Milpitas’ prior plans to bring in an interim fire chief and have a recent retiree head its building and safety department have been jettisoned, city officials report.
On Jan. 16, the City Council had two agenda items that concerned filling the positions with officials temporarily. In the case of the fire department, Stephen Healy, a former fire chief at Moraga-Orinda Fire District for four years before his retirement on Sept. 20, 2017, was eyed for the interim post following the departure of fire chief Robert Mihovich in December.
Likewise, Keyvan Irannejad, Milpitas’ former building and safety director who officially retired in December from his more than decade-long job, was also being considered a part-time employee.
But because the Jan. 16 meeting went well past midnight, into the early morning hours of the following day, both items were provisionally continued to the council’s next regularly scheduled meeting, which took place on Tuesday, Feb. 6.
However, neither item was agendized for Tuesday’s council meeting.
On Friday, Milpitas Interim City Manager Dianne Thompson announced no action would be taken for either position.
“Acting Building and Safety Director Gary King and Acting Fire Chief Rick Frawley will continue in their current roles until permanent appointments are made by the new permanent city manager,” Thompson told the Post via email. “They are both doing well and we appreciate their stepping up to serve the needs of the community. The City of Milpitas is best served at this time with continuity in these temporary leadership positions.”
According to city staff reports, if he’d been approved, Irannejad was proposed to work on a part-time basis to perform specific duties of the Building and Safety director classification from Jan. 17, 2018 through June 30, 2018 (not to exceed 960 hours per fiscal year) to assist in consultation for the Building and Safety Department and training of new staff to maintain the high quality of service and workload that the Building and Safety Department staff regularly accomplishes.”
Irannejad was making $209,055 last year, city staff reports state.
If approved, Irannejad’s part-time position would have been paid an hourly rate of $100.51 and be funded by salary savings from the vacant Building and Safety director position, staff reports state.
Similarly, city staff had recommended hiring Healy to serve as the interim fire chief pending conclusion of the fire chief recruitment process. If that had been approved, Healy would have temporarily filled the spot vacated by Mihovich, whose salary was $234,892 last year, according to city staff. The interim chief position would have been funded by salary savings from the vacant fire chief position.
Meanwhile, Milpitas Human Resources Director Tina Murphy declined to comment on the status of the recruitment process for the city’s fire chief post.
“I will not be sharing any information about the recruitment at this time,” Murphy said via email on Friday.
