Cone of silence around new Gig Harbor fire chief must be lifted. Transparency matters

After a decade of leadership by a homegrown firefighter who rose through the ranks, Gig Harbor appears to have landed a well qualified outsider — some might say overqualified — to serve as its new fire chief.

Dennis Doan, an Idaho transplant, started work this month as chief of Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One. His most recent job was fire chief in Boise, which is a little larger than Tacoma and has 300 full-time city fire department employees compared to Gig Harbor fire district’s 125. His resume is impressive.

But the way the Gig Harbor fire district’s board of elected commissioners has handled the chief hire is more than a little troubling — particularly the cone of silence surrounding Doan’s resign-or-be-fired exit from his Boise post.

Doan has said he was forced out for purely political reasons last March after a new mayor took office. “I did nothing wrong, nothing illegal or immoral or unethical,” he declared in his finalist job interview with Gig Harbor commissioners, pointing out that cleaning house isn’t unusual under a strong mayor form of government.

This all may be true. But how can Gig Harbor taxpayers know for sure, since commissioners didn’t see his personnel file (they trusted a search firm to vet him) and they’re determined to keep his past under wraps?

“Chief Doan will not answer any questions or follow-up questions relating to his departure from the City of Boise Fire Department.” a Gig Harbor fire district spokesperson said in a March 3 email to reporter Chase Hutchinson of The Gateway, the TNT”s sister newspaper.

But wait, there’s more: “Chief Doan will not answer any questions or follow-up questions relating to his employment with the City of Boise Fire Department,” district spokesperson Eric Waters wrote in the same email to Hutchinson.

If those questions were asked, Waters said the interview would end immediately. The Gateway declined to participate under such ridiculous terms.

Refusing to address the abrupt end to Doan’s 29-year fire-service career in Boise not only defies the transparency expected of public agencies. It also prevents the new chief from putting his best foot forward in the $200,000-a-year job.

It sets a bad tone for open government at a time when Peninsula School District leaders are choosing a new superintendent, and in a year when voters will elect a Gig Harbor mayor and City Council members.

And frankly, it’s amateurish.

Whether Doan demanded his past be kept off-limits to local news media, or whether the fire district offered it, is unclear.

What is clear is that he’s not followed up on pledges that he would make his personnel file available to McClatchy journalists, despite emphasizing during the local interview process that he has no secrets.

“This has been a difficult year for me, and this was a difficult thing to happen,” Doan said in his Jan. 15 interview with Gig Harbor commissioners. “But I think how I’ve handled it, how I’ve been up front, how I have opened up my personnel file, there’s just nothing to hide … there’s nothing else behind the story.”

And the community is supposed to take his word for it? Sorry, but three words apply in situations like this: Trust but verify.

The information blackout is all the more frustrating because Doan comes across as a solid choice for fire chief. He has good experience in everything from passing bond measures to building state-of-the-art training facilities, from urban wildfire management to firefighter mental health issues. He brings a valuable outsider perspective after 10 years of leadership under Chief John Burgess, a well respected insider.

At age 52, Doan seems poised to settle down in Gig Harbor and lead the fire district for several years.

To prove there’s “nothing else behind the story” of his Boise departure, he and Gig Harbor fire commissioners should open the whole book.

Perhaps public officials can get away with playing obfuscation games in Idaho. But Washington’s strong tradition of open government demands better. So should Gig Harbor taxpayers.