Fire Chief Peeved at “Tone” & “Behavior”
Time for a civics lesson?
Colorado Springs Fire Department (CSFD) Chief Randy Royal got his boxers bunched over tough questioning during a council hearing to decide whether or not to embark on a city-run EMS service.
In firehouse parlance he “whined” to city council president Randy Helms characterizing “questioning of the proposal’s financial aspects as “disrespectful” and “derogatory”, according to KRDO.
Did it frost his nether parts that the questioner was a woman?
And did the chief and his staff ever meet with Crow-Iverson one-on-one before the hearing?
Councilwoman Lynette Crow-Iverson asked if a billing company that helped CSFD prepare its revenue projections would recuse itself from the bidding process. She said the firm “may have been telling CSFD what they wanted to hear about likely revenues in order to get the ambulance billing contract.”
How dare she.
The Councilwoman then threw him some shade (or patted him on the head) when she replied to his lip-quivering indignation by saying, “I give him grace because he was obviously upset with the loss.”
Poor, poor boy.
Does the chief think that the city council is the fire department?
So it would seem, but alas, it’s not.
The council is a political institution and its members are responsible to their constituents however they choose to define the term.
I doubt if Councilwoman Crow-Iverson thinks she reports to the council president. In fact, it’s just as likely that the president wishes to stay in her good graces as the other way round. He always needs his majority.
Finally, some readers will recall a well-known fire chief taking on a city council member with their mayor’s support.
That council member then ran against the Mayor and won and guess who was looking for a job?
Sometimes it’s better to whine to the mirror.
Cheers.
