County Fire Chief Exits After 3 Years

After just three years as Ventura County’s top fire official, James Sewell is headed to Seattle.

His move launches the county’s fourth search in a decade for a new fire chief.

“We’ve got to find someone who feels like this is their job for life,” said county Supervisor Frank Schillo.

By unanimous vote Monday, the Seattle City Council confirmed Sewell’s nomination by Mayor Norman B. Rice, who had picked his new chief from a nationwide pool of 61 candidates.

Sewell, 48, will represent Seattle this weekend at an annual meeting of the Metro Fire Chiefs Assn. His first day in the office is May 27.

Ventura County Chief Administrative Officer Lin Koester said he will announce Sewell’s interim replacement by the end of the week. The scope of the county’s search for a permanent replacement has not been decided, he said.

If Supervisor John K. Flynn had his way, the county would waste no time or money on an exhaustive state or nationwide search. Flynn throws his full support behind Ventura County Deputy Fire Chief Bob Roper, 41, a 17-year department veteran and a 35-year county resident.

“I think Roper would fit the bill,” Flynn said.

Roper said he is interested in the job but that any speculation is premature.

The county needs to look both within and outside the department to find “the best fire chief in the whole state,” Schillo said. “If it’s Bob Roper, that’s fine, but we need to compare him to other people.”

Fire Capt. Ken Maffei, president of the roughly 375-member county firefighters union, said the union also hopes to see a replacement willing to stick around.

“It gets kind of old constantly shifting gears,” he said. “We’d like to see us get going in a direction, whatever that direction might be.”