Remember This?

First off still waiting on the Fitch study..."Due out in March"

Secondly lets go back to an article from 2008,

“The highest compliment I’ve ever been paid came from my EEO/Diversity officer who has been on-the-job 37 years and working on this issue since he was among the second generation of African-American firefighters to join the department. He told someone that he has worked for nine different fire chiefs and I was the only one willing to take this issue head-on—with both hands and both feet—and not avoid it. And again I will point out that this is not courageous, just necessary.

“What we’re doing is not bound by a set timeframe. We can’t say that in six months, we’ll kill all the bogeymen—that everyone and everything is fixed. We’re crafting a solution for what is really wrong and then we’re going to spend many years working at it collectively as an organization with a purposeful intention to accelerate change to our culture.

“I often use metaphors to make a point. To do this otherwise would be like walking out into your back yard one day, looking around and seeing wire grass, crab grass, weeds, and matted leaves, and then deciding that you want to turn it into an English garden—one with very ordered rows of plantings, perfectly spaced. You take out a leaf rake and give the yard a quick once-over, and then throw a handful of seeds here and there and wait for your English garden to appear. Obviously, this will never work. You will have to diligently tend your soil and eradicate the weeds. You have to figure out what’s there to begin with—what can be kept what can be gotten rid of—and then you have to come up with a design. You have to select the right plants based on your plan, and then have to prepare the soil so the plants will flourish. Otherwise you’re going to fail all around.

“Here in the Richmond Fire Department, our soil is good and our plants are of strong and hardy stock, but in places the sunlight has not been able to reach, we are finding entwined and choking weeds of hidden biases masked by what has been described as tolerance. Now we are creating a plan for a new garden and deciding what we have to do with our ‘soil’ to make it resistant to complacency and inappropriate behaviors and fertile for the values of inclusion and diversity. It’s that understanding we want to take root and grow within the organization.”

We understand this is a quote about EEO issues but we really feel like this is relating to other issues.

How are we allowing people to fail years tests but still be employed? How are we allowing them to just ride the hydrant seat because they refuse to wear face pieces? How are we allowing abuse of sick time by employees?  How are we allowing them to file complaints that they are training too much?

Do you think you are fixing these issues?

Chief you are sowing more weeds than just EEO issues. You are killing all the grass which is the moral of this department.