{"id":23406,"date":"2022-06-28T20:20:15","date_gmt":"2022-06-29T00:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=23406"},"modified":"2022-06-28T20:20:19","modified_gmt":"2022-06-29T00:20:19","slug":"head-of-polk-county-fire-rescue-appointed-as-south-florida-fire-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2022\/06\/28\/head-of-polk-county-fire-rescue-appointed-as-south-florida-fire-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"Head of Polk County Fire Rescue appointed as South Florida fire chief"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Polk County Fire Rescue Chief Robert Weech is expected to soon leave the department he has led since 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Lighthouse Point city commission voted unanimously Tuesday night to appoint Weech as fire chief. Lighthouse Point is a suburb about 15 miles north of Fort Lauderdale, in Broward County.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Weech has not tendered his resignation to Polk County at this time but his \u201cimpending departure\u201d is expected, according to Deputy County Manager Joe Halman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u201cWhile we are deeply saddened at his impending departure, we are excited for him to return to his hometown and provide top-notch quality fire services. Make no mistake about it, Chief Weech is a professional and we will miss him dearly!!!!!\u201d Halman wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chief Weech did not respond to the news request for comment Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to sources close to Weech, the chief has lived separately from his family for the five and a half years he has been with Polk County Fire Rescue<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three county commissioners we spoke with Tuesday morning were unaware of the potential departure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShocked, wish him all the best. He\u2019s a great chief, good guy, smart. It\u2019s Polk County\u2019s loss,\u201d said Commissioner George Lindsey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSurprised. I really like the guy so I really wish this wasn\u2019t happening. I totally like the guy,\u201d said Commissioner Bill Braswell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A representative from the Lighthouse Point clerk\u2019s office said the city has a population of 10,500 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polk County Fire Rescue serves over 700,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department he is expected to leave has been dealing with staffing issues and mandatory overtime for several years as the county faces explosive growth in population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, Chief Weech\u00a0announced a $1.2 million plan\u00a0to address the paramedic shortage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Polk County Fire Rescue Chief Robert Weech is expected to soon leave the department he has led since 2019. The Lighthouse Point city commission voted unanimously Tuesday night to appoint… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[3043],"class_list":["post-23406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-head-of-polk-county-fire-rescue-appointed-as-south-florida-fire-chief"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}