Burlington settles fire department promotion dispute with $90k

The Political Agitator’s response: Wow! White guy complains he didn’t get the Chief job and was rewarded monetarily and other.

A $90,000 settlement will save the City of Burlington the expense of litigation with Deputy Fire Chief Matt Lawrence over last year’s selection of a new fire chief.

Jay Mebane was promoted to fire chief in September 2020 when former chief Jay Smith retired.

Both Mebane and Lawrence are career firefighters with similar educational qualifications and years with the Burlington Fire Department. They are of different ages and one has about a decade more experience – Mebane’s career started in 2008, and Lawrence’s in 1991 as a volunteer and 1997 as a professional. They are also of different races – Mebane is Black and Lawrence is white. Which of those differences is most significant in this case is shrowded in personnel privacy rules.

The settlement frees the city from any legal liability over the city’s fire-chief promotion process in 2020, the details of which are in a Sept. 10, 2020 grievance Lawrence filed with the city and a complaint he filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, neither of which are public records and both of which Lawrence agreed to withdraw as part of the settlement. (Read more)