OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - The Omaha city attorney says Mayor Jean Stothert correctly followed city code and policy in selecting Dan Olsen as fire chief.
Firefighters’ union president Steve LeClair and mayoral candidate Heath Mello have criticized Stothert’s handling of the process, the Omaha World-Herald (https://bit.ly/2ixaVQr ) reported.
They accused Stothert of evading city ordinance in order to hire Olsen, whom she had appointed as interim chief in April. Mello said the hiring process was rigged.
Omaha City Attorney Paul Kratz said Stothert asked him Thursday to review the process that resulted in Olsen’s hiring, which was announced Wednesday.
Kratz said he looked at the city code, the firefighters’ union contract and Human Resources personnel policies. He also discussed the process with the Omaha human resources director and deputy city attorney.
Kratz concluded that the mayor followed appropriate procedures in hiring Olsen.
Olsen didn’t originally make the list of four finalists after a testing process conducted by an outside consultant. Instead, he was ranked sixth.
But Stothert has said she included Olsen as a finalist after one candidate dropped out and another was disqualified.
Kratz said he disagreed with LeClair’s assertion that city code and policies require choosing from the original four finalists.
“The way I interpret our code and our policies is, you start off with four and if for whatever reason people come off, you refer another person to fill in that fourth slot, and that’s what happened in this case,” Kratz said.
LeClair said he plans to take the matter to the union’s executive board.
“I have a deep amount of respect for Paul Kratz, but frankly I disagree with him, and so does our counsel,” LeClair said.
Mello said that an informal review by a city attorney whose deputy was involved in the hiring process isn’t enough to ensure public trust.
___
Information from: Omaha World-Herald, https://www.omaha.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.