The controversy surrounding the Greensboro Police Department is somewhat on the back burner now that problems within the Fire Department are coming to light.
Those problems have to do with outgoing Chief Johnny Teeters, who said Wednesday that firefighters who did work on his two homes did so for compensation, not for promotion. Teeters said he had the recepts to back it up.
Here’s my question — and I’m asking because I don’t know. It’s my understanding that a good many firefighters work as professional contractors in their off-hours. So did Teeters hire the firefighters in their capacity as contractors, or were the firefighters just odd-jobbing it, so to speak? Makes a difference in my mind.
Still, in light of comments from the Professional Fire Fighters of Greensboro about nepotism and low morale in the department, this appears to be another mess involving leadership within the City of Greensboro, a problem that seems to be cropping up time and again under City Manager Mitchell Johnson. And what do some City Council members want to do? Same thing they always want to do. Hire a consulting firm.
Update: John Hammer writes in this week’s Rhino:
Chief Johnny Teeters has 44 years experience and says that if someone convinces him he is part of the problem, he’ll retire and go home. He said he had no intention of ruining what he had spent his life building. Those who say there are problems only talk about nepotism and the lack of communication in general terms. Teeters says he should have had better communication with the men in the department about the reorganization plan. Communication seems to be a problem everywhere in city government. Something needs to be done and Teeters says he is more than willing to work to figure out what the root cause of the problems and work to fix it. But it has been festering for a while now and it isn’t going to fix itself.
Turns out I saw a couple of Greensboro firefighters down at the Kangaroo on Wendover and Cridland this morning, checking out a red sedan that evidently burned at one of the gas pumps. Don’t know if the person was smoking a cigarette while filling up or what.
