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New color scheme for Country Club Hills.
Posts Tagged Country Club Hills Fire Department
From Flossmoor.org:
FLOSSMOOR, Ill. – March 12, 2021 – At Monday’s village board meeting, Mayor Paul Braun appointed Robert Kopec to the position of fire chief of the Flossmoor Fire Department effective April 5, lifting the responsibilities from Interim Fire Chief Greg Berk. Kopec was selected from a competitive pool of candidates following a recruitment process by the Illinois Fire Chiefs Association.
In Flossmoor, the position of fire chief is a mayoral appointment with a confirming vote by the village board of trustees. The position reports on a day-to-day basis to the village manager. The board of trustees unanimously approved the appointment of Kopec, who joins the Flossmoor Fire Department after serving as deputy fire chief and fire chief for seven years at the City of Country Club Hills Fire Department.
Prior to serving as fire chief for the Country Club Hills Fire Department, Chief Kopec held a number of roles including deputy chief and captain with the Beecher Fire Protection District, as well as experience with the Markham Fire Department, Harvey Fire Department, and the Thornton Fire Department.
Chief Kopec also holds a Chief Fire Officer certification from the Illinois State Fire Marshal Office, an associate’s degree in fire science from Columbia Southern University, an emergency medical technician license from South Suburban College, a Firefighter III certification, HazMat training, Fire Service Instructor, and a number of others.
As a career fire service member, Chief Kopec has served in a number of different department settings, but one thing he looks forward to in joining the Flossmoor Fire Department is the balance of volunteer firefighters, part-time firefighters, and full-time firefighters in the department.
With the appointment of Chief Kopec, the village would also like to extend a sincere thank you to Interim Fire Chief Greg Berk, who came out of retirement to serve the Village of Flossmoor.
From Osageambulances.com:
Congratulations Country Club Hills Fire Department on your recent Type 3 E450 ambulance remount! This remount was sold by Bob Baxa of North Central Emergency Vehicles.
Osage Ambulance photo
Osage Ambulance photo
Osage Ambulance photo
Osage Ambulance photo
thanks Dennis
From the Pierce Flickr page
Pierce Country Club Hills FD 32140-2,
Pierce Country Club Hills FD 32140-1
Pierce composite
thanks Keith
Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:
A jury has awarded more than $11 million in damages to Country Club Hills Firefighter Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki who sued the city over alleged gender discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation.
The lawsuit filed against the city in 2012, alleged she was passed over for a promotion and retaliated against for reporting misbehavior. She later amended her complaint to include allegations that firefighters regularly watched pornography at the fire station.
On Monday, after more than two weeks of trial testimony and a couple hours of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Lewis-Bystrzycki. The 12-member jury found in favor of the firefighter on all three of her claims — gender discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation — and awarded her a combined $11,213,000, a copy of the judge’s signed order shows.
The $11 million-plus award is broken down into $8 million for emotional harm and mental suffering; $2 million for compensatory damages; $1,085,000 for lost future earnings; $78,000 for time, earnings and salaries lost; and $50,000 for counseling expenses.
Judge McGrath instructed the jury it could draw adverse inferences from the city’s destruction of digital evidence and its failure to adequately search documents on its computers. She had previously ordered Country Club Hills to reimburse Lewis-Bystrzycki for attorney fees and costs incurred to hire a forensic expert.
An additional trial on equitable relief is scheduled for Nov. 6, according to the judge’s order. That proceeding would determine the amount Lewis-Bystrzycki will be entitled to for the loss of her pension and attorneys fees, which are estimated at $3 to $4 million. The judge also will be ruling on injunctive relief at that time, which could involve the city being forced to implement and adhere to policies, procedures and training around sexual harassment.
Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:
A Circuit Court judge who recently granted default judgment in favor of a female Country Club Hills firefighter who sued the city over gender discrimination and sexual harassment has reconsidered the severity of her sanctions.
Judge Brigid Mary McGrath, who defaulted the case Oct. 2 over the city’s repeated failure to comply with court orders, reversed course Wednesday after reviewing arguments made by the city’s attorneys. As a result, she granted the city’s motion for reconsideration, meaning that a jury will now determine liability, not just damages, in the case.
McGrath said she changed her mind after concluding that the city’s failure to turn over a 2010 fire department memo — which a forensic expert for Firefighter Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki discovered on the eve of trial — did not represent a direct violation of a prior court order, as she originally had thought.
The recently discovered memo from the city’s former fire chief states that Lewis-Bystrzycki was to be promoted to lieutenant following two retirements within the department. She never received the promotion, however, and has alleged in court filings that gender discrimination was the reason.
McGrath said that while Country Club Hills had been obligated to search and tender all relevant documents as part of the discovery process, she accepted the city’s explanation that its failure to search its computers was not deliberate but rather the result of the parties never having reached an agreement on an appropriate set of search terms.
While the judge rescinded her most drastic sanction — default judgment — she said she would still instruct the jury it could draw adverse inferences from the city’s destruction of digital evidence and its failure to adequately search documents on its computers.
