By David Slade
The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC)
CHARLESTON, SC — The final seven candidates for Charleston fire chief completed a day-long round of interviews Tuesday, putting the closely watched decision about who should lead the Fire Department back in Mayor Joe Riley’s hands.
For the candidates, the prize for reaching the final decision-making round was two days of public scrutiny, unusual for most municipal job applicants and unprecedented in Charleston.
It’s up to Riley to nominate the next chief, subject to council’s approval, but council had pushed for a greater role in the selection process.
The Fire Department has been the focus of intense interest since the deaths of nine city firefighters in the 2007 Sofa Super Store blaze, the nation’s worst loss of firefighter lives since the World Trade Center on 9/11.
Chief Rusty Thomas retired a year after the tragedy. The Sofa Super Store fire has made the search for his replacement a well-known national event within firefighting circles, and 141 people applied for the job.
The seven final candidates, from states on the East Coast, Gulf Coast and in the Midwest, spent Monday and Monday evening meeting with City Council members, city firefighters, neighborhood leaders and members of city boards and commissions.
“It was a little grueling, but any time you can get exposure to the people and the community, it’s real helpful,” said candidate Thomas Solberg, chief of the Lee’s Summit (Mo.) Fire Department.
Tuesday each candidate was interviewed for an hour by the mayor, for another hour by council’s Public Safety Committee, and for a third hour by a committee chosen by Riley that included Police Chief Greg Mullen and acting Fire Chief Ronnie Classen.
“The only thing they haven’t asked for yet is a blood sample,” joked candidate John Rukavina, who retired in June as director of public safety for Wake County, N.C.
“It’s clear the folks with the city really thought this through.”
The mayor has said he hopes to decide upon his nominee reasonably quickly but has offered no timetable.
“I have been narrowing it down, in my mind,” Riley said Tuesday afternoon. “Of course, I’ll want to hear from the wonderful people who are doing the other interviews.”
Some have expressed concern about the lack of diversity among the seven final candidates, but there has been general agreement among council members and city firefighters that they are a well-qualified, and in some cases perhaps over-qualified, for the job.
“Overall, I thought they were all good selections, but I would have loved to have seen minorities at the table too,” said Councilman Wendell Gilliard. “I know there are qualified African-Americans and females out there.”
Copyright 2008, The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC)