Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 22, 1993                   TAG: 9306220261
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C4   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

RADFORD FIRE CHIEF ON HIS WAY OUT?

The individual, who requested anonymity, said word of the chief's pending change in job status was "common knowledge" but did not come directly from Whitt or city officials.

Meanwhile, City Manager Robert Asbury said Monday that the final decision on Whitt's job belongs to City Council, but he did rule out two other possible fates for the chief.

"I'm not going to ask him to resign and I'm not going to fire him," he said, adding that nothing will change until City Council has a chance next Monday to consider his plan to reorganize the Fire Department.

"Council has to act first, because it does require a change in [Fire Department] organization," he said.

Following a lengthy closed session on June 12, council directed Asbury to come up with a way to most effectively combine the paid and volunteer firefighters within the department.

At the same meeting, council also reinstated three paid firefighters' positions that it had slated for elimination on January 1, 1994.

Asbury said his new organizational plan is in place, but he wouldn't reveal its contents because council members haven't seen it yet.

City Councilman David Worrell, a former volunteer fireman who cast the lone vote against reducing the department's paid staff in April, said Monday he had "received no official word" about a change in Whitt's job status.

The Fire Department has seven paid personnel, including Whitt, and 35 volunteers.

Whitt was unavailable for comment Monday evening. The person who answered the Whitts' telephone said the chief and his wife had left, "trying to get away from all this."