Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:
Mundelein on Monday appointed its first fire chief since 2015, moving away from a management structure that had the police chief in charge of both departments. Bill Lark, who has spent the last several years in various fire department leadership positions, was named the new chief. He was promoted to battalion chief in 2014, deputy chief in 2015, and the position of chief deputy chief in 2017.
Lark’s promotion follows the appointment of Darren Brents as deputy fire chief in April. Brents previously served as a training officer at the Palatine Fire Department, where he started in 1998.
Mundelein’s fire department had been operating with one deputy chief since January 2017 when Deputy Chief Ben Yoder retired and Lark took over the job.
The two moves come after Mundelein’s firefighters union in February filed an unfair labor practice charge against the village and publicly spoke out against an ordinance that reduced the number of lieutenants from six to four in order to hire extra firefighters. Among the complaints firefighters listed in a February letter to village trustees was the lack of a certified fire chief and other supervisors who could plan and lobby for the department.
Police Chief Eric Guenther was appointed director of public safety in August 2015. At the time, he was given a $971.66 per month for his duties with the fire department.
Shortly after Guenther’s appointment, conversations were held between Mundelein and the neighboring Countryside Fire Protection District on consolidation-related topics, like sharing of personnel in the wake of Mundelein’s vacancies. The two governments did not sign any agreements beyond standard mutual aid response.
In the final months of the management arrangement, the village sold a 100-foot ladder truck, contracted with Libertyville for shared use of their ladder truck, and changed staffing to have three lieutenants — one for each shift — and a training lieutenant instead of two lieutenants per shift.
Although the firefighters union objected and made claims that safety was at risk, Guenther and Lark said morale is slowly improving.
