(a) The Department of Public Safety shall be organized under at least three divisions, which shall include the Division of Police, the Division of Fire and the Division of Housing and Building. Council may establish other divisions within the department.
(b) Unless Council creates the office of Director of Public Safety and establishes the salary of such officer, the Mayor shall be ex officio the Director of Public Safety. The director shall make all necessary rules and regulations for the government of the department and the divisions thereof. The director shall enforce all police, fire, health, safety, and sanitary regulations that may be prescribed by ordinances or rules of the City or by general law.
(c) The Divisions of Police and Fire shall each be under the charge of a chief, and the Division of Housing and Building shall be under the charge of a commissioner. Each division shall be further composed of such officers and employees as may be provided by ordinance. In case of disaster, riot, conflagration or epidemic the Mayor may appoint additional police officers, firefighters or other officers and employees for temporary service.
(d) The chief, commissioner or inspector of each division shall have exclusive control of the assignment of duties and stationing of all other officers and employees of the division, under such rules and regulations as the Director of Public Safety may prescribe.
(e) The chiefs or commissioners of all divisions shall have the exclusive right to suspend any of the officers or employees in their respective divisions who are under their management and control, for incompetence, gross neglect of duty, gross immorality, habitual drunkenness, failure to obey orders given by the proper authority, or for any other just and reasonable cause. If any officer or employee is suspended, as herein provided, the chief of the division concerned shall forthwith in writing certify the fact, together with the cause for the suspension, to the Director of Public Safety, who within five days from the receipt thereof shall proceed to inquire into the cause of such suspension and render judgment thereon, which judgment, if the charge be sustained, may be suspension, reduction in rank, or dismissal, and such judgment in the matter shall be final, except as otherwise hereinafter provided. The Director of Public Safety, in any such investigation, may administer oaths and secure the attendance of witnesses, and the production of books and papers.
(f) The Director of Public Safety shall have the exclusive right to suspend the chief, commissioner, or inspector of any division for incompetence, gross neglect of duty, gross immorality, habitual drunkenness, failure to obey orders given by the proper authority, or for any other just and reasonable cause. If the chief of police or fire, the commissioner of housing and building, or the head of any other division within the department is so suspended, the Director of Public Safety shall forthwith certify the fact, together with the cause of such suspension, to the Civil Service Commission, which within five days from the date of the receipt of such notice shall proceed to hear such charges and render judgment thereon, which judgment shall be final.
(g) Any person in the police, fire, or housing and building division, or any other division within the department, who is suspended, reduced in rank or dismissed, may appeal from such decision to the Civil Service Commission within ten (10) days from and after the date of such suspension, reduction or dismissal. In such event the Director of Public Safety shall, upon notice from the Commission of such appeal, forthwith transmit to the Commission a copy of the charges and proceedings thereunder, and the Commis-sion. shall hear such appeal within ten (10) days from and after the filing of the same with the Commission, and may affirm, disaffirm or modify the judgment; and its judgment in the matter shall be final.
(Ord. 38-17. Passed 6-18-2018.)