The months-long search for a new Augusta fire chief has apparently ended with a single finalist named. Antonio Burden, presently the deputy chief of the Dekalb County Fire and Rescue Department, is the lone finalist.
However, the secretive process that produced the finalists has several commissioners and members of the local press asking questions.
The Augusta Press, along with other local news organizations, filed several open records requests throughout the process and were denied even a list of who all had applied for the job.
MORE: Who Wants To Be Fire Chief?
Apparently, some Augusta commissioners received the same treatment.
“We didn’t know until a little over 24 hours who the initial finalists were, and we were expected to conduct interviews blind basically,” says District 3 Commissioner Catherine Smith-McKnight. ”We weren’t given any clue as to who picked the finalists. The whole thing just seemed rushed.”
10th District Commissioner John Clarke agreed with McKnight and said he asked for the interviews to be postponed to give commissioners time to prepare, but that request was denied.
“This time, the process changed. We were told nothing. The process was flawed, and it was all done very quietly,” Clarke says.
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According to Clarke, the commission never voted to make Burden the finalist, but rather it was done “by consensus,” as if the decision had already been made before the interviews were even conducted.
Once Burden was named finalist for the position, no information about his past career was made available to the public. The announcement did not even include a photo of the finalist.
The only information that can be gleaned is that Burden is a deputy fire chief and was the former fire marshal who caused a stir in Dekalb County for his lax work ethic.
MORE: Search For A New Augusta Fire Chief Continues
An investigation by WSB-TV in Atlanta found that Burden was aware in 2014 that several church-related private schools were operating seriously out of fire code with violations such as broken emergency lights, missing exit signs and non-operational fire alarms.
An inspector told Burden that the schools needed to be shut down until they were deemed safe, and Burden’s response was to tell the inspector not to go back onto the school’s property, according to the WSB report.
Scott Hudson is the Managing Editor of The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com.
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