{"id":2449302,"date":"2019-09-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=313631"},"modified":"2019-09-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T06:00:00","slug":"area-public-safety-leaders-aspen-fire-chief-is-a-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/area-public-safety-leaders-aspen-fire-chief-is-a-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Area public safety leaders: Aspen Fire chief is a problem"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Aspen Fire Chief Rick Balentine declines to comment on the complaints leveled against him and says, “My job is to look out for the citizens of our distict and that’s what I’m doing.”<\/strong>
Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

A generally innocuous cog in the bureaucratic machine of local governance has exposed a long-simmering rift between Aspen\u2019s fire chief and the leaders of the airport, Pitkin County and three local public safety agencies.<\/p>\n

The rift includes charges that Aspen Fire Chief Rick Balentine is an uncooperative fear-monger bent on undermining the authority of those other agencies, and could result in the Aspen Fire Department being left out of any future firefighting duties at the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport, which is located within AFD\u2019s district.<\/p>\n

\u201cChief Balentine has chosen to be an outlier in this tightknit (public safety) community and has relationship issues with not only me, but other fire and ambulance districts and now he has set his sights on the airport,\u201d Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo wrote in a Sept. 13 letter to Aspen Fire Department Board member Stoney Davis. \u201cFor an inexplicable reason Chief Balentine needs to continually tell this community and visitors they are not safe as is the case with his recent airport comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my opinion this is irresponsible and dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

DiSalvo said Balentine \u201cdoes not have a positive working relationship\u201d with the Sheriff\u2019s Office, Roaring Fork Fire Rescue Chief Scott Thompson, Aspen Ambulance District Director Gabe Muething and Aspen airport Director John Kinney. Thompson, Muething and Kinney all confirmed the rift in separate interviews and said they supported the sentiments expressed in DiSalvo\u2019s letter, which The Aspen Times obtained through a Colorado Open Records Act request.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just Rick Balentine by himself,\u201d Thompson said in an interview last week. \u201cThere\u2019s no problems with any other public safety officials. Everyone gets along. We don\u2019t question each other\u2019s authority. Rick is just the opposite.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been going on since day one (of Balentine\u2019s tenure as chief).\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, Balentine, who\u2019s been chief since 2014, said he hadn\u2019t read DiSalvo\u2019s letter and isn\u2019t sure why or where they got crosswise.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s entitled to his opinion,\u201d Balentine said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t surprise me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also declined to comment on charges that he\u2019s uncooperative and unnecessarily spreads fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy job is to look out for the citizens of our district and that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing,\u201d Balentine said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to sit here and talk bad about those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

AN M-O-U IN LIMBO<\/p>\n

The rift has gone public thanks to comments \u2014 reported in the Aspen Daily News \u2014 that Balentine and other fire officials made at a Sept. 11 Aspen Fire Department Board meeting about a proposed mutual aid agreement between the airport, the county and the fire district.<\/p>\n

The subject that provoked the comments was a so-called \u201cMemo of Understanding\u201d among the Aspen Fire District, the airport, every other public safety agency in the Upper Roaring Fork Valley and Pitkin County, which owns and operates the airport. The document is the sort of routine business done daily among governments and government agencies across the country, and is essentially a contract ensuring the agencies will respond to an emergency at the airport.<\/p>\n

Historically, the Aspen Fire Department has taken the lead command role in the event of a structure fire at the airport, Pitkin County Manager Jon Peacock said. However, in the event of a fire on a plane, a plane crash or a fuel farm fire, the airport\u2019s own firefighting staff, which is specially trained in airport rescue and firefighting and knows how to operate special equipment, takes the lead, he said.<\/p>\n

Balentine said he reached out to the county in 2017 to update the memo, which had expired. He suggested that Aspen Fire be notified of every fire-related incident at the airport, including a plane crash or fuel farm fire, and take control of all airport resources and staff once Aspen firefighters arrived to fight it, Peacock said.<\/p>\n

That was unacceptable to the county, he said. First because Aspen firefighters are not up to date in airport rescue firefighting techniques, and second because Pitkin County is responsible for the airport and answerable to the Federal Aviation Administration \u2014 which regulates the airport \u2014 for any mishaps, Peacock said.<\/p>\n

THE BIG QUESTION: WHO\u2019S IN CONTROL?<\/p>\n

So, instead, the county proposed a new command structure known as \u201cunified command\u201d that would take over in the event of an airport emergency, Peacock said.<\/p>\n

An airport official and a Sheriff\u2019s Office official would be at the top of the structure to keep an eye on everything happening, while Aspen Fire would take operational command in the event of a structure fire and provide direction to their firefighters, he said.<\/p>\n

If the event was a plane crash, an airport firefighting official would take over operational command and those 17 specially trained airport rescue firefighters would lead the suppression efforts, Peacock said. If a shooting occurred at the airport, law enforcement would take over operational command.<\/p>\n

In all those scenarios, the Sheriff\u2019s Office and an airport official would retain overall command and decision-making control, he said.<\/p>\n

Balentine said he didn\u2019t like that structure and insisted he must be part of the overall command decision-making. In fact, he insisted on that role whether the event was a structure fire, a plane crash or any other fire-related emergency at the airport, according to Peacock, Kinney and DiSalvo.<\/p>\n

Because of the command dispute, Balentine has refused to approve the memo and it remains unsigned, though all other public safety agencies in the Upper Roaring Fork Valley have accepted the command structure, they said.<\/p>\n

