Westminster Defends Right to Suspend Fire Chief : Hearing: Allegations of alcohol abuse are heard during session to determine the legality of placing D’Wayne Scott on two administrative leaves.

WESTMINSTER — City officials had a right to suspend Fire Chief D’Wayne Scott for his refusal to take a psychological test, which was ordered to determine if alcohol abuse had marred his job performance, according to the city’s opening statement at a Civil Service hearing Wednesday.

A city attorney said Scott’s behavior April 29, when he refused to send city firefighters to help in the Los Angeles riots, contributed to questions about his judgment.

Paul Gilbrook, president of the Westminster Firefighters Assn., testified Wednesday before the city’s Personnel Commission that Scott had telephoned him the night the civil unrest started, demanding to know who had complained to city officials about his decision to keep city firefighters out of Los Angeles.

“He was very angry. He said, ‘Nobody runs this department but me. . . . We’re not going to go up there . . . ,’ ” Gilbrook said. Scott used a racial epithet and sounded intoxicated because he slurred his words, Gilbrook testified.

During a break in the hearing, Scott denied that he had used a racial slur. Scott, 51, also said that testimony will show that he had talked to dispatch operators before speaking to Gilbrook that night and that they did not think his voice was slurred, “and they’re trained to hear those things.”

His lawyer, Richard J. Silber, said in his opening statement that Scott was justified in not wanting to send city firefighters to Los Angeles because there was inadequate police protection for them. Silber said Scott does not have a drinking problem, that his job performance with the city since 1966 has been exemplary and that a psychological test is unwarranted.

The fire chief was put on paid administrative leave May 27 after refusing to take the test, then was suspended July 30 for 20 working days when he did not withdraw his objections to the evaluation.

City officials said they requested the evaluation because they received complaints from firefighters that Scott had abused alcohol. However, Scott said the firefighters are “making up a great deal of incidents . . . to justify the city’s action.”

Gilbrook, who was the first witness in a hearing expected to last into next week, testified that the April incident was not the only time alcohol had apparently affected Scott’s job performance.

In the last two years, Scott has been absent from work many times and had often arrived late or left early, said Gilbrook, a city firefighter. Gilbrook testified that Scott missed a retirement dinner for firefighters and a budget meeting with the City Council. He blamed excessive drinking as the reason.

Just before midnight Dec. 31, Gilbrook added, Scott embarrassed city firefighters by talking on a portable radio from his home and sounding as if he had been drinking. His voice was heard by local firefighters and others from surrounding cities, who were cleaning up a fire scene in Fountain Valley.

“We said, ‘That’s our chief and don’t answer him,’ ” Gilbrook said.

According to a statement included in the hearing record, Councilwoman Lyn Gillespie approached City Manager Jerry Kenny in March, saying she had heard rumors that Scott might have a problem with alcohol. Because there were no firsthand witnesses, he decided not to do anything, Kenny said in the declaration.

But in early May, soon after Scott’s controversial decision, Gillespie again talked to Kenny and said that firefighters were now willing to talk publicly about Scott’s behavior.

Kenny called Gilbrook and another firefighter into his office May 8, Gilbrook said.

Linda Jenson, representing the city, asked Gilbrook why he never told superiors his concerns about the fire chief before that meeting. He answered: “Because he was a friend, and we did care for him.”

In his opening statement for Scott, Silber said Kenny had surprised Scott by asking him to take the psychological test because there had been no previous complaints about his performance as chief.

When Scott insisted on learning the identities of his accusers before taking the evaluation, Silber said, Kenny refused to show him any evidence, which is a violation of city regulations.

Jenson said outside the hearing that the psychological test was not meant as part of a disciplinary procedure, but only to determine if the chief truly had an alcohol problem so the city could assist him in getting counseling. Therefore, she said, Kenny was not required to share with Scott any information he had.

More than 20 city officials and employees have been subpoenaed to testify in this hearing. The Personnel Commission will then recommend whether the City Council should rescind the suspension.