiring process. They were surprised when the board of commissioners asked Chief Karl Bold to resign. The ensuing search for a new chief was quick and appeared to target one candidate right from the start, they said.

“We’re going to be 100 percent behind the new chief, but the process could’ve been done a little better,” said firefighters union president Cooper Kennett. “The way it was done, we don’t think it was fair.”

Pat Humphries, executive deputy chief of Vancouver Fire Department, last week was named Valley Fire’s new chief.

Bold resigned in mid-January. He had been Valley Fire’s chief only since last August, when Rod Tedrow retired.

The first time commissioners approached him with complaints about his performance, Bold said, was when they asked him to step down.

“They didn’t give me a chance to correct the things they didn’t like,” Bold said.

“We were caught by surprise that Karl was set back,” said union vice president Kevin Miller. “We didn’t know what to think.”

This is the first time Valley Fire has hired a new chief from outside district ranks. Miller said that has added to the firefighters’ unease. “It’s a new frontier,” he said.

After two division chiefs also applied for the chief position and were turned away, commissioners sent out notices to comparably sized districts looking for a new chief. They received four applications.

“We’re somewhat disappointed that the district only received four applications for a position that pays almost $75,000 per year,” Kennett said.

The commissioners said there were so few applicants because the requirements - including substantial experience as a chief officer - were so stringent.

They set up interviews for Feb. 14. One applicant - Jim Davis, fire chief in Woodinville, Wash. - could not make it that day, but told commissioners he would be available for an interview later in the week. He was dropped from consideration.

The decision to hire Humphries was made Feb. 16. The hiring process took only about six weeks.

Before Spokane Fire Department Chief Bobby Williams was hired in October of 1988, city officials conducted a nationwide search that took five months and garnered more than 100 applications.

When Fire District 9 Chief Bob Anderson was hired in January of 1987, a Seattle headhunting firm advertised nationally, receiving more than 50 applications and conducting multi-leveled interviews over three months.

“The process has been unusual,” Anderson said of Valley Fire’s hiring of its new chief.

But, he added, “(Humphries) probably would’ve come out on top” if the commissioners had conducted a more exhaustive process.