WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — There's a new chief at the Warner Robins fire department, but Ned Dixon's actual title is interim fire chief. The city has been without a permanent chief for about 10 months now.
Chief Dixon has been with WRFD for nearly 18 years. In that time, he's held many titles.
"I started out as a firefighter and from there transferred over to the training division," he said.
Most recently he served as the chief of the training division. Monday night Warner Robins council appointed him as the Interim Fire Chief.
"We did have a candidate selected to be our permanent Fire Chief," Mayor LaRhonda Patrick said.
The candidate was not from the Warner Robins area and had his move and start date planned soon.
"We were expecting to appoint him this meeting and he start May 15," Mayor Patrick said.
She says due to family reasons he has to rescind his acceptance.
"My hope is a month and a half to have that person or at least the top two candidates identified, so then we can do the transition process, which usually is at least 30 days," Patrick shared.
In the meantime, Dixon has several goals as the interim chief.
"Reducing our ISO rating. Looking to get our department up to full staff with our new hires and recruits. We've got a large group that we're interviewing over the next week, so that will take some of the burden off, hopefully, and continue to grow the department — provide the best service to the community," he said.
Mayor Patrick says they likely will select someone that is outside of Warner Robins. The city paid a consultant company $24,500 to find a permanent chief. They were hired to help through March of this year.
Patrick says they're looking into six other candidate recommendations.
There was another big leadership announcement that came out of city council Monday night. Leaders appointed Gary Todd Edwards as the new Assistant Police Chief. He was a former Warner Robins Police Captain. He worked over special operations.
"He's known throughout the state as a phenomenal officer. He does special operations. He's our guy," Patrick said.