Toledo Fire Chief Returns

The Toledo City Council held a special meeting on Wednesday, January 29th to discuss the ongoing issues regarding city leadership. The council approved for the city attorney to continue the search for an interim city manager, but in the meantime, invoices need to be taken care of, and staff needs to be paid. So the council approved having Brian Lorimor the public works director and Toledo Police Chief Pace to be able to handle the job together, with one of them reviewing and the other able to sign, making them co-interim check signers.

The next order of business was to decide what could be done for leadership at the Toledo Fire Department. Siletz Fire Chief Lapof was asked if he would consider being a co-chief with Larry Robeson if the council approved for him to return. Lapof said he and Siletz fire would do what was necessary to get things back in order. “it’s going to be a heavy lift to get things going again,” he added. “Things are in quite the disarray.” Lapof also pointed out that restrictions that have been put on East area fire department personnel need to go away and work to come together to serve all of the east areas of the county together. The council approved bringing Chief Larry Robeson back and having Dave Lapof be his co-chief, effective immediately.

Right after this, councilor Mix stated "we owe the volunteer first responders who were terminated an apology." Mayor Cross said “we can’t rewind the clock, we want to welcome you back if you would like to be part of the fire department again.” At the end of the meeting, Police Chief Pace noted that WVCC has put the brakes on any consolidation due to the city of Toledo’s conflict with East Lincoln County Fire. This includes all threatening and pending litigation and issues regarding equipment and mutual aid agreements. The council is hopeful that with Chief Robeson and Chief Lapof now working together, they will be able to get many of these issues resolved to be able to continue to move forward.