Balentine told The Times he\u2019s not asking for a lead role if a plane crash occurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe airport is in charge of a plane crash,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s not much question about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he said Aspen Fire must be part of the overall command structure in the event of a structure fire because he and his leadership team need to be in charge of directing their firefighters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt ain\u2019t about control, it\u2019s about safety,\u201d Balentine said. \u201cIf we\u2019re putting my folks in harm\u2019s way, it\u2019s only reasonable to know that the people in charge of it know what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, because the Aspen airport lies within the Aspen Fire District, structure fires there are his responsibility based on jurisdiction and an Airport Emergency Plan approved by the county and the FAA in 2015, Balentine said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what the problem is,\u201d he said. \u201cIf there\u2019s a structure fire, Aspen Fire needs to be part of the incident command structure. Ultimately, in our district, we\u2019re in charge of structure fires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peacock said something\u2019s getting lost in translation.<\/p>\n

For example, if the airport was still open during a fire, unified commanders might be keeping an eye on incoming or outgoing air traffic or what to do with passengers and how those things might relate to firefighting operations, Peacock said. Such oversight is designed to stop fire engines from screaming down a runway as a passenger jet comes in for a landing, Kinney said.<\/p>\n

The person in charge of firefighters isn\u2019t likely to have the time to soak in all those other details and would need to focus on the task of putting the fire out, Peacock said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe unified command is not there to tell operations what to do on the tactical side,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re there to support the operations folks. Unified command is keeping an eye on everything else going on at the airport and managing the incident from a safety perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both sides charge that the other hasn\u2019t been willing to sit down over the years and talk through the issues.<\/p>\n

MOVING FORWARD WITHOUT ASPEN FIRE<\/p>\n

Regardless of who is at fault, the county is moving on without Aspen Fire for the time being, Peacock said.<\/p>\n

Officials are circulating the MOU agreement among the agencies that have already signed it, with Roaring Fork Fire now proposed as the lead firefighting agency in the event of a structure fire at the airport, he said. The elected boards for each agency must each separately approve it.<\/p>\n

Thompson confirmed the agreement will be presented to his board in the near future.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoaring Fork Fire would be the agency to respond if the (airport) terminal catches fire\u201d under the current agreement, he said.<\/p>\n

Negotiations are on-going with Aspen Fire\u2019s attorney, and if an agreement can be determined, the agency could be added later to the airport MOU, said Ely, Pitkin County\u2019s attorney.<\/p>\n

But if the impasse cannot be rectified, the Airport Emergency Plan from 2015 can simply be amended administratively \u201cwith the stroke of a pen\u201d to include Roaring Fork Fire as the first responder for an airport structure fire instead of Aspen Fire, Kinney said. The FAA routinely accepts such revisions, he said.<\/p>\n

The issue is set to come to a head Oct. 8, when the Aspen Fire Department Board and the Pitkin County board of commissioners are scheduled to discuss it at the commissioners\u2019 regular weekly work session.<\/p>\n

CAN\u2019T WE ALL GET ALONG?<\/p>\n

Aspen Fire Board Chairman Karl Adam and board member Stoney Davis, the recipient of DiSalvo\u2019s letter two weeks ago, were out of town last week and couldn\u2019t be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

Board member Denis Murray said Thursday he wasn\u2019t given a copy of DiSalvo\u2019s Sept. 13 letter about Balentine, and that the board generally doesn\u2019t get into the day-to-day operations of the department and its chief.<\/p>\n

However, board members have recently pushed the airport MOU issue to the forefront after years of being told the county put off the issue, wouldn\u2019t meet about it and wouldn\u2019t share the appropriate data involved, Murray said. The board has never reviewed even a draft of the proposed MOU, so he said he couldn\u2019t speak to the specifics of it.<\/p>\n

Still, the reports of rancor between Balentine and some members of the public safety community raises red flags, Murray said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt concerns me,\u201d he said. \u201cWe as a district in the public safety realm need to collaborate with all other public safety departments. We have to work together.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is the point raised by DiSalvo, Thompson, Kinney, Peacock and Muething. All took pains to point out that the Roaring Fork Valley\u2019s public safety community gets along better than most similar agencies that share boundaries and missions in other locations.<\/p>\n

The cooperation was, for all, a point of pride.<\/p>\n

\u201cPitkin County and the rest of the valley have an unbelievable reputation of cooperation amongst public safety agencies,\u201d DiSalvo said. \u201cWe do not have lines or walls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muething, the ambulance district director, agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere we all get along so very well,\u201d he said. \u201c(Balentine) is the one outlier at times. I\u2019d love to see Rick coordinate and collaborate with us more and use our system.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Thompson, the problems at Aspen Fire have nothing to do with the competency of the department\u2019s volunteer firefighters.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me it\u2019s leadership \u2026 and this non-cooperation with other agencies,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s horrible this is playing out in the press but the Aspen Fire Board really doesn\u2019t know all that\u2019s has gone on and I think they\u2019ve gotten some bad information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray said it is Balentine\u2019s job to manage the district.<\/p>\n

\u201cRick looks out for us to the best of his ability,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In the end, Balentine characterized the dispute as a mountain out of a molehill.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this just got to be blown out of proportion,\u201d he said. \u201cI know everyone got their panties in a wad on this. I\u2019m hoping we\u2019re getting close to getting this resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n

jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aspen Fire Chief Rick Balentine declines to comment on the complaints leveled against him and says, “My job is to look out for the citizens of our distict and that’s what I’m doing.”Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times A generally innocuous cog in the bureaucratic machine of local governance has exposed a long-simmering rift between Aspen\u2019s fire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2449302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 13:20:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2449302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2449302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2449302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2449302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}