Still no agreement on how to supervise Decorah Fire Department engineers

The Decorah City Council took two votes Monday night on proposals on how to supervise the Decorah Fire Department's full-time engineers--but neither proposal got the votes necessary for passage.

The Decorah Fire Department had proposed that one of the three full-time fire engineers be named the head of the department--someone who would be in charge of employee reviews and many administrative details.  But City Administrator Chad Bird proposed that he do the employees reviews for the fire engineers.

Fire Department spokesperson Eric Sovern said the proposal to make one of the three fire engineers a supervisors was "a pretty clear proposal," while he called the proposal to have reviews done by the City Administrator "a different kind of confusing."

City council member Kirk Johnson, who made the proposal to have the City Administrator supervise the fire department engineers, called his proposal "straightforward."  But Johnson's motion failed on a 2-4 vote.  When the Fire Department's proposal was put to a vote, that also failed--by a 3-3 tie.

As a result, City Administrator Chad Bird says he will organize a meeting of the city's Personnel Committee so the issue can be hashed out further.