{"id":49476,"date":"2024-09-06T21:34:24","date_gmt":"2024-09-07T01:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=49476"},"modified":"2024-09-06T21:34:30","modified_gmt":"2024-09-07T01:34:30","slug":"report-details-toxic-workplace-allegations-at-polk-county-fire-rescue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/09\/06\/report-details-toxic-workplace-allegations-at-polk-county-fire-rescue\/","title":{"rendered":"Report details \u2018toxic\u2019 workplace allegations at Polk County Fire Rescue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An investigation into the leadership at Polk County Fire Rescue, ordered by county commissioners, details allegations of a toxic workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The report was prepared by Tallahassee-based consulting firm Allen, Norton and Blue.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" data-dominant-color=\"6a5a59\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #6a5a59;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"460\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Polk-County-Fire-Chief-Hezedean-Smith.webp?resize=700%2C460&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-49477 not-transparent\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Polk-County-Fire-Chief-Hezedean-Smith.webp?w=700&amp;ssl=1 700w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Polk-County-Fire-Chief-Hezedean-Smith.webp?resize=300%2C197&amp;ssl=1 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many of the issues raised focused on current Polk County Fire Chief Hezedean Smith, who became the department\u2019s first Black fire chief in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The report found that Smith has instituted some positive changes during his tenure, including recognizing crews for reviving patients in distress.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" data-dominant-color=\"c8d28c\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #c8d28c;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"318\" height=\"159\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/download.jpeg?resize=318%2C159&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-49478 not-transparent\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/download.jpeg?w=318&amp;ssl=1 318w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/download.jpeg?resize=300%2C150&amp;ssl=1 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, the consultants\u2019 findings also raised concerns about the department, including allegations of low morale, uneven discipline, inappropriate comments by managers, and poor communication with firefighters in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The consultants\u2019 report stopped short of recommending action, deferring instead to county leaders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An investigation into the leadership at Polk County Fire Rescue, ordered by county commissioners, details allegations of a toxic workplace. The report was prepared by Tallahassee-based consulting firm Allen, Norton&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","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":[9654],"class_list":["post-49476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-report-details-toxic-workplace-allegations-at-polk-county-fire-rescue"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49476","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=49476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49479,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49476\/revisions\/49479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}