Paul Bass Photo
Wright in his office Wednesday afternoon.
Fire Chief Allyn Wright will become former Chief Wright next month — and head to a new home out west.
Wright officially gave notice to Mayor Toni Harp Wednesday that he will step down from his position as of Jan. 4.
Wright’s pending retirement has been an open secret for months, ever since a for-sale sign appeared on the front lawn of his East Shore home. Harp tried to talk him into staying, as did Chief Administrative Officer Mike Carter.
Mayor Toni Harp has not yet decided on details of a search for a replacement, according to spokesman Laurence Grotheer. Assistant Chief Matt Marcarelli fills in for Wright when he’s out of town.
In Wright’s one year and ten months in the job, he handled a cascade of controversies and sought to modernize the department.
He said in an interview in his office Thursday afternoon that he leaves with a sense of accomplishment.
“I wasn’t here to win any popularity contests,” he said. “You know how you flip a house? I tried to flip the fire department.”
Chief among those accomplishments was the reining in of overtime costs, he said. It’s a continuing process. The city has spent about $2.5 million less in fire overtime so far this year than during the same period a year before, according to Mayor Harp. The city had been spending over $300,000 a week, according to Chief Administrative Officer Mike Carter. He said under Wright the department has cut that figure to around $80,000 a week. The total figure for November was $348,638 compared to $662,284 a year earlier.
He did that primarily by hiring 122 new firefighters and promoting 80 members of the department.
Wright said he’s also proud of the initiative he set in motion to modernize all firehouses in town over the next three years. So far the deaprtment has replaced the HVAC system in the Dixwell firehouse on Goffe Street; he said that hadn’t been done in 40 years.
Fire Commission President Eldren Morrison said he’s sorry to see Wright go.
“He has done an amazing in the short amount of time he has been chief,” Morrison said.
Wright said he is returning to his job as a private investigator, a position he held before returning to New Haven’s department as chief. He said he will work for a company called Intelligence Options; he worked for a previous iteration of that company, KBTF. He said he also has a upcoming gig in Nigeria helping local fire departments reorganize.
He plans to move, probably in the spring, to a home he has purchased outside Scottsdale, Arizona. Before that, he plans to help Mayor Harp with the transition, he said. Given the department’s politicking and ever-shifting factional rivalries, that could be a messy task.
Let the chaos begin.