Medford Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn has promoted a deputy fire chief to fill in as the department’s interim chief, ending a two-week stretch in which firefighters were without a top leader.
Deputy Chief Todd Evans has been selected to serve as provisional fire chief, Lungo-Koehn wrote in a letter to the City Council Thursday morning. Evans joined the department in 2001 and was promoted to deputy in 2021.
The fire department had been operating without a chief since John Freedman retired on Feb. 21 after nearly 30 years of service, serving as the department’s leader in the final two.
Controversy has surrounded the department since a wave of sick calls in early February cost the city nearly $100,000, a situation the mayor believes “forced” Freedman to retire.
“The fire department needs to rebuild trust with the community in light of recent events that occurred in early February costing our taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars,” Lungo-Koehn said in a statement Thursday. “It is my hope that Chief Evans and I can work together to ensure that something like that will never happen again, and that we focus on moving the department forward.”
The fire union on Feb. 20 filed an unfair labor practice complaint against Lungo-Koehn with the state Department of Labor Relations, alleging the mayor “defamed” the union on the city’s website and in the media, amongst other charges.
An attorney for the Medford fire union accused Lungo-Koehn of breaking the law by initially offering a firefighter from outside the city to serve as interim chief. The department follows civil service law which requires promotions be made internally only.
The Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts sent a letter at the time of Freedman’s retirement to local unions, “imploring members from outside departments to refrain from applying for Interim Fire Chief and Fire Chief positions” in Medford.
“Union leadership scared off my first appointment because he was from another fire department. Hopefully they will support Chief Evans as he has shown to be an honest and forward-thinking leader, who recognizes the need to modernize and expand oversight in the department,” Lungo-Koehn said in her statement.
Promoting a firefighter to the chief’s position in the interim was complicated in Medford as the department “doesn’t have a civil service eligible list,” the mayor told the Herald late last month.
Two years ago, four deputies signed up to take the required chief’s exam, but only Freedman ended up taking it, meaning he was the “only option” for the hire, the mayor said.
Taking a chief’s exam is required in order to be on the civil service eligible list for the position.
When there is no such list, the “hiring department” could fill a vacancy on a “provisional basis” by appointing someone from within or outside the department, according to the state Civil Service Commission.
Lungo-Koehn told the Herald on Wednesday that the city is “not close” to hiring a permanent chief, a position that carries a $152,042 salary, according to the city budget.
In a statement to the Herald on Wednesday, union President Walter “Eddy” Buckley said members were pleased the mayor “finally started looking internally within our department for candidates for Chief.” But he accused her of not following the law by not appointing the “most senior deputy chief.”
A city ordinance highlights that in a chief’s absence, the senior deputy chief would take on leadership. But Lungo-Koehn has argued the city charter gives her “full authority to appoint all department heads,”
“The Union cannot allow her to do as she pleases because she doesn’t agree with the law regardless of if that candidate is internal or external,” Buckley said.
Before Evans’ appointment as provisional chief, the State Fire Marshal’s Office delegated certain permitting and inspection functions of the department to Lungo-Koehn last week, a procedural move that prompted backlash from the union and critics on social media.
“Delegating that authority to local officials is the standard administrative process to ensure that these functions continue uninterrupted,” an office spokesperson told the Herald Wednesday.
The mayor is looking to get out of civil service to make the process of filling the vacant chief’s position “more open and competitive.” For that to happen, she’d need approval from the City Council and state Legislature.
But in her letter Thursday, Lungo-Koehn told the council to hold her request in committee for two months “while Chief Evans gets settled and we deal with much needed work that needs to get done, such as updating policies, reviewing the organization from management down, etc..”
