Essay Portion of Fire Dept. Exam Is Thrown Out

The Los Angeles Civil Service Commission threw out the essay portion of a promotional exam for fire captain Friday after concluding there is ample circumstantial evidence that the exam was compromised by questions leaked in advance to test takers.

And in a surprising disclosure, commission President Raymond C. Fisher stated that four battalion chiefs who examined the allegations had concluded that information passed to some students before the Jan. 10 exam was so specific as to defy coincidence.

The stormy, emotional commission hearing before an audience of about 150 centered on the activities of Fire Capt. Russell Weck, who has been accused of leaking test information to firefighters enrolled in his private school that tutors firefighters for promotional tests.

Despite the “pain and hardship” for the 460 firefighters who will have to study for and retake the captain’s exam, Fisher said the essay portion of the exam must be canceled because “on balance, the integrity of this exam is quite clouded.”

City Hall observers said they cannot remember when the commission last canceled a written exam for apparent improprieties.

After heated presentations by speakers addressing both the exam and Weck’s school, known as Weck Tech, the commissioners passed a motion expressing strong reservations about the school and stating their intention to meet with fire officials to discuss their objections.

While acknowledging that Weck has provided valuable tutoring for scores of department firefighters, commissioners said they were concerned about his school’s close relationship with the Fire Department.

“There seems to me to be an awful lot of Fire Department participation in selecting certain people (to attend Weck Tech) and weeding out others,” Commissioner Alan V. Friedman said.

The four commissioners who were present Friday appeared to be unified in their concerns about the school’s selectivity and in their belief that the integrity of the recent captain’s exam had been compromised by charges about Weck’s behavior.

Five firefighters, who were among the 61 enrollees in a Weck training program for the captain’s exam, either walked out of the test or finished the test and later reported perceived exam improprieties to city officials.

Two said they stopped in the middle of the test to protest when they discovered four essay questions that they believed Weck had given them on the phone the day before. The four questions were worth 39.5% of the examination.

A joint investigation by the Personnel and Fire departments concluded there was no evidence of wrongdoing, but a report by the personnel staff cited certain “unexplained events” and “nagging questions” that had caused a loss of confidence in the integrity of the exam.

Those doubts cited in the report were reinforced at Friday’s hearing when Commissioner Fisher disclosed conclusions that had been reached about the matter by four battalion chiefs.

Reading from a confidential attachment to the Personnel Department report, Fisher quoted four battalion chiefs--Rodger Gillis, James O’Neill, Richard Jioras, Randy Wallace--as having stated, respectively:

--The “degree of knowledge is so specific that it would cause concern.”

--The “information was too selective to be coincidence.”

--Some of the details were “too much of a coincidence.”

--The information about certain questions was “so specific as to defy coincidence.”

Fisher’s disclosure followed a speech supporting the exam by Kenneth Buzzell, vice president of the United Firefighters union. He contended that the Personnel Department report had found no evidence of impropriety and that he was “at a loss to understand why” the exam should be canceled when there appeared to be “no rational reason” for it.

Buzzell was one of about dozen speakers, which included Weck, his wife, his students and the two firemen who walked out of the test.

Weck reviewed the 14-year history of his school, where tuition is $2,300 a student, and explained his exhaustive teaching methods. He stated that his “last-minute phone calls” were made to some of his students who had missed the final day of class.

He said he remembers telling them, “‘This is what we reviewed. . . . I just rattled off things.”

He concluded by telling the commission: “Shut down my program . . . so be it, but I think you’re doing a disservice to the Fire Department and to the city of Los Angeles. But whatever your decision, I humbly stand by it.” His remarks were loudly applauded.

Weck did not attack the firemen who made the allegations, but his supporters lashed out at the two inspectors, Andy Valencia and Steven Vizcaino, who protested the test by walking out.

Retired Capt. Jake Addison, who said Weck has contributed more than any other man to the Fire Department, criticized Valencia and Vizcaino as acting “immature, childish and babyish.”

Both firemen, who had not planned to speak, finally stepped to the microphone and repeated the charges they had made to investigators about phone calls they had received from Weck giving them specific information about four essay questions on the test.

“I wish I had never been given that phone call,” Valencia said. “I wish I had never been thrust into that situation.” He said it would have been “against my conscience . . . had I not reported this obvious breach.”

Commissioner Friedman said he was “impressed with the honesty” of the two firemen and made a motion to cancel the test because “there’s just too high a probability the test was compromised.”

Commissioner Casimiro U. Tolentino then proposed that the commission “meet and discuss” with fire officials “the role that the coaching school known as Weck Tech plays in training of Fire Department employees.”

In summing up the board’s concerns about Weck Tech, Fisher said:

“I find its exclusivity and close, symbiotic relationship (with the Fire Department) to be very troublesome. . . . There’s a merit system being imposed within the department separate and apart from the Civil Service system . . . that is based ultimately on the subject judgment of Capt. Weck.”