Firefighter awaiting appeal of suspension
By Jeff Gallatin
Bay Village
Published Oct. 29, 2008

Mayor Debbie Sutherland said she will make a decision in early November on veteran firefighter Ron Westmoreland’s appeal of the city administration’s plan to suspend him for remarks made at a council meeting about budget cuts in the fire department.

Sutherland met Oct. 22 with Westmoreland; Jim Walts, president of the Bay Village firefighters union; and James P. Astorino, president of the Northern Ohio Firefighters group. The meeting is part of Westmoreland’s appeal of the suspension after the city notified him of its plans to suspend him for three tours without pay, which would be over a two-week period.

“I’ll have a decision on the appeal in early November,” said Sutherland, noting she has 15 days from the appeal to render a ruling. “We’ll consider the information pertaining to this and make a ruling.”

If Westmoreland does not agree with the ruling, he can appeal it to an arbitrator.

Westmoreland said the matter is a matter of free speech.

“We told her it’s a First Amendment issue and the matter of allowing someone to speak their views without being penalized,” he said.

Westmoreland, a 16-year veteran who had trained the Bay Village dive team and several other area departments, criticized the city administration and council at the Sept. 15 City Council meeting.

He said the city decision this summer to make the dive team inactive as part of a series of budget cuts in the department played a major role in the death of a 7-year-old boy near Huntington Beach in Bay Village. If the team had been active, Westmoreland said it could have gone in Lake Erie faster than the teams of safety workers on ropes which recovered the boy after he had been under the water for 45 minutes.

City officials contend everything possible was done to save the boy, noting it was in Metroparks jurisdiction, yet safety workers were there from the park system, Bay Village, Avon Lake and other safety departments. City officials said the park’s dive team was on the beach ready to go into the water when the boy was found. They noted that the boy was in the water even though there signs posted saying there was no lifeguard on duty.

Sutherland said all the information was considered prior to notifying Westmoreland that he was being suspended for allegedly misrepresenting the facts and that he was insubordinate, dishonest and committed malfeasance as a city employee.

“It was conduct inappropriate for his position,” she said.

Westmoreland said he believes in what he did.

“I stand by what I said,” he said. “The situation could have been different if we had our dive team there.”

After word of the suspension, the firefighters held a rally to support Westmoreland prior to the Oct. 20 council meeting. Several citizens also spoke at the council meeting later about the matter.

Law Director Gary Ebert said he has directed city officials to not discuss the matter at length because of  the possible appeal or potential lawsuits later.