Fire chief says he was ‘clueless’ about donation
By: By Michael Neibauer
Examiner Staff Writer
April 1, 2009
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The D.C. fire chief testified Wednesday that he was “clueless” about the donation of a firetruck and ambulance to a town in the Dominican Republic, as well as the recent taxpayer-funded travels of a top deputy to the beach resort to announce the gift.
Chief Dennis Rubin told the D.C. Council’s public safety committee on Wednesday that he had “absolutely no knowledge” of the donation to Sosua, a tourist town on the north Dominican coast. That Deputy Fire Chief Ronald Gill Jr., head of the apparatus division, traveled to the town for six days less than two months ago and charged the trip to the department “was also a surprise to me,” Rubin said in response to repeated questioning from at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson, the panel’s chairman.
“I’m certainly taking full responsibility,” Rubin said. “I was clueless.”
Asst. Fire Chief for Services Alfred Jeffery told committee members that he approved Gill’s travel and knows that other employees of the District government joined the deputy in the Dominican Republic as part of a D.C. delegation. But he said he “could not recall” their names, nor who in the government was overseeing the donation.
“It was requested by whoever,” Jeffery said.
Peaceoholics Inc., a nonprofit anti-youth violence organization, claims to have organized the gift of vehicles, which were transported as far south as Miami this week before being ordered turned around. The donation was authorized through an emergency rule quietly published in the D.C. Register on March 20 — 44 days after Gill returned from the island.
“This is just a scandal that’s burgeoning,” Mendelson said.
It is “mind boggling,” Mendelson said, that no member of the fire department’s upper echelon, including the chief and general counsel, could provide any answers Wednesday. And it is equally strange, he said, that Jeffery would approve an underling’s travel to a resort town when the chief claims the department had nothing to do with the donation. Rubin described the deal as a “city-related program.”
“What you’re saying defies logic,” Mendelson said.
Rubin responded: “I would agree with you it’s hard to believe.”
The vehicles were “several hundred dollars worth of scrap metal,” Rubin said, “but that still doesn’t make it right.” The purchase price for both was in the range of $315,000, he said, but the pair had been recently surplused for disposal — which until recently demanded their sale at auction.
Attorney General Peter Nickles is investigating. He has said answers are forthcoming by the end of this week.
mneibauer@dcexaminer.com
