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Council to Consider Fire Chief Appointment; Local firefighters voice support for internal candidate
Summary
City manager pulled Resolution 4-29—appointment of the next fire chief—from the consent agenda for the 6:00 p.m. business meeting. Two union representatives publicly thanked council and said the department supports selecting an internal candidate.
The Waco City Council will consider Resolution 4-29, which the city manager removed from the consent agenda for discussion at the 6 p.m. business meeting, to appoint the next fire chief. City Manager Bradley Ford told the council he wanted the item pulled so the new chief could provide more detail at the evening session.
Two speakers at the council work session voiced public support for an internal candidate. Brent Wetherbee, identified as president of the Waco Professional Firefighters, thanked the council and city management and said the union “fully supports” the selection of an internal candidate and appreciated that the city included labor in the process. Former union president Philip Burnett echoed that praise and said having an internal candidate “is gonna give us some consistency.”
Ford said the candidate to be named had decades of service in the department and that the appointment would be discussed in greater detail in the 6 p.m. business session. The manager also noted that Resolution 4-50, a related federal grant request to add up to 15 firefighter positions, was removed from consent so the chief could present additional budget context at the evening meeting.
No final vote on Resolution 4-29 was reported in the work session.
The council will take up the appointment during the regular business meeting later the same day.
