Alabama State Fire Marshal Scott Pilgreen was in attendance at the Smiths Station Fire Protection District board meeting on Tuesday, October 3rd of 2023. Complaints of widespread corruption in the SSFPD compiled in a twenty-two page whistleblower document had been emailed to Fire Marshal Pilgreen as well as a number of other statewide agencies with jurisdiction over the matter in early September. That complaint document was the catalyst for Fire Marshal Pilgreen's visit to the meeting as well as Alabama Fire College Executive Director Matt Russell who was also in attendance.
After Director Russell completed his brief remarks regarding the allegations, Fire Marshal Pilgreen provided background on what the scope and nature is of the work that his office does before sharing details of a recent corruption investigation into multiple fire departments in Southwest Alabama that resulted in the arrests of five different fire department personnel. Explaining some of the root causes of corruption that occurs in fire departments, Pilgreen remarked as follows;
"To the community, let me tell you where this starts, from our experience. Director Russell kind of alluded to it, with internal turmoil. What happens is, and membership hear me close, where it starts is the leadership of a department or an association take this approach 'Its mine, its ours'. They start, often times, with the by laws in which they were created and they set those aside like that and they say 'Words on paper, that means nothing to me. We are going to do it my way' or 'our way'. And they do, that is the first step down the slippery slope. They forget why that department was created to begin with. The department was created to begin with to serve the citizens who live within that volunteer fire service area or in this case the Smiths Station Fire District."
"Are they following the citizens of Smiths Station's directions or are they putting their own special interests first? I will tell the membership here, every one of you, some of you I know some of you I don't. It is not about you, it never will be about you. It is about these people, it will always be about these people (gestures towards citizens in attendance). I will tell you this, so hear me close and I am glad this is being recorded. If anybody in the membership of this fire department can not put their own special interests aside and think about these people, then get out of it and do it now. Do I need to repeat it?"
"Do you want to fall in the same category as the five individuals that I highlighted earlier from southwest Alabama? Because I can promise you this, if it's going on within this department, and my office gets a call. Special Agent Bryce, sitting to my left, some of you all know him. I can assure you, Mr. Bryce and some of his colleagues from my office will come knocking on the door and you will not like the visit."
Following the stern admonishment from Pilgreen, former SSFPD Deputy Chief and current Lee County Coroner Daniel Sexton addressed the board for their second meeting in a row through his remarks as follows;
"I am here again tonight to speak with you about the cloud over this department. Unfortunately, in the two weeks since we last met, this board has done absolutely nothing to restore transparency, accountability, or public trust; in fact they very well may have done the opposite. Tonight there has been a voted down attempt to change the taskforce to a committee by taking all the main teeth out of it for show. We will just move on from that. Obviously, because it was not on the agenda, I did not know that was going to be done so I just wanted a little bit of time to reflect it in those comments there."
"While some individuals who were implicated in the wrongdoing have rightly chosen to resign since we last met two weeks ago, per its usual modus operandi this board sat idly by and did absolutely nothing to secure this departments files, records, and assets, from those individuals who resigned in disgrace and amid allegations of wrongdoing. These individuals were allowed unfettered access to this building and all of its contents for much if not all of the past two weeks."
"Worse yet, there is a suggestion that some if not all, of the board members present tonight may have asked these disgraced individuals for advice and allowed them to rewrite the taskforce into this committee. In other words, they rewrote it to take out anything that was going to implicate them. It should be noted that this was done even after they had already resigned, if true. In any other realm of reality this would be unbelievable, but at the Smiths Station Fire Protection District it seems to be just another day for this board of directors."
"As the now infamous twenty-two page online complaint laid out, a complacent and incompetent board was led astray by people who were not interested in what was right, what was legal, what was ethical, what was best for this department, or what was best for this community, but by people who were interested in how they could personally benefit from all this newfound money."
"As Fire Marshal Pilgreen stated, it seems that most have forgotten what this department was founded for, to help people. Instead they have focused on how many family members could quickly be placed on the payroll. For example, since the fire district was formed just over a year ago, this board has approved four people to be hired to work in the administrative office of this department. Of those four individuals, two were the wife of a chief officer of this department; one was the daughter of a chief officer; and one was the friend/preacher’s wife and related to the chief’s daughter by marriage. Astonishingly, three of those four people are still employed by this district today."
"Instead of learning from its mistakes, this board has now allowed a presumably small group of volunteer Firefighters to hold it hostage and prevent it from making any meaningful changes or investigation into the alleged wrongdoing by threatening to resign if the board moves forward with an investigation or significant changes. They went so far as to list their names on this nice white board over here as a reminder and open show of defiance to this board. These names were erased before the meeting tonight but they were there, a board member confirmed today that they were there as recently as last night."
"Most rational and sane folks might find it hard to believe, but it gets even worse. Unbelievably, this same group had demanded that the board rehire at least one of the individuals who recently resigned after being implicated in wrongdoing and is demanding that his $70,000 per year salary be reinstated. Based on the comments that have been made tonight I believe that has already been completed."
"Where does it end and when does it end?"
"In my opinion, this is not just a comedy of errors, or a bunch of bad decisions made by unqualified and untrained board members, there is a cancer in this department. The cancer is being fed by greed and until a board of directors with members that are willing stand up and say, 'enough is enough' and that 'we as a board, and as a department, are going to do what’s right, what’s ethical, and what’s moral, regardless of who it upsets', this cancer is going to continue to grow and slowly destroy this department. The two guest speakers tonight said that you are in charge and this board is supposed to listen to you. I wanted to ask while they were here, who in this room felt like this board has been listening to them for the last several months that they have been coming here. We all know that answer."
"While I am sure what I am about to say next, will fall on the same deaf ears as the rest of my last statement and everything else, I strongly urge each of the board members present tonight to resign effective immediately so that a new board can be empaneled by the Lee County Commission and the City of Smiths Station."
"It is crystal clear to any objective observer that this board does not have the wherewithal or desire to make the hard decisions that must be made to right this ship. The fact that they have rehired someone who resigned with a seventy-thousand dollar salary is just unbelievable. The only way the problems will ever be fully resolved is by empaneling a new board."
"If you will not resign, at least have the courage to direct your paid staff to respond to the freedom of information requests that have been submitted and pass a resolution to waive any copy fees related to those requests. If you will not resign, at least have the courage to pass a resolution requesting the Alabama Board of Examiners of Public Accounts perform a complete audit of this department’s finances."
"I’ll close the same way I closed two weeks ago; you have a choice, you can choose what’s wrong and keep going down the same ‘ol path and get the same ‘ol results but rest assured the darkness can only last so long, eventually the sunshine will return."
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