Fire Critic An Unadulterated View of the Fire Service
Seattle Fire Department officer who helped expose scandal sues over demotion. Read the entire article here.
Jim Woodbury blew the whistle within the Seattle Fire Department and was then demoted. The article is a little tough to follow and understand but I will try to dissect it for you.
Jim Woodbury was demoted from Deputy Chief to Battalion Chief after filing a whistle-blower complaint with the City ethics investigators.
Woodbury had filed a whistle-blower complaint with city ethics investigators last year about Lt. Milt Footer, a fire inspector who demanded free backstage passes to a Hannah Montana concert and failed to bill Qwest Field for nearly $200,000 in fire services. Footer had worked at Qwest Field in an unusual arrangement where First & Goal, the Paul Allen company that owns the Seahawks, paid his salary.
A report by the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission in March substantiated Woodbury’s complaint and criticized Dean for failing to punish Footer’s actions, which violated city ethics laws and resulted in a “gross waste of public funds.”
Gregory Dean is the Fire Chief for Seattle.
So basically, Woodbury filed the complaint against Footer. Then the ethics and elections commission said that Dean was to blame as well because he did not punish Footer.
Then Dean demoted Woodbury over it, or at least that is what Woodbury is claiming.
Like they say…shit rolls downhill. However, that still doesn’t make it right. After all, what Footer was doing was wrong and that was substantiated. Woodbury was within his rights to do what he did and in the end the City at least recouped $122,000 of the more than $200,000 it was owed to them as the report suggests. If anything, Woodbury should have come out smelling like roses. This day in age municipalities need every dollar they can get their hands on. Plus they got rid of a crooked employee (Footer).
I am pulling for Woodbury!
