DOCUMENTS PROVIDE NEW INFORMATION IN FIRING OF BRENHAM FIRE CHIEF

  

Several documents newly released to KWHI offer new facts involving Brenham City Manager James Fisher and the Brenham Fire Department’s former fire chief, Ricky Boeker, who was fired on Wednesday.

After Fisher last week released Boeker’s 2021 employee review supplementing a statement explaining his reasoning for why the city sought to move on from Boeker, KWHI filed a public information request last Wednesday for the contents of Boeker’s personnel file, as most of the information, according to Brenham City Attorney Cary Bovey, is public record.  While KWHI is still waiting on the release of documents from the city, the law firm representing Boeker, Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani, LLP of Houston, provided copies of Boeker’s 2019 annual review and the fire department’s comprehensive review looking forward from 2018 to 2025.

The July 2019 review for Boeker, which came 18 months after City Manager James Fisher began working in Brenham in January 2018, paints a positive picture of Boeker.  Fisher calls Boeker “a valued team member whose contributions to the success of the organization are immeasurable,” and says his leadership has played a role in the fire department being “very well respected throughout the region.”  Fisher does say in the review that he wants Boeker to develop a “professional development plan” to enhance his skills as fire chief, and to schedule time away from the office to recharge and give others at the department “the opportunity to step up and grow.”

Fisher also says in his 2019 review that personnel recruitment and retention will be a large challenge at the department, and that the current staffing model “will need to change to meet budgetary obligations and for staffing challenges.”  This is a topic that is also addressed in Fisher’s 2021 review, where he said this model is “not sustainable.”  Another subject introduced in 2019 and revisited in 2021 is volunteers; Fisher commends Boeker in 2019 for allowing volunteers to train to become a full-time paid firefighter as part of the department’s recruitment plan, and says that process should continue to be utilized in 2021.  Also in both reviews, Fisher acknowledges the need for further training opportunities.

In Fisher’s 2021 review, he says the city and the department have had communication issues when it comes to the replacement of certain equipment.  Specifically, he points to a time in 2015 where the city told the department to consider replacing several Self Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) tanks at a time to reduce the overall impact on the budget.  The replacement of these items is noted in the fire department’s comprehensive review from 2018, which includes a list of goals extending to 2025, and was compiled and authored by Boeker and his command staff.  The review says the department’s current SCBAs “do not meet the new industry standards and regulations” and “would have to go through a major overhaul to be brought up to current standards.”  The projected cost of replacing the SCBAs was $567,378.

The 2018 review indicates that the replacement of the SCBAs has been a priority for the department for several years, and that Fisher was aware of the need.  KWHI asked Fisher in March if funding to replace the SCBAs was requested by the fire department but not included in the city’s final budget, but was told that city officials would provide no further comment on this matter.  Also deemed as a necessity for the fire department in the review is a second fire station on the south side of Brenham by 2020; Boeker and other fire officials say a second fire station has been needed for over 30 years.  The review also asks for a new training facility by 2020 to complement the second fire station, an update to the department’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) electronics by 2020, and a third fire station on the west side of the city between 2025 and 2030.

The reports made available to KWHI can be read in full below.

Click here to read the Brenham Fire Department's 2018 comprehensive review.

Click here to read James Fisher's 2019 annual review of Ricky Boeker.

Click here to read James Fisher's 2021 annual review of Ricky Boeker.