OFFICE OF MAYOR ANDY SCHOR

124 W. Michigan Avenue – Ninth Floor

Lansing, MI 48933

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Marchand

Friday, March 8, 2019 517-230-4904

Statement from Mayor Andy Schor Regarding Open Letter
from Former Fire Chief Talifarro

The former Lansing Fire Chief has made several claims against me, and I am now going to respond
to them. While I would rather take the high-road and not address the claims he made, he has
disparaged me, several on my staff, and the Lansing Fire Department. I cannot let that go without a
response.

Randy Talifarro was Fire Chief in Lansing for many years and did many things to help the fire
department in Lansing. Many things that he referred to in his letter address things from before I was
Mayor. I will not address nor comment on those things as I was not here when they happened. Randy
Talifarro was Lansing’s fire chief for 6 months while I was Mayor, and he submitted his resignation
voluntary in May. He has made several claims in his open letter, so I will do my best to address each
of these.

Claim: We did not find a single protected class individual worthy of at least an interview for fire
chief.

Answer: The hiring process for the Lansing Fire Chief was conducted by Linda Sanchez-Gazella.
Sanchez-Gazella is not only the HR Director of the City, but she worked for both Mayors Hollister and
Benavides. She is a strong, qualified Latina that lives in the City of Lansing and cares about this city.
Her reputation is beyond reproach, and I am tremendously disappointed that Talifarro would suggest
otherwise. According to Director Sanchez-Gazella, we did not have any qualified minority candidate
apply for the job. There were four candidates that were interviewed by a diverse panel. They brought
their recommendations to the Fire Board, who brought their recommendations to me. As per Charter.
And I hired the recommended candidate.

Claim: The diversity Commission is just naming another committee.

Answer: I have tremendous confidence in this commission, chaired by Larry Leatherwood and
Melissa Jeffries and staffed by Bishop David Maxwell. To suggest otherwise, as Talifarro seems to do,
is an unwarranted attack on the very qualified representatives of the many different people serving
on this commission.

Claim: The Public Safety Committee of the FHT did not include the Fire Administration.

Answer: The FHT does not have a Public Safety Committee. It has never had this committee. The
leadership of that committee sets the committees. I have no idea what Talifarro is talking about
here. Talifarro never raised this as an issue with me.

Claim: LFD was never asked what impact hiring only paramedics would have.

Answer: When I came into office, I did not know that Lansing was the only fire department in the
region that was hiring non-paramedics. Nor did I know that we would soon be short on paramedics
due to retirements and promotions. These issues were never brought to me by Talifarro. I did not
find out these out until Dave Purchase became Fire Chief.

Claim: LFD was given the responsibility of managing Code Enforcement in the previous
administration, and LFD was never asked any information about Code Enforcement or solutions
being explored.

Answer: Talifarro met with me after the election to talk about ideas that he had for Code. At that
time, I told him it was my intention to move Code Enforcement back to the Economic Development
department where it had been previously. I did not feel that LFD had the resources to manage fire
duties (suppression, EMS, etc.) and prioritize Code Enforcement, and I felt that Code needed to be
more independent. I understand why the former Mayor put Code in the Fire Department (to align fire
building safety with code enforcement) but it did not seem to work to me. In fact, when I took office
the city was in a grievance with the Fire Marshal, who had been given major responsibility for Code
Enforcement without compensation for those new duties. I had to come to an agreement with our
Fire Marshal after Code was moved back and he no longer had those responsibilities.

Claim: Talifarro was not consulted on any issue of consequence in the organization.

Answer: I allow my department heads to run their departments. I ask them to talk to me when major
decisions need to be made, but I try not to get into the day-to-day workings. Talifarro was part of our
weekly cabinet meetings and weighed in on many issues each week. He and I met and talked when
he had issues that he wanted to bring to me, and when I had things I needed to discuss with him I
would chat with him as well. This was the same as every other department head, and continues to
be the practice.

Claim: There was a lack of trust between Talifarro and me.

Answer: I retained 8 department heads, didn’t retain 3 department heads, and brought in four new
department heads (one in a newly created department). In the first few months of my administration
I was getting to know all department heads and we all built trust. By the end of the year, I had a
good understanding of each person, and I believe they understand my way of working. Talifarro
submitted his resignation in May, and stayed on until July 1st. I listened to his suggestions and took
some and didn’t take others. Just like everyone else. Trust was being built, but he resigned after four
months.

Claim: Certain department heads were pre-judged or disregarded. He mentions former Planning
Director Bob Johnson, HR Director Mary Riley, LHC Chair Martel Armstrong, Assistant Chief Odom,
and him.

Answer: Bob Johnson and Mary Riley, along with Chad Gamble, were not retained as directors. I had
people that I wanted in all of these positions. Brian McGrain, a housing expert, was selected for
Economic Development. Linda Sanchez-Gazella, a former mayoral Chief of Staff and great manager,
was selected for HR. Andy Kilpatrick, a long-time public service employee in the department, was
chosen to lead Public Service. Riley and Gamble were both offered other positions in the city.
Gamble accepted. Riley did not, but I gave her a good recommendation for a job with the BWL. I
planned to offer Johnson another position with the city but was not able to during our conversation.
Additionally, I replaced the previous labor negotiator with Nik Tate, who is a JAG officer and an
outstanding individual in our City Attorney office and the position of Labor Relations Manager was
created and placed into my office and into cabinet. Martell Armstrong was the Lansing Housing
Commission director and reports to the LHC Board. While I appoint the LHC Board, the existing
board members at that time worked with him, and he submitted his letter of resignation to the
members of that board after working with them. I made no demands on that board and worked with
both the Board and Armstrong while he was here. I did have many conversations with Mr. Armstrong
while he was working in Lansing and was Mayor, though, because we had a tragic fire where two
individuals died in the Lansing Housing Commission properties. We needed to find out why that
happened, and we needed to ensure that the properties were brought up to code moving forward. I
did not regularly converse with any Fire Assistant Chiefs (Odom or any of the others) as I work
directly with Department heads and allow them to pass things on directly to their staff.

