Chief, firefighters must work together

This is clear: There are serious morale problems in the Arlington Fire Department.

And this much should be made clear by the Arlington City Council and its top administrative staff: The Arlington Professional Fire Fighters Association and its members, no matter what their frustrations, do not have a say in who the fire chief should be or whether the current chief’s leadership abilities are flawed.

The department’s problems must be solved, and they should be solved by Fire Chief Don Crowson.

About 40 association members showed up at two City Council meetings in August to complain about Crowson. The city commissioned a study of the morale issues by Dallas-based Coleman & Associates.

Association President David Crow told the Star-Telegram that the study addressed “exactly the concerns we had — a lack of communication, lack of willingness from our administration to work with labor and with the organization as a whole, and to be transparent.”

The Coleman report runs to 52 pages, detailing those problems and more, with extensive recommendations for improvement.

The bottom line, according to the report:

“The responsibility for change and transformation must be owned by Chief Crowson, but shared by all parties, including APFF leadership … There must be a commitment to change, and there must be a shared responsibility by labor and management for committing to the behaviors that directly support that change.”

This story was originally published September 2, 2016 at 7:12 PM with the headline "Chief, firefighters must work together."