Crime & Safety

East Lake Fire Commission Backs Chief's Decision to Demote Firefighter

East Lake Fire Chief Tom Jamison demoted Lt. James Finley to driver-engineer on May 24 following a departmental investigation which found that Finley sent racist text messages and made racist comments to another firefighter.

East Lake Fire Commissioners on Thursday voted to support Fire Chief Tom Jamison's decision to demote Lt. James Finley for sending racist text messages and making racist statements about another firefighter.

As East Lake Patch previously reported, Jamison demoted Finley to driver-engineer on May 24, 2013 following a departmental investigation. The move came after an April 23 board meeting in which Lt. Bill Figueredo told fire commissioners that Finley sent racist text messages to him and made racist statements against him.

Patch obtained a copy of Figueredo's formal complaint. The following excerpt describes one of the incidents:

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"Mr. Finley has called me the dirty Puerto Rican, the gay Puerto Rican, the dirty Mexican, gay Mexican and also dirty Cuban." 

       -East Lake Fire Lieutenant Bill Figueredo

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Thursday evening's special fire commission meeting was held in response to a grievance filed by Finley, who is fighting the demotion. Finley did not attend the meeting. Board members discussed the grievance prior to the vote.

"I think that the grievance has no merit. I support the chief. I think the chief acted appropriately, said commissioner Paul Ferreri.

"I believe that we need to go ahead and move forward as a department. I don't believe this undermines the chief in his decision process. This is just the next step, if we don't want to make a move here to intervene, we'll be at the arbitration level," said commission chairman Mark Weinkrantz before casting the lone vote supporting Finley's grievance.

Paul Ferreri, Tom Mckone and David Root voted to support Jamison's decision to demote Finley. 

Over the last few months, the East Lake Fire Department has been dealing with a tangled web of accusations amongst its staff. Read more below-

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