What's the story with ex-fire chief John Wu?

The Naperville city leaders must have found out he was friends with the Napergate man and got rid of him. Every one here knows it all links back to him...

Is it true Shawn Collins wants to represent him in a suit against the taxpayers?

Ken, did you have to bring Napergateman into this? Aren't there already enough blogs hijacked the Tin Foil hat society as it is? LOL.

Anonymous,
This thread was suggested by a Napergatian named McFarland in a message to Host Ted this morning on the Napergate Open Forum Thread. If you review McFarland's message, you know why Host Ted decided to go with it.

McFarland suggested the Fire Chief may have been fired because he punched his son which did not sit well with the NPD.

However McFarland feels punching your son when he is not listening is better than letting him go astray and join gangs and sell drugs. And possibly get killed as recently happened in this town.

I have to say I agree with McFarland reluctantly and with great reservations. Kids are not listening these days. Parents have lost power!

Police are not getting the job done. A neighborhood kid told me today that he has known the name of this guy that was killed for 2 years. Claimed he never met him but his name is widely known in drug circles. This kid I talked to had been busted for drugs by the NPD before more than once.

I guess if they would have interrogated him and others properly, they would have been led to John D. Rosales before he was killed. Maybe saved his life by imprisoning him for a couple of years!

As I was writing this post, I just noticed 5 thugs were arrested in this shooting. I would like to congratulate the Naperville Police for charging these 5 thugs and getting them off the street.

But to think a total of 8 idiots were doing drugs in a peaceful neighborhood and the NPD was clueless is disturbing.

If the NPD did not devote so many cops to downtown Naperville in a useless manner, this tragedy would have never taken place. Nine more undercover cops instead of "9 not needed" potted plants on Chicago Ave. would have prevented this crime. Yes, since an 18 year older has known about John D. Rosales for 2 years as a known drug dealer, HOW COULD THE NAPERVILLE POLICE not have known about him???

Our NPD failed us! Arresting these thugs after the FACT is great but let us hope the NPD can arrest thugs before the FACT next time.

I'm sure more details on who made this decision and why will be forthcoming in due time. For some this news may have come as a bit of a surprise.

Others who work in the fire protection industry have long known that there were serious leadership issues within the Naperville Fire Department, especially in the areas of fire prevention, code enforcement, plan reviews, inspections, and community education. Anyone with even a basic understanding of fire protection engineering or knowledge of fire codes doesn't need to look very far around town to see glaring examples of failures by the NFD. And these are systemic failures which have existed for way too many years.

Don't expect anything to improve anytime soon though. With the appointment of Mike Z as interim Fire Chief we are pretty much assured there will be little or no improvement as he is personally even weaker in these critical areas than was Chief Wu.

Hopefully those who conduct the search will make sure whoever they select as the next Fire Chief will have much stronger credentials in these areas and will be able to bring increased professionalism to the NFD which is sorely needed and long overdue.

People in Naperville do not want their McMansions to burn to the ground. They don't want their McMansion to burn down just because the house next door has a fire either. They don't want to be trapped by fire in a local store or church. They don't want their kids to die in a fire in their school. Yet the Naperville Fire Department isn't covering even the most basic aspects of fire prevention... overcrowded occupancies, inadequate exits, locked fire exit doors, blocked fire exit doors, blocked fire alarms, storage within exit stairs and exit discharge.

We all read about fire tragedies in other communities and most of us probably feel safe that such things will never happen in Naperville. Yet every day there are buildings and occupancies in our city that are open to the public that have locked exit doors. Is there anyone who has never been in a store near closing time to find they are locked in and have to wait for a clerk to come open the door? Is there anyone who has never been in a banquet hall or ballroom where the fire exits were blocked by exhibits or tables?

