Handling the bad news: Estero, Florida firefighters say chief ordered them to leave fire engine & serve alcohol, topless at private fundraiser. Fire commission extends stories life with vague answers.
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For the past week a story has been brewing in Estero, Florida where firefighters, who had posed for a 2011 charity calendar, had been ordered on December 8th to attend a fundraiser at a private home and act as shirtless bartenders for a group of women. According to the news stories, the firefighters from Station 42 were on-duty and attended the event in a staff car leaving the fire engine out of service. The reports indicate the firefighters opted to add tank tops instead of just wearing bunker pants and suspenders.
Gathering what I can on the Internet, it appears the local fire commission is extending the life of this story. They are only now addressing important questions that should have been made clear a week ago. They are also doing it in a haphazard way that will help to keep this story in front of the public. Instead the goal from the start should have been to get the bad news out and done with you so you can move on. Declaring it a dead issue, as one reporter quotes officials, is not going to stop the reporters from knocking at your door.
It appears the story was first reported on December 13 (click here to watch it). Fire Chief Scott Vanderbrook talked with a reporter and the Fire Commission last Tuesday night. The chief made the case that as long as the firefighters weren't consuming the alcohol it wasn't a problem. The chief also indicated that in the past 30 days they had 42 instances of fire stations being closed for fundraisers, pub ed and training.
Here is an excerpt from the original WFTX-TV article:
Station 42 was shut down for a few hours and the firefighters, who were also on duty, attended the event at a resident's home to serve alcohol. "They were still available for calls and were in a staff vehicle. We just took the truck out of service."
Chief Vanderbrook told the Fire Commission about the issue during Tuesday night's meeting, but only told them about the closing of the fire station for a couple of hours and not about the firefighters going topless or serving alcohol.
The commission all said they did not think that Vanderbrook did anything wrong and even decided to give him a 5% raise after the discussion about the fundraiser.
And then there was more coverage yesterday from both WFXTV (click here for the video) and WBBH-TV (above). In these reports union official Roberto Medina makes the case that firefighters felt like puppets and that an investigation should be done because the fire commissioners do not have a complete story. In fact, the commissioners reaction to reporters indicate that a week after this story first made news they still don't have answers to some basic questions.
Fox 4 tried to contact the chairman of the Estero fire commission, Richard Schweers, to see if that would be a violation. He said he did not know alcohol was served, but would not grant us an interview.
We also reached out to Commissioner Frank Messana who also said he too was unaware of alcohol being served at the fundraiser. He said that does raise some serious questions about whether that type of behavior is acceptable and that it should be brought before the commission.
But Schweers denies the firefighters had any "participation with" alcohol at the party, although he refused to clarify whether that included serving alcohol at the event.
Schweers says that could be grounds for dismissal.
"They would be in deep trouble," says Schweers.
But Medina says the firefighters served alcohol at the direction of the fire chief.
"He probably needs to do an investigation himself and possibly interview these individuals," says Medina.
