Sioux Falls Fire Chief retires after a short stint

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So Mr. Goodroad works his way to the top of the pay scale and after putting in a couple of years retires;

Sioux Falls Fire Rescue Chief Brad Goodroad announced his plan to retire in February 2021 after a 27-year career.

Goodroad has been chief since 2017 and will retire on February 12.

Goodroad began his career with SFFR in 1994 and progressed to captain, battalion chief, and eventually division chief.

While I admit he has put in his 27 years and (legally) deserves his retirement, you would have thought this was brought up when he took the job? Usually when you appoint someone to be chief you can get at least 8-10 years out of them or longer. I would be curious if Brad bothered to tell the last administration he planned to only serve until he was eligible? I also wonder what cushy golden parachute job he is moving into while collecting bank from top of the pay scale retirement?

I have seen this before with city management before retirement, they lock themselves in a couple of years at the top of the scale then bail (I fixed the spelling of this word due to a grammar Nazi, thanks grammar Nazi). This is another reason I oppose the bump-back, these folks already get amazing benefits.

This is why the city needs to find a younger replacement willing to put in more than 4 years and have an attitude of building the Fire Department into a better institution. I would implore our part-time mayor to do a national search for someone who has worked with a public ambulance service and have them spearhead that program for us.

Speaking of that, many have asked me if our for-profit ambulance service has been billing rides our SFFR has been giving? We have a pilot program where we are leasing the ambulances for $1 to handle the surge. So when SFFR gives the rides are we reimbursed as taxpayers? It would be nice to hear the answer to that question, but as a guessing man, I bet we are NOT.

New Fire Chief Questions

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Maybe the city council needs to be asking appointed fire chief Goodroad these questions Tuesday Night during his approval process by the city council.

1. Property loss caused by fire damage has almost tripled in the last three years, what is your plan to reduce/reverse this trend? (Other than focusing on increasing the department’s social media presence?)

Data from the Department’s Annual Reports:

Fire Property  Loss

2016

Not published yet

2015

$  4,500,000

2014

$  3,176,788

2013

$  2,536,859

2.  What was the fire property loss for 2016? (The department has the data, it just hasn’t been published yet). (If he is taking the job seriously, he should have looked at the numbers before going into this meeting).

3.  When you managed the fire department’s training center, you advocated and followed a 4-day work week as much as possible for yourself and your staff. How did that best serve the department’s mission? Do you plan on working that schedule as fire chief?

4.  As of the last published Standards of Coverage manual (2015), the department was not meeting its required response times for re-accreditation  for medical calls, all code 3 & 4 calls, and Hazmat calls (See attachment). What is your plan to ensure the department is reaccredited?

These are just the questions that come up by looking at the Annual Report and Standards of Cover manual for 20 minutes. Imagine what someone who actually had access to the department performing a forensic audit could come up. So why is the Mayor going to put a clone of Sideras in there who might let the union run the show just like Sideras did the entire time he was chief.

Sadly most citizens really don’t care about the fire department. They can live off the goodwill of one big rescue operation for a long time even when realistically they are performing horribly (the numbers don’t lie).

Sioux Falls New Fire Chief, Goodroad says Canton is a good community to raise children in

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I know what you are thinking, that was really nice of him to say such a gracious thing about our neighboring town that doesn’t employee him for 6 figures a year.

So why would he say this?

Well according to a SF City Councilor who recently spoke with the new chief, this was his response when the councilor asked him why he lives in Canton instead of Sioux Falls (maybe hinting the new fire chief should probably live here and spend his 6-figure salary here instead of in Canton).

WOW! What a vote of confidence from the guy who now is in charge of fighting fires and disasters in Sioux Falls. It’s much better in Canton. Maybe we should have lured Canton’s Fire Chief to come work for us instead?

This of course brings up my old beef about city department heads living in Sioux Falls. Maybe our tax revenue is down in boomtown because all these 6-figure directors don’t spend their bread here?

Goodroad was going to become fire chief anyway. Rumor has it he was endorsed by the Union President and Sideras way before Jim announced his retirement. It was no split second decision by the mayor to appoint Brad as temp Fire Chief and ultimately giving him the job full-time.

I think it is time to recommend to the next Charter Revision Commission that we incorporate a new city ordinance that requires city directors to live in the jurisdiction of Sioux Falls, or at least those that deal with safety, like the Chief of Police and Fire. This is just makes sense folks.