Muscatine

issue is simply a case of ''bad management'' in the fire department. Why in the world would a decision as to whether or not a particular place was or was not in violation of a fire code need to be made by the fire chief? As I understand it, there are 3 (count em) 3 assistant fire chiefs, so what good are they if the fire chief needs to make such decisions. I understand there is but one assistant police chief, so how does all of that equate? Both are 24 hr/365 day operations, so of what use are 3 assistant fire chiefs? Seems like we are paying for way more than we are getting.

This is a classic case of bad management and incompetent leadership. If the haunted house is in violation of a fire code, then it?’s in violation. If not, then not, but the decision shouldn?’t change based upon who shows up to make the decision. The law is the law is the law. Interpretation of codes and laws is the job of courts, not incompetent leadership.

there are

3 different ''shifts'' at the fire department, and each ''shift'' has an Assistant Fire Chief who is in charge of that group of firemen for that certain day, that certain shift. Kind of like a Shift Manager at the local burger place.

each shift has a specialty, they go by colors (red, blue, green) Red Shift specializes in a certain area, Blue has their area, and Green has their area. Does that make sense? Let's say, Red does inspections, and Blue does education and Green does whatever, maybe on that certain day Blue shift was working so they called in someone else, who called in someone else, who called someone else, who made a decision.

its over, its done with, for now.

as far as there being only one Assistant Police Chief, how many Shift Supervisors are there? The Police Dept. shifts are 8 hr shifts, the Fire Dept. shifts are 24 hr shifts.

and ok, I'm done

My point exactly

If the police department can run a shift with someone other than an ''assistant chief'' why do we need to pay 3 assistant chiefs? It seems we can get the same level of management (or in the haunted house scenario, lack of it) like the PD does with less expense. Is that not the idea afterall? We are always looking for the government to spend our tax dollars wisely, and this looks like a case of that not happening.

to error on the positive side

Our fire dept is one of the best!Knocking a dept that risks their lives for us is cheap!It's better for them to error on the positive side of safety than against!The fact that the fire inspectors held a meeting and discussed their views showed they had publics safety foremost.too bad haunted house was unsafe but with mostly unsupervised people with children I believe they did the right thing for the safety of everyone.Chief Dalby and the rest of his crew has our safety #1 priority