Photos by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.
Outgoing fire Chief Chris Mullins
Mountain Brook City Manager Steve Boone doesn’t foresee upheaval from the upcoming retirement of fire Chief Chris Mullins.
“We have an excellent command staff,” Boone said of the Fire Department. “We have an excellent department. You know, our firemen go above and beyond every day, so you know it’s important. … Don’t take this wrong — the city will not miss a beat. We will have excellent coverage. The men will step up and you will not notice [a difference].
“That’s a testament to Chris,” Boone said, “the fact that we won’t miss a beat.”
Boone said Mullins has done a lot for the department after taking the reins from Robert “Zeke” Ezekiel.
“He has elevated it, and he would fully expect that his successor will pick up where he has left off and will elevate it even further,” Boone said. “That’s my expectation, and I’m sure he would expect the same.”
Photos by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.
City Manager Steve Boone.
The process of securing the next fire chief involves the Personnel Board of Jefferson County, in which Mountain Brook is required to participate. The first step is getting a list of candidates from the Personnel Board.
“They will begin the process of developing the qualifications,” the city manager said. “They will send out an advertisement [that we’re] now accepting applications for Fire Chief 3. They’ll probably advertise for several weeks, maybe a month, and then they will begin receiving resumes. There’s not a test, it’s a resume — experience, education.
“Then they will comb through the list,” he said. “I don’t know if they’ll get 20 applicants or 100 applicants, but they will go through that list. Then they will score them. The ones that meet the minimum qualifications, they will be put together on a list that will be presented to us. We may get that list once we make the request.”
The initial process could last six to eight weeks or longer before a pared list of candidates is reached.
“At that point, we will then start the interview process,” Boone said. “If it works anything like the [search for the Mountain Brook] chief of police, which we just finished earlier this year, we’ll have a subcommittee on the City Council — two or three council members, probably two council members, myself and the mayor.”
The subcommittee could interview four, five or six candidates. Mullins’ replacement could again rise from the ranks of the Mountain Brook department.
“We have a quality group of men in the Fire Department,” Boone said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t have multiple qualified candidates. I know when we hired our police chief, we had three or four in our department that were on the list. I would expect we would have at least multiple candidates. We’ll interview all the ones that we think are worthy of an interview, and then we’ll make a decision.”
The city could start interviewing potentially as soon as October, he said.
