Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : CITIES : 2nd Choice for Post to Become Fire Chief

A new fire chief for the City of Santa Ana was chosen, three weeks after the city’s first choice was rejected because he had lied on his application.

Allen R. (Bud) Carter, a Long Beach deputy fire chief, was selected to head the Santa Ana Fire Department at a $77,457-a-year salary, the fifth-highest salary among the city’s top managers. He will head Orange County’s second-largest fire department and administer a $17-million yearly budget.

“I’m looking forward to the opportunity of working in Santa Ana,” Carter said in a telephone interview from his Huntington Beach home.

Carter was selected after Gary W. Schmitz of San Carlos was withdrawn from consideration for having lied about having a bachelor’s degree. Schmitz, who was allowed to keep his job as chief of the South County Fire Protection Authority in San Mateo County, was fined $5,000 by officials there.

In conversations with Santa Ana City Manager David Ream, Carter said, he had discussed the similarities between Santa Ana and Long Beach, both multiethnic communities undergoing change and redevelopment.

“We did talk about the community development that has taken place in Santa Ana and the need for close support from all sections of the community regardless of the ethnicity,” Carter said.