Fire Chief’s Suspension Upheld by Commission : Civic affairs: Westminster Merit System Commission approves city’s right to discipline D’Wayne Scott for refusing to submit to psychological evaluation.

Embattled Fire Chief D’Wayne Scott was ordered Tuesday to remain on administrative leave until further notice, after a personnel commission upheld the City Council’s authority to suspend him for refusal to submit to a psychological evaluation.

After months of special hearings, the city’s Merit System Commission concluded that the city did have the right to discipline Scott after he refused the fitness-for-duty examination.

The City Council subsequently voted unanimously Tuesday night to uphold that finding.

Scott’s attorney, Richard J. Silber, promised to challenge the city’s action in a lawsuit to be filed within 90 days in Orange County Superior Court.

The 51-year-old Scott was dismayed though not surprised by the council’s decision.

“The findings of the commission are disappointing,” he said outside the council chambers. “They were presented with overwhelming evidence (about the law on such evaluations) that more than offset the challenges and allegations of the city. . . .

“I’ve been instructed by the city manager that I’m on leave until further notice.”

Scott has been on paid leave since last May, after he refused to submit to the council’s directive to have a psychological evaluation. The test was ordered to determine whether alcohol abuse was affecting his job performance as some Fire Department subordinates had alleged.

Those allegations surfaced last spring after Scott became the only Orange County fire chief to refuse the Los Angeles Fire Department’s plea for reinforcements on the first night of rioting April 29. The City Council voted to override Scott’s decision the following day, and a team of Westminster firefighters worked on rotating shifts in the riot zone through May 1.

At the time, Scott said he was concerned for the safety of his firefighters.

“You have to be assured your personnel would be protected,” Scott said in an interview last May. “What I saw from monitoring TV all that day, the beatings and the lootings, looked to me like a very unsafe situation.”

On Tuesday night, Scott said he wouldn’t apologize for his decision. “I would do the same thing again,” he said. “I was asked to send men to something I didn’t think they were prepared for.”

When the allegations of Scott’s drinking first surfaced after the riots, the council ordered him to undergo a fitness evaluation. He refused, citing it as an invasion of his privacy. The council countered by placing him on suspension for 20 days.

Scott sued the city, and on July 30, a Superior Court judge referred the matter to the city’s three-member Merit Commission. The commission launched its hearings last Aug. 8, and concluded them on Jan. 18. In a report summing up their findings after more than 100 hours of testimony, the commissioners upheld the city’s actions against Scott.

Scott, who gave 12 hours of testimony over three days during the lengthy hearings, said he hoped to challenge the decision to a “higher authority.”

“I will talk to my attorney about going to Superior Court to have a higher authority . . . decide what the state law is. . . . That’s the only avenue I’ve got.”