Mayor appoints fire commissioner

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Updated: March 18, 2012 8:22AM

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday appointed Jose Santiago as fire commissioner and found an ally in his plan to wring millions of dollars in savings out of the city’s second-largest department.

Retiring Fire Commissioner Robert Hoff said he was “deathly against” closing firehouses or reducing the minimum staffing requirement on fire apparatus — an issue that triggered the bitter 1980 firefighters strike.

When city Inspector General Joe Ferguson suggested that the city could save $57 million a year by reducing that requirement from five to four, Hoff predicted a rise in fire deaths — at the risk of alienating Emanuel.

On Thursday, Santiago, 56, drew no such line in the sand about closing firehouses.

“That’s something we’re looking at. We have all the maps out and everything and response times. We’re sitting down and looking at every option,” he said.

What about reducing the staffing from five to four?

“There are many, many different studies on what is safe and (what is) not. That’s what we’ve been working on — taking all that information, and we’ll make a determination based on safety. Any changes are always based on safety,” Santiago said.

If that was not enough to convince firefighters they had lost their champion going into contentious contract talks, Emanuel sealed the deal.

“There will be changes. You cannot keep doing the same thing. … Every part of the city is making reforms and we will make reforms” in the fire department, the mayor said. “Because it was done 30 years ago, given the changes in technology and everything, doesn’t mean it’s going to be done for the next 30 years. ... We’ll work through these issues. Safety will be paramount. Savings will also be an issue and change will be an issue.”

Responding later to Emanuel’s remarks, Tom Ryan, president of Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2, said “technology may have changed, but fires are burning hotter and faster than ever. Technology can change all it wants. You still need that power to put out fires.”

Santiago is a former Marine decorated for his service in Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm. He ran the 911 center for the final year of former Mayor Richard Daley’s administration.

He presided during the Blizzard of 2011 fiasco that shutdown Lake Shore Drive — before returning to the fire department under Emanuel as deputy commissioner in charge of the operations bureau.

Emanuel said he knew for about a month that Hoff intended to retire on the 50th anniversary of his firefighter father’s death in the line of duty and has been conducting a behind-the-scenes search since.