Injuries cause fire director's departure

He leaves $81,000 civilian position in Orange after car accident

Friday, October 05, 2007

BY KEVIN C. DILWORTH

Star-Ledger Staff

Allen Barnhardt, Orange's civilian fire director since September 2004, yesterday said he has resigned from his $81,000-a-year post after numerous injuries from a car accident rendered him incapable of fully carrying out his public safety job.

"I had been out on family leave for about 20 days, prior to resigning," explained Barnhardt, 57, as he left a doctor's office where he is seeking treatment in the aftermath of a July 28 motor vehicle mishap in South Carolina. "I (recently) came back to work, but I couldn't function properly, going up and down steps and driving.

"My job was too important to me to not give it my 100 percent," said Barnhardt, a former East Orange firefighter who also served eight years as an Orange councilman at large. "My car was totaled, and I sustained back, neck, arm, and hand injuries. They were pretty severe."

The injuries, coupled with disability related injuries he suffered during his May 21, 1981 to Oct. 1, 1992 stint as an East Orange firefighter, led to the decision to resign and join his wife, Sandra, at their Charleston, S.C., home, Barnhardt said.

Barnhardt's departure was first publicly noted Tuesday night, dur ing an Orange City Council meet ing, where Councilman-at-large Donald Page asked Mayor Mims Hackett Jr.'s administration to verify published reports that Barnhardt was no longer employed by the city, as the policy-setter for the 44-member fire department.

"He suffered some trauma in a car accident," city Business Administrator Jewel Thompson Chin responded. "He is ambulatory, but he is in constant pain."

Page criticized the Hackett administration for failing to notify elected officials about Barnhardt's resignation, especially since the mayor appointed him three years ago and a majority of the city council confirmed him to that post.

Barnhardt's appointment, as civilian fire director, was controversial from the beginning. That was mainly because it came just two months after he won re-election to a third four-year term on the governing body and because he was re-sworn into office that July 1.

At the time, critics also said the- then unfilled civilian fire director's post -- vacant since former civilian director John Gamba last held the post in 2001 -- was unneeded and because seven uniformed deputy fire chiefs already were doing some of the same policy-setting work.

Barnhardt's salary as a part- time councilman was $15,000, but it mushroomed to $81,000, more than five times more, after then-council members Tency Eason, Vivian Gaunt, Coram Rimes, Maria Vandermeer and Anthony Williams approved giving him the civilian fire director's post.

Then council members Barbara Peters and William R. Lewis voted against hiring Barnhardt, a councilman who first took elected office on July 1, 1996. Peters and Lewis complained that Barnhardt lacked the necessary managerial and budgetary experience for the job.