The city of Northport will soon wrap up a yearlong investigation into discord in its fire department, Mayor Donna Aaron said Monday night.
City leaders have said the division in the department stems from internal disagreements over union representation, training standards, overtime rules and more, but they have been hesitant to discuss any of those issues at length, citing the privacy rights of their employees.
Last August, Aaron issued a memo to all firefighters telling them to find a way to end their “infighting, division and pettiness” and essentially ordering them to cooperate with an investigation conducted by city administrator Bruce Higginbotham and a committee consisting of three former chiefs of the Northport Fire Rescue department.