Where’s there’s smoke, there’s Austin Fire Chief Dan Wilson, helping fight fires.

Where there’s fiery comments about fire safety, there he is also.

Today, the Austin fire chief finds himself in the center of controversy after last Thursday’s meeting with a special committee appointed by Mayor Tom Stiehm to address fire department scheduling issues.

Carla McCarthy filed a complaint Friday with the Austin Police Department about the fire chief’s behavior at last Thursday’s meeting.

Austin Police Chief Paul Philipp released the information Monday morning to local media representatives. Among McCarthy’s allegations was that the fire chief threatened her at the meeting.

The police chief’s only comment was that the complaint will be investigated.

McCarthy confirmed to the Austin Daily Herald she did file the complaint.

McCarthy also said she plans to address the Austin City Council tonight about related issues.

City administrator Jim Hurm confirmed McCarthy visited with him Friday about the Thursday meeting and related issues.

Neither McCarthy nor the city administrator had any other comment about the issue or related topics.

Wilson was reached for comment today.

“It’s hard to comment on something I haven’t seen,” Wilson said of McCarthy’s criminal complaint against him. “Everyone should revisit the purpose of that meeting we attended and that was scheduling. Not me. Not anything else.”

Mayor Stiehm appointed Austin City Council Members Jeff Austin (1st Ward) and Dick Pacholl and Steve King (both 2nd Ward) to investigate firefighter scheduling and report back to the Council their findings. Austin is the chairman of the committee.

When the committee held its first meeting last Thursday in a conference room at the Austin Municipal Building, no minutes of the meeting were taken. Neither was the meeting tape-recorded or filmed. One reporter attended.

The makeup of those at the meeting included: The three council members and at least one other who observed, Mayor Stiehm, Police Chief Paul Philipp, the city administrator, director of finance and operations Tom Dankert, city human resource director Trish Wiechmann, president of the Austin affiliate of the International Fire Fighters Association Troy Tigner, also an Austin firefighter, as well as other state IAFF union representatives and local active duty firefighters, plus private citizens.

Background

When fire staffing was changed from 24/7 at the end of 2008, Austin firefighters objected to the city council and the council ordered the schedule returned to 24/7 coverage. The fire chief created a schedule in the form of 10/14-hour shifts with on-call (remain in city) days to follow.

Another part of the controversy is the fact the city and local firefighters union have been at loggerheads over contract negotiations for more than a year.

At last Thursday’s meeting, the verbal sparring deviated from the scheduling issue and encapsulated other topics are discussing in a labor dispute over a new contract.

When the latest scheduling changes were made in January, Wilson said, “The staffing change in schedule that started Jan. 1 is very similar to what we have previously done.”

“I think from a report I gave to the Austin City Council we had 165 evenings in 2007, when there was nobody at the fire station,” he added. “On some evenings we are going to have fire calls and we’re going to page in people to deal with those issues. This isn’t new.”

Wilson said at last Thursday’s meeting, scheduling complaints have existed for more than 10 years, and a new schedule had been implemented by the Austin City Council to allay, what he called, “unsubstantiated fears about public safety created in the media.”

At the Thursday meeting Wilson said, “I don’t know why we are even having this meeting.”

The fire chief has been the target of criticism before.

Nine years ago, firefighters gave their chief a “no confidence.” Two statements were read at an Austin City Council meeting in November 2000, one from the full-time firefighters and one from the part-time members. Both registered a lack of confidence in Wilson’s ability to perform as fire chief.

The history of the change-over from an all-full-time paid fire department to a combination full-time paid and part-time paid fire department has been dotted with controversy since it was made in 1993.

In July 2001, then Austin City Council Member Jeanne Poppe (now a state representative) announced the findings of a six-months-long investigation of the Austin Fire Department by an outside third-party.

Nothing found in the investigation warranted disciplinary action, according to Poppe’s report of the findings.

The city admitted at the time spending $14,000 on the investigation.

After the two-hour meeting last Thursday, the council committee asked Tigner to submit a list of his scheduling recommendations to the committee.

The committee already has the fire chief’s own comparison of the 40-hour week, 10-14 and 24-hour shift schedules. Wilson turned that in at last Thursday’s meeting.

Tonight’s regular meeting of the Austin City Council begins at 5:30 p.m. in council chambers at the Austin Municipal Building.

It will also be broadcast live on the local government access channel provided to Charter Communications subscribers, and video will be posted on www.austindailyherald.com.

Wilson will not be there to hear his accuser, McCarthy, address the council members.