Perhaps the question about Metro Fire Chief Buck Dozier’s surprise resignation this week is not whether he has a footprint on his back side, but whether he deserves to have one.
The painful reality of the latest Metro resignation—Dozier’s announcement brings to four the number of department heads who have either quit or been forced out under Mayor Bill Purcell—has been effectively glossed over in all the touchy-feely coverage of his declaration that he’s moving on to ”the private and public sectors to explore other career opportunities and challenges.“ Maybe all the niceties are for good reason. The truth is that Dozier, a former minister and teacher, is a pretty nice guy.
The other truth, however, is that the former Metro Council member appointed as fire chief under Mayor Phil Bredesen happens to reign over some of the most egregiously wasteful of Metro’s spending practices. As a mayor trying to define himself as the able protector of the city’s fiscal resources, Purcell has made a sport of exploiting the kind of inefficiencies Dozier has presided over during his six years as fire chief.
In a recent meeting with Metro Council members, Purcell declared his fact-finding budget process successful, noting rather humorously that he has identified some of the more ridiculous of city spending practices. On one count, Dozier was the punch line. Purcell told the Council members that Dozier had suggested Metro could save $66,000 in the coming fiscal year by simply foregoing its monthly $5,500 contribution to the city of Goodlettsville.
The mayor told the Council members thahe asked Dozier why the Fire Department was making the contribution in the first place. ”We don’t need to do it anymore,“ Dozier told the mayor. ”But why did you ever,“ Purcell wanted to know.
Hitting home the ridicule, Purcell concluded his story to Council members by saying Dozier didn’t really know why his department was paying out the cash.
It didn’t help matters for Dozier when an audit of his department came back late last month, outlining all the problems for which the Fire Department has been notorious over the years: promoting too many people, allowing too much overtime, indiscriminately allowing employees to take sick leave and ”injured-on-duty“ status—in short, allowing a laundry list of waste totaling up to $2 million a year.
If that weren’t enough, during his tenure as fire chief, Dozier has boldly defied his mayoral bosses. Under Bredesen, he hired a public information officer after Bredesen expressly told him not to. He got off to a bad start with Purcell when he promoted dozens of employees just two weeks before Purcell was to be sworn in, as if oblivious to the obvious reality that a new mayor would want to have some input about a flurry of promotions.
There is no definitive evidence that Dozier is the latest victim of Metro’s often cruel political machinations. There is, however, plenty of evidence to make him an appropriate target. If the arrow wasn’t already headed for him, perhaps it was about to be. As it turned out, he got out of the way first.
The overdog champion
It’s one thing to blame a bleeding heart for a level of benevolence that ignores the unwillingness of some people to help themselves. That kind of knee-jerk liberalism on behalf of undeserving characters—often circulated by the likes of Tennessean columnist Tim Chavez—is hard to beat, unless of course it’s competing against knee-jerk conservatism perpetrated by the filthy rich.
Nashville’s Lee Beaman proved more than willing to be such a mouthpiece for the rich last weekend as part of the income tax debate. Circling the Capitol Saturday as part of a small corps of over-privileged, anti-income tax crusaders, Beaman—wealthy by way of his family’s automotive empire—tried to make the case against the proposed levy, saying he was ”worried“ for ”a number of reasons.“
The only person at the Hill who made a less effective income tax antagonist was former TennCare Director Rusty Seibert, who explained to the Memphis Commercial Appeal that he is so affluent that he and his wife live off their capital gains. What’s more, he said, they would surely pick a more tax-friendly state to take their wads of money should legislators impose an income tax.
If weary, hometown legislators were against the grab-ass, targeted tax before—perhaps for ample reason—the likes of Beaman and Seibert might just be enough to sway them in favor. Meanwhile, there was a time when Beaman, a Republican, was believed to harbor notions of a political future.
Good luck.
