By Ryan Lewis
The Chattanooga Times Free Press
SOUTH PITTSBURG, Tenn. — Police Chief Dale Winters has been named South Pittsburg’s public safety director after city commissioners voted to oust Fire Chief Freddie Cook.
As public safety director, Winters will be in charge of the town’s fire and police departments.
South Pittsburg Mayor Mike Killian last week cited repeated incidents of insubordination as the reason for Cook’s removal.
“I have tried to do what I can to smooth this over since I’ve been mayor,” he said. “We don’t have to go over the incidents we’ve had. I’ve got to go along with this because I am concerned about the insubordination to this board.”
Killian said the board recently declined Cook’s recommendation for a new firefighter, but the next day saw a picture of her in SPFD equipment fighting a fire.
Cook said he had not had a chance to tell the firefighter she hadn’t been hired.
“The night that they voted, I didn’t know there was a problem. The equipment was issued. I didn’t issue the equipment. It was issued by an assistant chief or someone else. That next day I did talk to her, and she hasn’t been to any other fires,” Cook said.
Killian also said he’d asked Cook to turn over the fire department’s account for audit more than 90 days ago, but it still hadn’t been done.
“I saw one month of that account, and there’s no way that account is going to pass an audit,” he said.
Cook said he would have no problem in doing so.
Commissioner Charles Reynolds, who cast the lone dissenting vote Tuesday, believes the board might be overworking Winters with the change.
“Even though Dale is doing a good job as police chief, I feel like you can overload a man,” he said.
Reynolds said he feared a situation might arise when the police and fire chiefs will be needed in different places at the same time.
“If you do this and you have a major fire on one end of town and a break-in that needs police attention on the other end of town, something bad is going to happen,” he said “I’d like to see a workshop to discuss this thing further.”
The workshop request was dismissed when Killian called the question and forced the board to vote.
Copyright 2010 Chattanooga Publishing Company