Belleville Fire Chief Darwin Loyer is switching fire chief hats to become the new fire chief of Van Buren Township.
The VBT board voted unanimously on Tuesday to name Loyer to the post that has been vacant since Fire Chief Mark Nicholai was forced out of his position in April 2008 by former Public Safety Director Jerry Champagne and former Supervisor Cindy King.
Nicholai, who had been chosen out of a field of 36, had been chief for 20 months and disagreed with Champagne about the cross training of police as fire fighters, with fire fighters getting lower pay for the same work.
After a lengthy selection process for a new fire chief last winter, Joseph Grutza had been selected as the new fire chief, but then he withdrew his name, setting off another search. Belleville Fire Chief Loyer had served on the final interview panel that selected Grutza.
Meanwhile, those interested in recalling the four new board members complained that a new fire chief wasn’t needed and the battalion chiefs were doing fine without a chief. The three holdover elected officials also said they could save money by not hiring a fire chief.
But, the township hired Terry McGinn from Career Directions in Ann Arbor to conduct a new search for a fire chief.
Supervisor Paul White said out of all the applications received, the field was narrowed to three candidates. The three were presented to a panel of fire chiefs to conduct an oral interview.
Based on the recommendation of the interview panel and McGinn, Supervisor White presented Loyer to the board as the top candidate for this position, with high praise for his credentials and experience.
The approval was contingent on background checks and psychological testing and the hiring will come back to the board for final approval.
Loyer’s salary will be $69,900.
At Monday’s workshop session, Trustee Jeff Jahr was critical of White for negotiating a contract before doing background checks.
“I think you’re putting the cart before the horse,” Jahr said, adding he had no problem with Loyer and intended to vote for him as fire chief.
“We shouldn’t let the divisiveness trickle over,” Jahr said. “We’ve got to run a township.”
White said he talked to Loyer’s current employer and got a tremendously positive response on Loyer.
“And, he lives in the township, which is outstanding,” said Trustee Al Ostrowski.
Loyer lives on the VBT/City of Belleville border near Edgemont Elementary School.
At first, Loyer had wanted to continue as both Belleville Fire Chief and VBT Chief and also to respond to Belleville fires as a paid-per-call fire fighter, with his son, who is on the city department.
But after a 45-minute discussion, the board decided Loyer should just concentrate on being VBT Fire Chief, and he agreed.
In other business at Tuesday’s meeting, the board:
* Approved an agreement that would bring a German volunteer to assist at the senior center for a year, like the German volunteer they had the previous year. Oliver Siegel is ready to start work on Sept. 20 and stay until Aug. 31, 2010. Senior Director Linda Combs said they had raised $3,000 for a stipend and he has agreed to work for that. IRS regulations allow him not to get more than $36 per day. Tom Luczak, a widower, will be the host for the intern;
* Approved a resolution establishing the township’s tax rate for the December levy. The total is 10.4702 mills, which includes .9144 allocated millage, 5.5558 water/sewer millage, and 4 mills for public safety. This is the last year the water/sewer millage will be levied;
* Approved an attorney-use policy that spells out when the attorney attends meetings, who can request legal opinions (written and oral), and how no private citizens can get advice from the township attorney, unless he/she can get a township official to seek the information. White voted no because of a last-minute change to the wording;
* Removed from the agenda a proposed policy on video recordings of meetings. There was heated discussion on the subject during the Monday workshop session, with Jahr complaining that the issue was meetings that they like are not shown enough and ones they don’t like are shown all the time. Attorney Patrick McCauley said there are two issues to address in the policy, which he had prepared for them: how long to retain the recording and how often to broadcast. The draft policy covered both. Treasurer Sharry Budd suggested the item be tabled to straighten everything out. Clerk Leon Wright, who had presented the policy after asking all the board members for input, said, “I really don’t care if we keep them for eternity or destroy them. It just needs to be done right.” He added that once a recording has been requested through a Freedom of Information Act, it has to be kept for a year and a day. He said he was presenting the policy for the board and he said he asked for input before putting it on the agenda, so they wouldn’t sit around arguing about it. Jahr said he sent his comments to attorney McCauley and he thought the attorney would forward it to everyone. Jahr also complained that Supervisor White had decided unilaterally to cablecast the meetings.
After the workshop session on Tuesday, the board prepared to vote to go into executive session to discuss attorney-client communications and negotiations between the township and the police and dispatch unions.
Treasurer Budd balked, saying “I don’t know why we’re going into closed session since it’s out in the community.”
She referred to comments from recall supporters who claimed White had told his supporters what the attorney had found in his report. She voted no to go into executive session.
Jahr asked that the two items be separated for a vote. Attorney McCauley said the attorney-client communications contain “advices and legal opinions that have not been published, as far as he knew, and are matters of a sensitive nature.”
McCauley said that after the information is discussed privately, the board could go into open session and with a majority vote waive the confidentiality and open it all to the public.
When the two reasons for executive session were separated, the vote was 5-1, with Budd voting no, to go into executive session on the attorney-client communications.
It was a unanimous vote to go into closed session to discuss union contracts. Trustee Phil Hart was absent from the workshop session on Monday.
On Tuesday, the board voted unanimously to waive the attorney-client privilege and release the documents to the public as soon as the attorney checked to see if anything needed to be redacted as prescribed by FOIA.
Recall supporter Eric Feldkamp already has submitted a FOIA for the documents, which include the results of the attorney’s investigation into possible violations of the Open Meetings Act, township computer usage, and ethics.