Embattled Fire Chief 'let go' by Calaveras fire district after closed session meeting Tuesday

JOE PICCININI

Less than two weeks after Joe Piccinini was re-instated in a 3-2 vote of the governing board for the Central Calaveras Fire Rescue and Protection District, the embattled Fire Chief is once again looking for work.

Piccinini was "let go" Tuesday, Feb. 22, as the district's full-time fire chief and his volunteer assistant chief Jeff Stone hired as the district's new part-time Interim Chief, according to minutes obtained of a special closed-session meeting.

With board President Bill Schmeitt and member Don Overacker either out of town or sick, acting-board president Jim Sutherland-Moore, Don Leach and Carl Mills voted 3-0 to withdraw the board's Feb. 10 offer of re-employment after Piccinini resigned Feb. 1, stated Deborah Grant, the district's administrative assistant who takes minutes at each board meeting.

Piccinini quit amid swirling controversy surrounding the release of a Shasta County prosecutor's report stating that heshould have faced prosecution on at least three charges had not state time limits for filing such charges run out.

The Calaveras fire district's minutes, however, made no mention of why Piccinini was being dismissed other than that the board "has decided to move in a different direction" and, "for fiscal reasons, the board is now pursuing a part-time chief."

Piccinini resigned July 1, 2009, after 18 months as fire chief of the Anderson Fire Protection District rather than face disciplinary actions on a long list of allegations that he consumed alcohol on the job, offered alcohol to underage volunteers, drove district vehicles while intoxicated, sexually and verbally harassed the district's female employees, downloaded pornography onto the district's computer equipment and used district employees and equipment to remodel his home, according to the Shasta County prosecutor's report.

Erin Dervin, a deputy district attorney for Shasta County who looked into the former Anderson fire chief's behavior, termed Piccinini's behavior while fire chief in Anderson as "abhorrent" and "troubling," but said the county could not prosecute Piccinini on any of the allegations since the incidents all occurred in 2008 and California law limits the amount of time that a person can be charged with a crime once it occurs.

Dervin noted that the statute of limitations had run out before her office or law enforcement investigators were ever notified of the allegations that were instead brought to the district's then-board president Keith Webster by volunteer and paid firefighters in the district.

Instead, Webster and the Anderson fire district board undertook a controversial private investigation of the allegations and the findings of that report were sealed for nearly six months by district officials as "confidential personnel records" once Piccinini agreed to resign quietly for "personal reasons."