The case, which dates back to 2012, is scheduled to proceed to trial Thursday.
Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:
Country Club Hills has forfeited its defense of a female firefighter’s 2012 sexual harassment and gender discrimination lawsuit over its repeated failure to comply with court orders, a judge has ruled.
Judge Brigid Mary McGrath entered the Oct. 2 default judgment after a lawyer for Firefighter Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki presented a recently discovered fire department memo the city had not turned over, despite city officials’ prior claims under oath that all responsive documents had been produced. McGrath entered the default order on the second and third counts of Lewis-Bystrzycki’s suit, which allege gender discrimination and hostile work environment in violation of the Illinois Human Rights Act and retaliation in violation of the Illinois Human Rights Act.
Unless McGrath vacates her order — an attorney for the city has filed a motion for reconsideration that will be heard Tuesday — the city would be liable for paying damages to Lewis-Bystrzycki in an amount to be determined by a jury, Country Club Hills attorney Stephen Miller said.
The recently discovered document, a June 11, 2010 memo from the former fire chief, states that Lewis-Bystrzycki is to be promoted to lieutenant following the retirements of two lieutenants. She never received the promotion, however, and has alleged in court filings that gender discrimination and harassment were the reason. Had the 2010 memo been turned over when ordered, the case would likely have already settled, Dana Kurtz, the lawyer for Lewis-Bystrzycki, argued.
Instead, Kurtz said, her client had not been promoted, no longer had a career — she’s been on paid leave from the department since 2015 — and had incurred $1.7 million in attorneys’ fees and expenses as a result of the city’s failure to produce the document.
“It’s just by chance that (plaintiff’s forensic expert Andrew Garrett) found this document last night,” Kurtz told the judge, according to a court transcript. “It should have been produced two years ago. It would have changed the nature and course of this litigation dramatically.”
Garrett testified that his forensic analysis of the Country Club Hills fire department’s computer workstations and email server showed the city never searched them for documents relevant to the lawsuit, as it had been ordered to do. His testimony that the city had not searched its computers for documents relevant to the lawsuit came just months after the judge sanctioned Country Club Hills for destroying digital evidence that its firefighters regularly viewed pornography on department computers, despite having received notice to preserve its computer files.
In rendering her Oct. 2 order granting default judgment, McGrath said that due to the city’s repeated failure to comply with her orders, the extent of relevant documents it had not produced could not be known.
McGrath said that even before the previously untendered memo surfaced, she had planned to order that Country Clubs Hills reimburse Lewis-Bystrzycki for attorney fees and costs incurred to hire her forensic expert and to instruct the jury it could draw an adverse inference from the city’s “unreasonable and willful destruction of ESI data on their computers despite being under an obligation to preserve that information.” But, the judge said, after the discovery of weighty documents that should have been produced that weren’t, she would reconsider her sanctions to include default judgment.
“Here we have a case in which defendant, despite giving — being given many opportunities, has failed to comply with the Court’s rules in two different ways; the first in actually searching the documents in its possession to ensure that all responsive documents are produced to the plaintiff and the second, to ensure that the information in its possession is maintained and not damaged,” McGrath said, according to a court transcript of last week’s proceeding.
“So I am going for the more drastic remedy of default, and I hate to do it, but I am going for the remedy of default in addition to the reimbursement for the fees and the expert fees and costs related to the third and fourth motions to compel.”
If McGrath upholds her prior order, the case would still proceed to trial, but the jury would be tasked only with determining the amount of damages, not the city’s liability.
Excerpts from Fox32chicago.com:
Three years ago, a female firefighter filed a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment in Country Club Hills, including firefighters watching porn. Next week, that lawsuit goes to trial at the Daley Center.
Dena Lewis has been a Country Club Hills firefighter since 1998, but she’s been on paid leave for the past three years after filing a discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against the village. She says she was passed over for a promotion after she complained about firefighters watching porn in the firehouse, which she says was epidemic.
Initially, the Country Club Hills Fire Department denied it was even happening. But when Lewis’ lawyer deposed firefighters under oath, they told the truth.
The village has been sanctioned by the court for destroying evidence before Lewis’ legal team could look at the computers.
“They ran what’s called disc cleanup, disc wipe to try to wipe out the internet history and the evidence,” said attorney Dana Kurtz.
Records show three firefighters were suspended last fall for watching porn at the firehouse. But Lewis’ lawyer says the village refuses to confirm whether any disciplinary action was ever taken.
Recent apparatus orders
Apr 9
- Country Club Hills Fire Department – 2 Pierce Saber pumpers; 1,500/750. Delivery inOctober.
- Tri-State Fire Protection District – Pierce Enforcer pumper; 1,500/550. Delivery in October.
- Scales Mound Fire Protection District – Pierce Enforcer pumper; 1,500/1,000. Delivery in October.
thanks Ron
New area apparatus orders
Mar 30
- Country Club Hills – 2 Pierce Saber pumpers 1500/750
- Tri-State FPD – Pierce Enforcer pumper 1500/550
- Pleasantview FPD – Pierce 107′ aerial ladder
thanks Josh
