I published this website to inform everyone that what took place last February 2011 was nothing but a big scandal. All 10 allegations against me were investigated by the fire department board of directors and I was reinstated due to the absolute lack of evidence. Why? Because everything was a lie! The following is the list of allegations that were presented to the Peyton Fire Board of Directors:

• Speeding in the command vehicle
  • This never happened! If you ask around, the command vehicle is a Chevy 1500 which has a hard time getting up and going with its small engine and heavy load of firefighting gear.
• Four counts of patient abandonment
  • The patient abandonment was reported by Peyton firefighters who didn't have any EMS certifications themselves. Memorial Hospitals investigative results showed that this was not patient abandonment but merely myself doing my job as an EMT.
• Firefighter 1 certification renewal for myself was submitted to the Colorado State Fire Marshals office
  • Not true - Colorado does not have a State Fire Marshal and the application itself states it can be signed by the Department Head. I contacted the Division of Fire Safety, where the Firefighter 1 certifications are renewed, and was told that I could sign it, and so I did.
• Retaliation towards the Captain a few months prior
  • Not true! There were many discussions between myself and the assistant chief about the Captain and if he/she really had the time to continue all of the Captains responsibilities that were getting further and further behind. I never had the opportunity to speak with the Captain about his/her issues because he/she was always too busy with personal matters. It was the assistant chief who informed me that the Captain wanted to step down from Captain to Firefighter because of too many personal commitments. The Captain sent out an email to the officers stating all of this.
• Misuse of the department command vehicle for a mutual aid call leaving the district short on personnel and vehicle assets
  • Peyton was asked to respond with a water tender when the firefighters at the fire station responded with the engine. This was a big call and I responded in the Chiefs vehicle in support of the Peyton firefighters. When these firefighters mention a shortness of personnel and vehicle assets, you have to remember that this call was during the day when personnel are short to begin with and any vehicle out on a call always takes away vehicle assets no matter what.
• Discrimination against two firefighters by naming them in front of other firefighters by asking them why they were not on the call
  • Discrimination, absolutely not! Asking why they missed the call, yes. This happens in all volunteer and combination fire departments in an attempt to get the highest number of responders to come down to the fire station during any emergent call. In my opinion, those who respond when they have the time to respond only shows that they are not wanna-bees, or better known as want-to-be firefighters. There is no since in hiring someone and spending thousands of taxpayer dollars on a wanna-bee firefighter for gear and training if they only want to walk around with a firefighter badge and brag about fire calls that they didn't respond to. Keep in mind that I never said these two firefighters who missed this call were wanna-bees. Peyton is a volunteer fire department and you make what you can with the time that you have.
• The chief on a structure fire ordered three water tenders to run over fire hoses
  • I can say this is true. The assistant chief, who was the Scene Commander, could not be found and wouldn't answer the radio. So I instructed the water tenders to carefully roll over (not run over) the hoses because water in the port-a-tanks was running out fast. I was the Incident Commander and I knew that shutting down the whole operation, to only take a couple of hoses apart to let the water tenders pass by, would have taken precious minutes away from supressing the fire. We never would have been able to save as much as we did of the homeowners personal belongings if we had not rolled over the two hoses. The two hoses that were "ran over" were hose-tested without any problems and are still in use today. Also, fire departments run over hoses more than they will tell you.
• The chief is the only paid person at the fire department and doesn't do anything all day when he should be checking that all vehicles and that medical supplies are adequate.
  • I was the only paid employee, and a very busy one at that. The responsibility of checking all of the vehicles falls under the Captain and checking the medical supplies falls under the EMS Officer. Don't forget that we have post-call vehicle checks and monthly scheduled maintenance day. I was not the only employee in the fire department, or was I? Just because I was the only paid employee doesn't mean that I was responsible to do everything.
• The removal of the generator from the engine used for the exhaust fan.
  • I agreed with the assistant chief that we needed more room on the engine for the new ventilation saw and that we could use the invertor on the rescue rig to power up the ventilation fan. We tested our plan and with it working, the assistant chief picked up the long extension cords at Big-R on the same day we moved the exhaust fan over to the water tender. This was a mutual agreement amongst all of the officers when this took place. When there is a fire and due to the lack of water, the water tender is usually the second vehicle out the door meaning that the ventilation fan would be right there with us on scene.
• Finally, the firefighters do not feel safe with me in charge.
  • Then they should have filed a complaint through time as things progressivly became worse. Instead, all of these problems all of a sudden showed up all in one day. In my opinion, this was a conspiracy to take over the fire department by the assistant chief and once again, he failed!

After working at the Peyton Fire Department for nine years, this is all they could muster up. Some of these things happened many years ago and after I responded to thousands of emergent calls. It's my opinion that the assistant chief attempted to take over the fire department because he was despirate for a job after multiple financial failures in the past few years. The assistant chief had been planning this takeover since I promoted him from firefighter to assistant chief two years prior. The assistant chief should have been helping the fire department to grow and to move forward. Thanks to the assistant chief the Peyton Fire Department has been set back 10-15 years. Karma knows everything as seen last March 2011 when the assistant chief was involved in an accident between himself and karma, and karma won.

No more babysitting and doing the majority of the work. These volunteer firefighters would tell you to your face that they will take care of things and then they would never complete their assigned duties. I don't have any problems with volunteer firefighters because I was one for seven years. But when they should be supporting the community and all they do is think of ways to personally benefit themselves, then I don't think their intent is to serve without any monitary gain. I will give credit where credit is due, and I want to give a Big Thank You to Sharon Brown (Quade) for the many times when I asked her for help. She was the only one and I do mean "only one" who stepped up to the plate to help me to prepare for the ISO (homeowners insurance) rating test. I was the first Peyton Fire Chief, since the start of this fire department back in 1955, to ever better the ISO rating. For many decades, not years, it held a rating of 9 and because of all of my and that of Sharon Browns hard work, the ISO rating as of August 1st 2011 became an 8b. According to the ISO representatives, this is the best this fire department will ever get until there are more water hydrants installed within the fire district boundaries.

As for myself, life is very good and my health has never been better. I have time for my family, hobbies and for all of the other things I have neglected during the years I was a volunteer and later became the first paid employee of the Peyton Fire Department. If I ever cross paths with you in my travels, I hope you will understand that I am not the bad guy here. I fought since July 2002 to fix the problems within this small town fire department. Now the problems belong to those who reside within the 110 square miles of this fire districts boundaries and it is unfortunate that most of the problems are those who live in the Peyton community. They have been on the board of directors and on the fire department as well. They think they know so much when they actually don't know anything at all. I want to thank and wish all of the firefighters who supported me before, during and after this scandal, all the luck in the world because they are your true firefighting heros.