An incendiary legal notice filed against Portland Fire & Rescue Chief Sara Boone and the city of Portland offers a view inside the insular bureau at a time when it is under pressure to change the way it operates—and struggling to manage its budget.
The tort claim notice, a document that is the precursor to a lawsuit, was filed March 2 on behalf of Division Chief Tim Matthews and only recently obtained by WW.
In it, Matthews alleges he disciplined a senior bureau officer and close friend of Chief Boone’s for belittling Portland Street Response employees over the use of personal pronouns—and the chief responded by sabotaging his career.
That would be explosive enough, but Matthews was overseeing the fire bureau’s highest-profile initiative: Portland Street Response, which sends mental health first responders and medics to aid people in crisis. PSR staffers say Boone sidelined Matthews, the bureau’s highest-ranking champion for their work.
And Matthews alleges in his filing that Boone didn’t want Portlanders to know how unpopular the program was inside the fire bureau.
That claim takes on greater significance during budget season, when Portland Street Response’s budget is getting cut as Boone struggles with spiraling overtime costs for traditional firefighters.
Indeed, City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez, who oversees the fire bureau and has so far proven fiercely loyal to the firefighters who endorsed his election last year, is signaling that he’s open to sending Portland...
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