Seattle fire chief accused of retaliation

A high-ranking officer in the Seattle Fire Department is accusing Fire Chief Gregory Dean of demoting him in retaliation for blowing the whistle on misconduct by a lieutenant overseeing fire safety at Qwest Field.

James Woodbury, a 22-year department veteran, was demoted in January from deputy chief and assistant fire marshal to battalion chief.

That came a few months after Woodbury filed a complaint with the city's top ethics watchdog accusing Dean of failing to seriously punish Lt. Milt Footer for not billing the Seattle Seahawks for nearly $200,000 in fire services at Qwest Field and abusing his position in the fire marshal's office to get backstage passes to a Hannah Montana concert.

A five-month investigation by the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, released Wednesday, substantiated those claims, finding Footer had violated the city ethics code and "grossly wasted public funds."

The ethics report also criticized Dean and Fire Marshal Kenneth Tipler for disciplining Footer only with verbal counseling.

Woodbury, meanwhile, was demoted — a move Dean attributed to budget cuts in a Dec. 11 memo.

In January, Woodbury filed a separate retaliation complaint with Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' office. In it, Woodbury claimed he had a "perfect record of employment" and demanded an investigation of "retaliatory acts" against him, according to a redacted copy of the complaint released by the mayor's office Thursday.

A Fire Department spokeswoman said a deputy chief is paid between $124,000 and $146,000. A battalion chief is paid between $109,000 and $137,000. In his complaint to the mayor, Woodbury said his demotion would cut his pay by at least 27 percent. Woodbury said his pay as deputy chief was $67.93 per hour and the top hourly rate for a battalion chief is $49.69.

Jack Sheridan, a Seattle attorney representing Woodbury, said his client will sue the city "unless they fix what's broke as soon as possible."

Regina LaBelle, Nickels' legal counsel, said the city has hired an independent attorney, Marcella Fleming Reed, to investigate Woodbury's retaliation complaint. LaBelle said she could not comment further on the allegations, citing the investigation.

A Fire Department spokeswoman said Dean would not be able to comment because of the ongoing investigation.

Tipler, the fire marshal, announced his retirement Tuesday, though the department said the timing was coincidental.

Footer, a 29-year department veteran, has been placed on administrative leave after the release of the ethics commission's report. Nickels' office said an independent review will be conducted to decide if Footer or others should face additional discipline. Footer's salary this year was $98,532, said department spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick.

Seattle City Councilmember Tim Burgess, chairman of the council's public-safety committee, called the ethics findings troubling.

In a statement issued Thursday, Burgess said the investigation showed "senior department officials repeatedly rejected the pleas of firefighters who tried to do the right thing by reporting mismanagement and misconduct."

Burgess said this "egregious" failure by Dean and others "demonstrates a serious breakdown in leadership."

He stopped short of calling for Dean's resignation and vowed to work with Nickels on corrective action to restore accountability in the Fire Department.

The controversy centers on the Fire Department's "fireguard" program, which allows off-duty firefighters to collect overtime pay by working at private events like concerts and football games.

At Qwest Field, the Fire Department typically provides seven off-duty firefighters for each Seahawks game to monitor the alarm system, according to Lt. Tom Heun, who works in the special-events section of the fire marshal's office, which oversees the fireguards.

Footer helped manage the Qwest Field operation and had an office at the stadium. He was responsible for billing First & Goal, billionaire Paul Allen's company that runs the Seahawks, for the fireguards' overtime.

But the ethics investigation concluded Footer failed to submit about 70 invoices worth $195,697 between 2002 and 2007. The report found no evidence that he personally benefited from that oversight — though it found he had abused his position in a separate incident at a KeyArena Hannah Montana concert in 2007 by demanding backstage passes for him and his fiancée.

Footer declined to comment Wednesday and could not be reached for comment Thursday. He told ethics investigators he believed he had put the invoices for Qwest Field in the mail and doesn't know what happened to them. He also said he believed the request for Hannah Montana passes was not an ethics violation.

A spokesman for Allen said Thursday that First & Goal will pay what it owes the city.

"We intend to reimburse the city. We haven't finalized the amount," spokesman David Postman said. "Some of the bills are 7 years old, and we want to go through them carefully and reach an agreement on how to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or jbrunner@seattletimes.com

Bob Young: 206-464-2174 or byoung@seattletimes.com