Iowa City commission approves three firefighter promotional lists after captain raises bias concerns

Iowa City’s Civil Service Commission approved promotional lists for battalion chief, fire captain and lieutenant during a meeting where a city fire captain urged the commission to review the process for possible bias.

Bill Smoke, who introduced himself as a C-shift fire captain, told the commission he “feels that there’s an appearance of bias” in the battalion chief promotion process. He said three of the five panel members for his interview had been involved in a prior internal investigation of allegations he supervised; he told commissioners the investigation was…