By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
John Stager, the Taylor Mill Fire Chief, has resigned.
The decision was made at the end of October at an executive session of the Commissioners along with CAO Brian Haney, Mayor Daniel Bell and attorney Jack Gatlin. The decision was a mutual parting of the ways, and it was only recently finalized.
Stager has been with the city since 2010 as a full time firefighter/paramedic. He was promoted to lieutenant in 2012.
Stager had been in the Fire Explorers when he was 16, and he kept his certifications when he became a police officer, serving in Covington and in Cincinnati as a police officer. He found he wasn’t entirely pleased with how people were starting to view police officers in the mid 1990’s, and that made a difference to him.
“Everybody loves a fireman,” Stager said in an interview in February of 2018 conducted by then Taylor Mill city clerk Gena Forsyth. “I saw myself becoming cynical. In law enforcement in the mid 1990’s there was still respect, but after the riots I saw that respect going away. I was lied to every day, and it just got old.”
He said whenever the fire department showed up, they could do no wrong, and when he thought about it, he realized he still had his fire certification, so after 4 years in Covington and about 3 1/2 years in Cincinnati, he resigned as police officer and went to work for three different fire departments in Cincinnati.
A friend of his told him there was an opening in Taylor Mill for a full time firefighter/EMT, so he applied and was hired in 2010.
When he came to Kentucky, Stager said it was a big change from Cincinnati. Northern Kentucky departments were still part volunteer and part paid firefighters, and they were in their infancy with Advanced Life Support procedures.
“There were 8 of us total in the department, and when the tones went off, we had to wait to see if the volunteers showed up,” he explained. “In Cincinnati, when the tones went off, we jumped into the trucks and went out to help.”
As Lieutenant, he revamped the training department.
When the chief, Dennis Halpin, retired, the city picked Stager to replace him as chief of the department in 2014.
“The goal of the department is to get to the incident and mitigate the situation as quickly as possible, there was no waiting around,” Stager said. “My first year I got staffing levels up to three people, and now I have 4 people on duty. I want to maintain staffing and accountability in the city.”
Stager said maintaining staffing levels was his favorite goal, and training was a close second. He acknowledged that changing things after Chief Halpin left was tough because people tended to be resistant to change. He said he lost some staff, and people did talk harshly about him, but he believes in progress.
He talked about the software changes he has implemented to make writing reports easier, and as he is a self-proclaimed training guy, he likes to make sure all his staff is fully trained in the latest procedures.
Stager said he will miss being at Taylor Mill.
“I appreciate my time at Taylor Mill, where I was for 13 years, 9 of those as Chief,” Stager said. “I believe I did a good job, and I moved the department forward.”
In the meantime, he is keeping in shape physically, and sending out resumes.
At the executive session, Stager was told the city simply wanted to go in a new direction since they are probably going to build a new firehouse, and they wanted to have new leadership.
Assistant Chief General Fernbach is the acting chief, until the city decides on a new fire chief.