City looks in-house for replacement
By S.A. Reid & Jill Young Miller
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Copyright 2007 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta is once again searching for a fire chief now that Dennis Rubin has resigned to take a similar job in his native Washington, D.C.
Rubin’s four top deputies are interviewing for the interim post but no timetable has been set for hiring a replacement, according to Atlanta and Firefighters’ Union officials. Interviews are expected to continue into next week, officials said, but no information was available on whether the city might conduct an outside search for an interim chief.
Rubin, 54, will become acting chief of fire and emergency medical services for the District of Columbia, where his career began more than 30 years ago. His last day as Atlanta fire chief is April 13.
New D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty announced Rubin’s nomination Wednesday; the City Council must confirm him. Rubin would replace interim fire chief Brian K. Lee, a 21-year veteran who also applied for the job.
One of newest additions to Fenty’s cabinet, Rubin will make $165,000 annually, according to the terms of his four-year contract.
He will oversee 2,000 employees and an annual budget of $169 million. Atlanta’s Fire Department has 980 employees and a budget of about $56 million.
Rubin takes over a department described as “troubled.” It took heat for its handling of the 2006 fatal mugging of retired New York Times journalist David E. Rosenbaum, whose family is now suing the city for $20 million, according to the Washington Post. Rosenbaum suffered a severe head injury in the mugging but emergency medical personnel thought he was drunk and dropped him off at a hospital near where one of the EMTs had a personal errand.
Employee morale is low, residents complain of slow response times, and there is talk of moving emergency medical services into a separate department, according to the Post.
D.C. officials think Rubin can turn the department around.
“We did an extensive search both locally and nationally for the best and the brightest, and Chief Rubin’s name came out on top,” Fenty said. Stephen Hill, vice president of the Atlanta Professional Firefighters Union, IAFF Local 144, praised Rubin’s accomplishments. The union, which represents 600 city firefighters, has not decided who to back as his temporary replacement, Hill said.
Atlanta City Councilman Lamar Willis said launching a national search for Rubin’s replacement might be difficult because Mayor Shirley Franklin is in her second and final term. The job, Willis said, might be more attractive to in-house candidates looking for a chance to move up, then perhaps move on.
“He had a fine tenure and we wish him well,” Willis said of Rubin, despite having differed with him on issues such as leasing a fire station to the city of Sandy Springs at a nominal cost and his handling of a top-ranked fire official accused of driving drunk in a city vehicle. Atlanta City Councilman C.T. Martin said the city could save time and money — which he said could be used for firefighter raises — by considering in-house candidates.
Atlanta hired Rubin in December, 2003 for $138,000 a year to replace Winston Minor, who retired.
Rubin promised a department focused on customer service, with firefighters installing smoke alarms in homes and helping fire victims box up belongings.
When he took office, the department was not inspecting some of the city’s largest venues. Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves, had been operating without fire safety permits — and with dozens of violations of the city’s fire safety code — since it opened in 1997. During that time, more than 21 million people had attended Braves games at the stadium.
Fire Department records indicated Philips Arena and Chastain Park Amphitheater were sporadically inspected over the years and lacked fire safety permits. Rubin overhauled inspections of public venues throughout Atlanta, including more than 60 restaurants, hotels, nightclubs and other gathering places. He said the blame rested squarely on the city’s Fire Department, not on the establishments, and apologized to business owners as their venues were brought up to code.