Fire Division Chief Phil King, who alongside former Fire Division Chief Edward Bozzo sued the City of Gilroy for what they alleged was unpaid overtime and agreed to drop the lawsuit last month if the City paid some of their court costs, has retired from the ranks of the Gilroy Fire Department.
King’s last day with the GFD was Dec. 19, according to City Human Resources Director LeeAnn McPhillips, and he first started with the GFD Feb. 17, 2003.
King collected an annual salary of $180,232 up until his retirement, City records show.
Bozzo and King’s lawsuit – in which they claimed they were cheated out of a combined $30,000 in overtime pay – is still on its way to dismissal as both parties have agreed to a settlement outside of court, McPhillips confirmed.
As of Monday, dismissal paperwork was not yet filed with the court, but she said Bozzo and King offered in December to dismiss their appeal if the City paid just over $2,200 – the costs both former division chiefs paid to file their appeal.
To fill King’s role as Division Chief of the Emergency Medical Services segment of the GFD, Fire Chief Alan Anderson and the City have begun the recruitment process.
“The Gilroy Fire Department has a lot to offer, so we want to look nationwide to get the best person possible,” said GFD Chief Alan Anderson. “The process itself will take several months, and if everything goes according to plan, we’ll be able to fill that position in three to four months.”
In the meantime, the GFD has tasked two fire captains, who are both trained to “act up” as interim duty chief, with filling King’s position.
Anderson said he couldn’t draw a correlation between the settlement of the lawsuit and King’s retirement.
“Retirement is a very personal thing for folks,” he added. “(King) had shared with me that he had evaluated a lot of different things from where he was at in his career to family situations. I don’t think it’s just one thing that led to his retirement.”
“He was coming up on the right number of years to retire and I think he had a chance to evaluate his continued employment with his family – and at that point he decided he wanted to retire,” Anderson continued.
King was in charge of the department’s paramedics, and the GFD has high expectations for someone who is interested in filling the position once the recruitment process has finished.
“When you’re anywhere for 11 years, you accumulate a lot of knowledge,” he said. “Someone coming in is going to have to hit the ground running. We’re losing (King’s) expertise in the short-term, but in the long haul, we’ll be able to get somebody in there who will be able to replicate that expertise.”
