By Doug Miller
An investigation was launched within City Hall last month into Kerr's personal file in the Length of Service Award Program, which provides a token pension of $20 per month per year served to volunteer firefighters with more than 20 years of active service.
In order to qualify, a firefighter must maintain a certain level of involvement in the department's activities, receiving credit for calls answered, meetings attended, training sessions attended and the like. According to several sources at City Hall, the investigation focused on whether Kerr had claimed credit he had not earned.
"It seems Commissioner Kerr did not respond to the number of fires he claimed he did," said City Manager John Laffey.
Laffey said he had sent the results of his investigation to Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice's office, along with the recommendation that the matter be handled administratively.
"It is my understanding that Commissioner Kerr had lost the confidence of his chiefs," Laffey said. "He has decided to resign. Commissioner Kerr served for seven and a half years and received no compensation for that, and he has to be recognized for his service to the city."
Kerr did not return a call for comment.
No successor has been named, but Laffey said that a search for Kerr's replacement would begin immediately.
Kerr is a Long Beach native, but has not lived in the city in several years. He now lives in Suffolk County, but operates a business, Fire Command, in Long Beach. He is also the executive vice president of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce.
According to several City Hall sources, a protest was planned by several firefighters for Tuesday night's City Council meeting if Kerr did not resign by then. None occurred.
As fire commissioner, Kerr is responsible for the day-to-day administrative operations of the department, which consists of 24 professional firefighters and more than 150 volunteers. His many responsibilities included signing off on the city's contract with the Uniformed Firefighters' Association, the union that represents the paid firefighters, approving all new members, and arranging for the department's bills to be paid by the city.
The rift between Kerr and his chiefs began over bills. According to several of the department's officers, some bills had gone unpaid for several months, prompting vendors to refuse to return equipment to the department when it was repaired.
While several fire department officials cooperated with the reporting of this story, only one allowed his statements to be printed, and only then without direct attribution.
"We were 140 days behind to the garage door people," said the fire department official, referring to a company that had fixed the garage bay door on the department's West Chester Street headquarters.
Repairs done on one of the department's rescue watercraft had also not been paid for, according to the official. "The boat bill was about a year [behind] and was about $600."
One of the radios in a chief's truck was repaired, but, according to the department official, the vendor refused to return the radio to the department. "I don't know how long we were in arrears to them, other than that they wouldn't release the repaired radio because we owed them money," the official said, adding that the radio was held by the vendor for about two months.
The bad blood had been building for years, several in the department said, pointing to the death of Chris DeFilippo, who had served as the commanding officer of the uniformed force until he died in 2003, as the beginning of a power vacuum.
"The day-to-day operations of the fire department - you know, paying the bills, ordering the supplies, making the payroll - were delegated to that position by the commissioner, so [Kerr] really didn't have to do anything. ... With Chris being an ex-chief, he had a lot of knowledge of this stuff," the official said.
"To be honest, when Kerr was made commissioner in 1999, it was an improvement. Things get stagnant, and he was a breath of fresh air. But he was very inactive. He didn't live in town, and he continued to keep that out-of-touch way about him."
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