Commission appoints interim fire chief, emergency director

Linda Simons and Brian Shroyer were at the Linn County Commission meeting on Monday, April 27, to express interest in being appointed to interim heads of their departments. Simons will take over as head of the Emergency Management Department and Shroyer will be interim county fire chief. (Screen capture / Linn County Kansas Livestream)

Editor's note: In the original version of this story, Linda Simons' new salary was reported in correctly. We regret the error.

By Charlene Sims, Journal staff

LCJeditor@icloud.com

MOUND CITY – After a brief discussion about the next steps in covering the Linn County Fire Chief and Emergency Management positions after Randy Hegwald’s resignation last Thursday, Commissioner Jason Hightower said that he thought the commission should be officially appointing the interim directors and posting the position.

Commissioner Jim Johnson, attending by phone, said he was not for posting the job position yet but he thought an interim should be appointed.

The commissioners then went into executive session to discuss non-elected personnel for five minutes with County Clerk Chasity Ware, Commission Chair Alison Hamilton and Hightower in person, Johnson on the phone and County Counselor Jacklyn Paletta on video conference.

When they returned, Hamilton asked Emergency Management Assistant Linda Simons and Assistant Fire Chief Brian Shroyer to come to the podium. Hamilton told them that she would like to appoint them as interim directors of their respective departments. She asked them if they would be interested in those positions on an interim basis.

Simon answered, “I would like to have the position. I think I would be good in the position. There would be a lot of things that, if you split the position there would be time to do. To be emergency management coordinator and fire chief is too much. So, if you split the position, I would be really interested in emergency management. I’ve been in that office for almost 10 years.”

Shroyer said he was interested in being interim fire chief.

The commissioners approved hiring Shroyer as interim fire chief for Linn County and Linda Simons for emergency management interim position in separate motions. Both motions passed unanimously.

The commissioners took a five-minute recess to look over the pay scale matrix and then went into a 10-minute executive session with Paletta, Ware and the three commissioners.

Later in the meeting, the commissioners voted to increase Shroyer’s pay to $26.68 per hour as interim fire chief and Simons to $25.59 per hour as interim emergency management director.