Glenwood Springs continues without a fire chief – for now

The city of Glenwood Springs has confirmed it is not moving forward with a job offer for the city's new fire chief, at least for now.

Earlier this week, the three finalist fire chiefs were informed that the city would be taking a different direction in its search for someone to fill the position, as confirmed by City Manager Steve Boyd.

“We are not going to hire any of the candidates that have come forward, at least for now,” Boyd told the Post Independent. “We had three very strong and qualified candidates, but the team just didn’t feel like we had the right person.”

Since the retirement of former Fire Chief Gary Tillotson in April, Police Chief Joseph Deras has served as acting fire chief — an arrangement that Boyd said will continue until the city decides next steps. At this time, the city has not revealed whether it plans to reopen the fire chief's application or continue the hiring process internally.

” We do not know yet. We’re just going to continue to operate as we do now, and then we’ll regroup and decide which direction we want to go,” Boyd said. “…This is all coming together right now, over the last couple of days. So we didn't really have a chance to look too far ahead. »

“What I do know is we are in a very good position with our fire crew,” said Public Information Officer Bryana Starbuck. “The good news is that whatever the next steps are, we don’t want to rush any decisions. We want to make sure we are making truly thoughtful choices for our community and our staff.

The three candidates for fire chief (Timothy Lavin of New Castle, Christopher Courtney of Palos Heights, Illinois, and Michael M. Rodriguez of Greenacres, Florida) were invited to connect with Glenwood Springs residents through an organized meeting by the city on May 20 at the Glenwood Springs Community Center. The meeting gave each candidate the opportunity to introduce themselves to the community and answer questions from residents.

Starbuck said the decision to extend the deadline for hiring a fire chief was made by a selection committee made up of top department heads from the city of Glenwood Springs. Their decision incorporated several forms of feedback, including some from the community meeting.

The city released a statement from Boyd Friday afternoon, in which he said: “We want to be completely transparent in this important decision, and ultimately the candidates were not entirely suitable at this point in time. their career for this role… Our region is not We are strangers to intense fire seasons, and we are confident in Glenwood Fire's ability to respond.