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Talford appointment to EMA chief questioned

How can the city possibly justify the appointment of a formerly terminated employee. To the best of my knowledge, any city employee that gets terminated is not eligible for rehire with the city. (Mayor Willie Herenton chose not to reappoint him as deputy fire director in January.)

Claude Talford touts his tenure as chief of emergency operations and deputy director of the Fire Department as making him qualified for the EMA job. Does job performance count?

His job performance is marked with a plethora of poor performance. Property loss from fire damage continues to rise, fire fatalities were not reduced, the department is now rated as a Class 2 department by the insurance industry (as opposed to the Class 1A it had been rated at for years), lawsuits against the department have risen, all while morale has dropped.

There have been testing scandals, controversy about appointed positions, and an EMS system that has been laid to waste.

If these are the criteria that the city was looking for in the new EMA director, it's no wonder they turned down 28 other candidates.

Dewayne Cecil
Memphis