Civil Service: city gets allegations against N.I. fire chief
The Associated Press
NEW IBERIA, La.— The city’s civil service board decided it isn’t up to investigating allegations that the fire chief and assistant chief lied and tampered with witnesses.
The Municipal Fire and Police Civil Service Board voted 5-0 to send the matter to New Iberia Mayor Hilda Curry, on grounds that a trained investigator — a police officer, for instance — is more qualified to look into the allegations.
The board had voted June 23 to investigate the allegations against Fire Chief Ronald Bourque and Assistant Chief Norbert Broussard, but unanimously changed its mind Thursday, asking the city to report its findings to the board within 60 days.
“Even though the law gives us the authority to conduct an investigation, it doesn’t give us the duty,” said Richard Spears, an attorney and member of the civil service board. “I don’t think we are professionally trained to investigate matters on such a large scale.”
Bourque and Broussard are accused of misconduct after firefighters were subpoenaed as witnesses for the appeal of Gilbert Viator, who was suspended without pay for 24 hours in December after he crashed his fire truck into a car.
He contended that the penalty was unfair because other firefighters weren’t suspended after accidents.
While the board upheld Viator’s suspension, some board members expressed concern about Bourque’s and Broussard’s distribution of privacy forms designed to keep Viator from access to other firefighters’ personnel files.
One firefighter testified that Broussard asked him “five or six times” to sign the form, and that he finally agreed to sign it during a meeting in Bourque’s office.
Broussard later testified that he asked the firefighter to sign the form only twice.
Viator said the forms were an effort to withhold information from the board. Bourque said they were designed to spare firefighters the embarrassment of having their past accidents made public.