PARKERSBURG – The city’s chief fire inspector is suing the City of Parkersburg, claiming officials have obstructed him from doing his job properly.
Wayne White filed the complaint May 25 in Wood Circuit Court. White has served as a Parkersburg firefighter for 20 years. Before that, he was a Parkersburg police officer and a Wood County corrections officer working for the county sheriff’s department.
“Chief Fire Inspector Wayne White has a long history of service to the City of Parkersburg,” attorney Teresa Toriseva told The West Virginia Record. “He has served in many first responder positions. The calling of a firefighter to fight fires is just as strong as the calling to prevent them through fire code enforcement. The city prevented him from enforcing fire code by constantly blocking him from doing his work.
Toriseva
“Chief Fire Inspector White does not want to be at odds with the city he loves and did not want to file this lawsuit. But he has been left with no other choice. If the city continues to treat fire code enforcement as an afterthought, or as only applicable to some building owners and not others, residents of those buildings, some who are elderly and children, could pay with their lives.”
White, who lives in Elizabeth in Wirt County, says he only became chief fire inspector after filing a grievance that forced the city to comply with civil service rules requiring the applicant to sit for a competitive exam for the position.
“Since achieving the highest score on the court ordered competitive exam and becoming chief fire inspector, plaintiff has met with regular and prolonged interference with his job duties,” the complaint states. “Plaintiff has been unable to complete required trainings due to interference from his chain of command. Plaintiff’s salary has been repeatedly changed by the administration as they moved him from salary to hourly and shorting him on longevity pay.”
White says he also has been allowed to perform building inspections and review building plans only because he wasn’t allowed to complete all required trainings.
“Plaintiff has met regular and prolonged interference with fire department administration, other city officials, and private citizens who have gone as far to threaten his job as chief fire inspector,” the complaint states.
White’s complaint details how Carl Nestor was appointed to the position in 2015 as “the personal choice of the mayor.” But White filed his grievance, and the Civil Service Commission ruled Nestor’s appointment invalid. After more roadblocks by officials, Wood Circuit Judge J.D. Beane affirmed the civil service ruling in June 2016.
The test for chief fire inspector took place November 14, 2016, and the results were posted December 19, 2016, showing White scored highest. Nestor served his last day in the position on March 24, 2017. White took over April 13, 2017.
When Nestor left the job, White says Fire Chief Jason Matthews asked Nestor if he would help White do investigations. When Nestor agreed, Matthews allegedly told Nestor he’d be doing the investigations alone.
“This suggests that the fire chief never intended to allow the plaintiff to complete investigations even though investigations are a key part of the chief fire inspector job description,” the complaint states. “Plaintiff’s ‘victory’ in becoming the chief fire inspector has been diminished by a constant and unending struggle against harassment and retaliation by the fire chief and city administration.”
White maintains city officials have acted in concert to delay or hamper him in obtaining the required training to do his job, including National Fire Academy courses and other testing.
Plaintiff attempted to attend these courses several times only to be denied by the chief or Mayor (Tom Joyce),” the complaint states, adding the city gave him less than three months to pass two key courses when the state allows for 36 months of training for those certifications.
“At one point, the chief asked the plaintiff why he wanted to get arson training, inquiring if plaintiff wanted investigation training to qualify for overtime,” the complaint states. “When plaintiff told the chief that overtime was part of the reason, he wanted to do investigations the chief offered to let plaintiff get overtime doing inspections.
“The chief allowed plaintiff to get overtime doing inspections for a few months before telling plaintiff he was no longer allowed to get overtime on inspections.”
Additionally, Nestor was sent to arson school after he no longer was chief fire inspector, but Matthews denied White the opportunity to attend.
“To date, plaintiff has not been permitted to complete all required trainings as the chief has not permitted him to register and attend classes,” the complaint states. “Upon information and belief, plaintiff has still not been permitted to attend required trainings to complete fire investigations, yet the city is currently permitting others that are not fire inspectors to attend investigation training and to allow other firefighters to accrue overtime receiving on the job training in fire investigations.”
White also says the city has “constantly manipulated, interfered with, and sought to change” his pay, and he says he has received “pushback, interference, and disregard relating to code violations discovered” while inspecting buildings in the city.
“When plaintiff persists as to violations of the fire code often instead of these deficiencies being corrected, Chief Matthews ‘takes’ the buildings at issue away from the plaintiff,” the complaint states, listing a few such instances including inspections at Parker Apartments when White identified several issues in the apartment building that were contrary to fire code. “Despite the plaintiff following up with the chief repeatedly regarding these violations with no assistance or plan of action from the chief. Instead of assistance from the chief to work to bring the Parker Apartments to code, plaintiff was removed from inspecting this building.”
White also says he has been given no support by Matthews, Joyce and other city officials.
“Plaintiff has identified numerous commercial buildings with serious fire code violations,” the complaint states. “Plaintiff has received no support or follow up from the chief who has yet to issue a single citation. Not only has plaintiff’s inspections been disregarded and ignored, but his job has been threatened.”
He lists several such instances, including one when a building owner threatened his job “if he did not look the other way” regarding a non-compliant firewall violation. White says Matthews took over that inspection and signed off on it and other violations.
During an inspection of Trinity Episcopal Church, White says he identified several violations. But church representatives called the mayor, and Matthews again took over that inspection and told White “not to go back to that building.”
The complaint details another incident involving a building owned by Silverheels Property Management, which White says manages Joyce’s rental properties as well. He details another incident when City Code Director Bob McClung told City Code Inspector Rick Goff not to tell White about fire code violations Goff found while doing inspections.
“The code director made this statement because the mayor was upset with Mr. Goff for notifying the plaintiff about the sprinkler issues with 507 24th Street,” the complaint states. “The fire chief took over the inspection of this property after the owners contacted the mayor. Upon information and belief, this property was approved even though the sprinkler system was never installed.”
White also says Matthews told him “to work with businesses on fire codes or they might do away with his position,” saying the city could go without a fire inspector.
He also lists several ways he “regularly has been denied benefits and advantages afforded to previous chief fire inspectors,” such as the inability to attend required training, the inability to take his city car home after hours, not being given a badge when he took over the job, not being reimbursed for part of his cell phone bill like other city employees who must be available at all hours, not being allowed to continue to work overtime as a firefighter and not being given assistant fire inspectors.
White says the city has violated the state’s whistleblower law and the state’s Wage Payment Collection Act as well as causing the intentional infliction of emotional distress.
White says he is owed pay, fringe benefits, interest on unpaid wages and fringe benefits, interest, court costs and attorney fees.
He is being represented by Toriseva and Joshua Miller of Toriseva Law in Wheeling.
Wood Circuit Court case number 21-C-126