Just go to most of our public schools and look at how the corridors are used for everything and anything from classroom space to track practice. The average person and probably even a lot of teachers and school administrators do not understand that fire codes prohibit a corridor from being used for anything other than egress and nothing can be placed in a corridor that would be an impediment to egress either. The Naperville Fire Department know that corridors are being used inappropriately in many of our schools nearly every day which puts our children at increased risk should there be a fire. The question is why the Naperville Fire Department has not worked with school administrators to educate them on what are acceptable practices and if those efforts have been attempted and have not been successful then why hasn't stronger action been taken? Have the schools been permitted to use corridors incorrectly for so long that they now believe that what they are doing is acceptable? Must we have a fire and allow even one child to be hurt or worse before we recognize that what is happening is wrong and must be corrected?

Now don't get me wrong. The fire ground operations side of the fire house works just fine. Everyone in Naperville can be proud and confident of this side of the fire department and the emergency response they provide for actual fires and medical emergencies. They are well trained, competent, and do their job extremely well.

As a taxpayer and resident of Naperville, I think the city owes us an explanation of why the Fire chief was let go. In the grand scheme of things we are their bosses of those working for the city of Naperville.

Marilyn wrote:

"But to think a total of 8 idiots were doing drugs in a peaceful neighborhood and the NPD was clueless is disturbing."

What would be disturbing to me is if the police DID know what was going on in every home in Naperville at any given time.

Here is the response I received this morning:

I understand the interest in receiving more information on this matter.

There are privacy and legal issues with personnel matters which protect
all city employees and preclude the City of Naperville from disclosing
this type of information. The City of Naperville cannot disclose this
information and has a legal obligation to respect the privacy of the
employee involved.

As a point of the clarification, the City of Naperville did not state
the fire chief was "let go." What I did state was that the fire chief
was no longer employed with the City of Naperville.

Sincerely,

Robert W. Marshall
City Manager-Pro Tem
City of Naperville
400 S. Eagle Street
Naperville, IL 60540
630-420-6031

Robert,

Is it true that you've fired hime because of his lifestyle?

I heard from a close friend that he was into going to night bars and other clubs.

Dont be alarmed, Marilyn is the nutty blogger who is on every blog. She is hallarious, always ties this into some grand conspiracy or evil plot. Now, she even throws her two cents in on this one? Wow, get a life women, or a boyfriend. You have to much time on your hands and seem to be the neighborhood gosip queen.

Hmmm, well the city can try to keep a lid on this, but the truth will leak out eventually. From the terminology being carefully used it is clear to me that the Fire Chief was outright fired. Now from a normal HR perspective that would usually mean for "just cause"... meaning they've got the goods on him for something.

Question is what did he do? Violation of city policy? Insubordination? Bad management practices? or something worse like sexual harassment or missing money or maybe he slugged someone in the fire house? Well we could speculate forever and never quite guess what happened if no one talks.

If it is something really, really bad then there should be an arrest forthcoming. If no arrest then maybe he will just turn tail and run out of town to save the embarrassment of what the truth holds.

Unless the city has something rock solid on him the citizens of Naperville could find themselves knee deep in yet another law suit. Wrongful termination law suits do tend to get quite messy and expensive though it is too early to tell if he will choose to go this route.

Could this get any worse? This guy is no longer employed because of his judgment, or lack there of. The upper management of this fire department has been suffering brain drain since this guy arrived. Current leaders that provide stability in the organization are still trying to get out. Just ask how many of the upper management staff is out testing for jobs in other cities.

WU has been Promoting people without qualifications and causing division between line personnel and the staff. Even coming up with answers for people like "It was close but I can't really remember what your score was" Then how convenient every thing was destroyed. The bottom line with this guy was no trust. Just ask the union!

This person John Wu took the crown jewel of fire departments in northern Illinois and turned it into a joke. He has taken the Fire Department from being proactive to reactive. "How many of those calls do we really get" Cutting chiefs from the south side of Naperville and not even telling the public. That's right drive by Station 5 and look above the doors; it will say District 2, but look inside the door. That chief has been gone for 5 years. Do the residents know that? Some of us do. Towns like Aurora have three chiefs on duty Naperville has 1 guy for 55 square miles with no backup. How safe does that make you feel?From buying fire trucks, personal statements, leadership ability, making decisions with out putting it on someone else, building fire stations, dealing with people, to being able to talk in public this guy has blown it on every level.