Claim: Talifarro is in the middle of a political fallout and rumors.

Answer: I have no idea what rumors he is talking about. The political fallout seems to be of his own
making through the City Pulse comments and his open public letter, which I am now responding to. I
appreciate that he resigned and offered to stay on for another month and a half. In fact, he offered
to resign immediately if I wanted, and I told him that I would like him to stay on until July 1, as he
offered in his resignation letter. I thought we were on the same page until the comments that he
made to the Lansing City Pulse. Still, I have said nothing about Talifarro and wasn’t planning to until
his public letter which I am now responding to.

Claim: Talifarro replaced 4 fire trucks, 6 ambulances, and a variety of equipment.

Answer: I am sure he replaced equipment in the 6 years that he was Chief. In reviewing the
equipment needs in the Fire Department now, we have many needs. We are planning to budget
dollars from the sale of the Townsend Ramp as well as dollars in our fleet budget to solve this and
create a plan for equipment sustainability moving forward. We currently only have 5 front line
ambulances in the fleet, with an average age of 4.7 years old. We have a reserve fleet of ambulances
with an average age of 14.5 years old. We have 4 ladder trucks in service; one which was purchased
last year used (19 years old) and has been out of service more than it has been in service. We need a
new ladder truck ($1.2 million), a new engine ($450,000), and at least 4 new ambulances ($250,000
each). We are going to try to spread this out over a few years, but they are necessary. We also need
new turnout gear ($500,000) as one of our sets expire in April and we need a backup set for our
firefighters.

Claim: Talifarro is hearing about low morale in the Fire Department.

Answer: Morale in the LFD has significantly improved in the last year. When I came in, it was my
understanding that the morale wasn’t good. We held racial sensitivity trainings (organized by
Director Linda Sanchez-Gazella in HR). And we have had very few grievances or complaints in the
fire department recently. Chief Purchase met and worked closely with all fire fighters. He was at
each fire station. I am sure there are a few firefighters who have complaints. In a department of 178
sworn fire staff and 8 civilians, there will always be disagreements. But, according to those who talk
to the firefighters, morale is up.

Claim: Talifarro addressed the items that I put in my action plan.

Answer: I don’t know why he felt the need to address these items. None of this was a commentary
on him or Chief Purchase. It was a statement of what I would like to see in the fire department
moving forward. But I will respond to the things that he said that seemed critical of my
administration.

1. He says fire cadet programs have minimal success. That is not the opinion of other fire
command staff. I guess we will disagree on this point. He references the existing trainee program. I
am not eliminating the trainee program. I am augmenting it by also planning to talk to our youth to
get them interested in the fire service.

2. He says that Paramedics outnumbered EMTs 2:1 and that LFD has an in-house paramedic
training program. The paramedic to EMT ratio is close to 1:1 as it currently stands, but 18 of the next
20 to be promoted to off-the-ambulance positions are paramedics. This will create a disparity in
number of Paramedics to EMTs. There is no in-house paramedic program through LCC. LFD sponsors
and pays for three of our current EMTs to go to LCC’s paramedic school if they want. This is at a cost
of about $13,000 per employee.

3. He says that large fire departments don’t need to hire all paramedics while smaller ones
do to ensure state minimums. Lansing is the only fire department in our region that allows non-
paramedics. And is one of very few full-time fire departments across the entire state.
 4. He says I failed to quote the statistics of the fire department before changes were
instituted. Actually, I quoted the numbers that we have now (after our most recent hiring). This was
certainly the result of the last 25 years of hiring, as all our firefighters were hired in the last 25
years.

5. He quotes the racial diversity numbers for the East Lansing Fire Department. I will let
people digest those numbers without commentary in deference to the great relationships that I have
with the East Lansing Mayor and City Council members.

6. He says that LFD conducted diversity training under his administration. Yes, and that is
what I said in my statement and action plan. There was a training in 2017 that we know about, and
there was one in early 2018 when I became Mayor and he was Chief. I am not sure what his
insinuation is here. Although he does seem to be unhappy with the person brought in for the
training. While he seems to believe that this was consultant was picked by me, the reality is that I
never met this person except for the hour or so that I sat in for the training. Linda Sanchez-Gazella,
our HR Director, and our HR staff did a good job finding this person for training and we heard very
positive commentary on the training. Talifarro says that the person did not meet with him or his
assistant chiefs before the training. That’s because the trainer met with command staff during the
training. The consultant met with Firefighters on one day, and fire command on the next day.

While looking at all of this, it is also important to remember a few things. When I took office, I made
the evaluation and decided to keep Randy Talifarro on as chief. I met with him and told him that I
wanted him to continue with the city and I wanted to continue to work together with East Lansing to
see the joint chief experiment was going for a year. I did this despite concerns that had been raised
about having a half-time chief (because the other half of the time, he was in East Lansing), when we
needed a full-time Chief for the job. He was one of the eight people that I retained from the prior
administration, and I planned to evaluate all department heads at the end of the year (which I did). I
am disappointed that he has chosen to raise these claims now, so many months after he resigned
and left the city. Lansing has a first-class fire department. One of the best anywhere. I am proud of
who they are and all they do.

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