The ticking of time is the invisible heartbeat of our lives and affects every moment of our consciousness.  Time and self are in perpetual handshake – for example, a human trapped in a completely dark cave would still be governed by the circadian rhythms of their internal clocks.  There are many careers in which “time” is a critical component.  Metrologists have technology that is incredibly accurate to measure the passing of minutes, seconds.  Surgeons in an operating room live on a time clock and those who take too long could kill someone.  Professional surf boarders must be able to catch the perfect wave and football players have to make the play in a certain space of time or face penalties.  Various factors are crucial to our construction of the perception of time such as memory, concentration, emotion and the sense we have time is somehow located in space. 

When it comes to the job of a firefighter, time plays a critical component.  Imagine your house catching fire, flames coming out of the windows and roof line while you hear loud pop and bang sounds from things exploding inside.  As you watch the firefighters attack the house fire, you become almost paralyzed, and time comes to a standstill.  As you stand there seeing the chaos around you, it begins to feel like an eternity of time. For the firefighter the stress put on their body fighting your house fire can prompt their brain to speed up its internal processing which helps them face life or death situations. 

When the process began to search for a new chief, the firefighters quickly realized the city had an agenda and that former Assistant Fire Chief Lee Glover from the “Un-Happy Days” was about to be their new commanding officer and Chief.  The Frisco Firefighters Association did a survey and provided it to the City Manager and Council.  In Survey Says we told you about that survey and its results. Question 1: Do you want Interim Fire Chief Glover to be the next Fire Chief of the Frisco Fire Department?  Survey says … 92.5% said NO.  City Manager Wes Pierson and his office, along with City Council, were given the results and they chose to disregard the voice of some 200+ firefighters and make Lee Glover the new Fire Chief. 

When we were reading through the “In-Service Meeting” notes it was noted that firefighters believe it is their Chiefs job to fight for them and defend them but instead they feel Glover ignoring the staffing issues and only doing what is being asked of him by City Manager Wes Pierson.  They don’t believe their current leader and Chief supports them in any way and the result is they have no voice with city management and city officials.   One comment noted, “we are not being heard and it will take one of them dying before Glover or the city take notice of staffing issues.”

Who is responsible for hiring and firing in the city? Mayor Jeff Cheney addressed this issue in the 2023 Mayoral Campaign at the Star Patriots Candidate Forum. The Council hires the City Manager, and it is the city managers responsibility to manage and hire and fire department heads. If something goes wrong, you can bet Cheney will excuse himself from responsibility and put it all on Wes Pierson.

Another comment from the most recent notes reads, “we work under the fear of retaliation and feel we are disciplined for the simplest mistakes.”   We feel like we have heard this before – oh yeah, we have in the 2011 Climate Report when Lee Glover was the Assistant Fire Chief.  The 2011 Climate report reads “firefighters talk about getting in trouble for small things and being required to write memos on things they done (and re-writing them over and over until the Senior Officer is happy with it).”  It goes on to read “they are being threatened with their job, being moved to the day shift, being belittled, yelled and treated like children.”   Proof is in the pudding!

The “In-Service Meeting” notes also address promotions and annual evaluations.  Officers feel they meet their rankings, do their job, and then they are told they must do more than that to get to move up.  Now the promotional process is based on a “taskbook” which is a checklist that shows what a firefighter or officer understands and has been cleared in, to show they are proficient in the job they will be stepping into. It was recommended by one of the committees to implement the taskbook in 2025. The 50+ pages of notes said some complete the taskbook, but others can be prevented from completing it by the Battalion Chiefs which prevent them from testing.  One comment was the process was very “subjective” and “some are allowed to test, while and others are not allowed to test for promotions.”  We know from talking to several inside sources that just recently a handful of firefighters applied for the LT positions, and they were not allowed to test even though they qualified which matches the statements made by the firefighters at the meeting. We also learned that Fire Chief Lee Glover choose to ignore his committees (another complaint in the notes) and implement the taskbook requirement now and that did not give all the candidates time to complete it before the test.

After reading this, we honestly feel like we are on a Merry-Go-Round that is not so …merry.  We pulled up the 2011 Climate Report that reads “firefighters’ perceptions of the hiring and promotion process is that it is manipulated by the Chief and Senior Officers.”  It goes on to read “firefighters would like to see a hiring and promotion process established, published and followed that does not allow for manipulation of the data of tests and who is selected.”  So basically, what is in the 2011 Climate Report matches the feelings of the 2024 In-Service Meeting Notes and the one common denominator is … Fire Chief Lee Glover! 

We think that City Manager – Wes Pierson, Mayor Jeff Cheney, and the City Council suffer from Echolaia, which is the repetition or echoing of words that you hear someone else say.  If not Echolaia, then they suffer from insanity which is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  If they don’t have either of those two medical conditions, well then, they suffer from just simple stupidity. Voltaire noted that the more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it appears to be wisdom. 

In a nutshell the council hopes we are “STUPID” and if they just repeat the same thing over and over, we will begin to believe it.  They are like Dorothy in the Wizard of OZ clicking together her ruby red slippers but instead of saying there is no place like home they are saying Chief Glover is the best, Chief Glover is the best!  Just look at Mayor Jeff Cheney at the Star Patriot forum in 2023 when he was running for re-election.  After seeing the FFA Survey showing a vote of NO CONFIDENCE in the new Fire Chief Lee Glover, he went to a candidate forum and directly lied to our faces talking about how great Glover was and how he was already improving things at the fire department.  LET THAT SINK IN FRISCO RESIDENTS:  MAYOR CHENEY KNOWINGLY LIED DIRECTLY TO VOTERS and thought he would never get caught.

Remember, the entire goal of the city and its leadership at all levels these past two years has been to blame Piland, blame the power grab on the “small portion of firefighters”, and to blame anyone and everyone but themselves. They have LIED…. and in the most recent election for the propositions the Frisco Fire Association even made a video pointing that out.

The only mistake the City of Frisco and Frisco City Council made was thinking people would not get tired of their BS and start to pay attention. That failure is what allowed the Whistleblowers to rise up!

Stay Tuned for Final Part 4…