I think the real leadership in the entire ordeal has been from our City Manager pro-tem. He saw and listened to people and acted quickly and professional. This really proves to me he has the ability and strength to make sound decisions. Isn’t this proof enough he should be installed as the new City Manager? The City of Naperville has some great people working in their governmental structure. It is no longer the quiet little city I remember when I moved here in 1958. Your city leaders have been here for a long time and are current with what’s going on, and professional enough to assess the needs of the city and it's citizens.

Chief Wu is proof positive what happens when you hire people from the outside. They are behind when they arrive. Then they set up their little political kingdoms that hurt morale of an orgization the service being delivered. This is a big organization in constant movement. Promote people that can do the job from within our city.

Not so fast there.

Let's always try to hire the best person for any job.

If that person happens to already be a member of the department and can be promoted...great! Otherwise we definitely should go to the outside. To do otherwise would simply promote inferior candidates which would not be in the best interests of the department or the taxpayers.

Now don't get me wrong. I generally support promotion from within, but I do not believe we should be locked into that mentality exclusively. I also fully support succession planning. If the City of Naperville has a high performing HR department they should be working to ensure that the proper people are promoted and that they have the necessary education, continuing education, on-the-job experience, etc., etc. so that true succession planning is both possible and feasible whenever needed.

We should all wonder why the City Manager pro-tem was able to spot these managerial flaws and why our last City Manager was not. More reason to question the sanity of the City Council with how they treated his resignation and good riddance package.

So... you're saying he resigned? AND.. they gave him a package?
How insightful of you. Now here's the question... how true is your statement.
The guy/gal from 1958 seems to speak with some experience. Perhaps a retired, or possibly even current, firefighter? 1958.. more than likely a retiree.
Hiring from outside is only good when there's no one on the inside to hired. The fire department did not need to look to the outside when they hired "Wu". That was clearly 'ethnic' hiring. You have to have so many to prove to the government.............

I suspect his major sin was NOT bowing at the alter of Monsignors Pradel & Wehrli!

I'm not sure why anyone would want to work for the City or Parks in a Senior Management position since their reputation is likely to suffer for it. Mr. Burchard could have left quietly to smiles and handshakes and choose not to do so.

The fact that these firings or "resignations" are so public implies that someone is getting thrills out of getting their enemies or rivals in Naperville. One has to ask, who were the fire chief's enemies? Builders? Jealous subordinates? Rival department heads?

My observation is that the fire code was de-emphasized in Naperville years ago when masonry common walls were replaced with glorified sheet rock, sprinklers not required for apartment complexes, three story residential structures made out of wood instead of solid masonry and so on.

As a side note, good thing the drug dealer took the bullet instead of having it travel through a sheet rock common wall and kills a kid watching TV next door.

Weakening of the fire code means that the fire department has only minutes to respond to any fire or the bodies are going to stack up. I had a discussion with one of the builders in town that won't bid these sub-standard structures since he has a moral and risk management problem with them.

While I don't know why the Fire Chief hit his son, I'm guessing that he had good reason and that his arrest is just one more case of the government intruding into our homes and further eroding the family unit. Look where the government has taken the lead in "helping families"; single parents and crime ridden neighborhoods with failing students are the norm. Government is a catastrophic failure at child rearing and should go back to defending the country and building roads.

Maybe Wu's sin was that he didn't bow at the altar of Pradel & Wherli, maybe not. Two legs doesn't hold a very stable altar.

Wherli has pretty much blown any chance he had to be re-elected.

There was a time when people tolerated Pradel and his silly antics as a lovable old fool. Recently we have seen that there is another side of him that is far, far from lovable. So what does that leave us with... just an old fool?

Yes, By Anonymous @ April 7, 2008 5:48 AM: certainly no one with an "ethnic" last name deserves any high-ranking position based on their own merit. Heaven forbid! Especially in Naperville...white folks only, no minorities need apply.

Wu arrrrrre you? Wu. Wu....Wu. Wuhhhhhh. Wu.