Digital Extra: The Station Fire

01:00 AM EDT on Monday, May 31, 2004

BY ZACHARY R. MIDER
Journal Staff Writer

WEST WARWICK -- Denis P. Larocque, the local fire marshal responsible for inspecting The Station nightclub, logged at least 1,911 hours of overtime in the four years before the deadly fire there, according to a Providence Journal review of his overtime payments.

Larocque, a self-described "one-man fire prevention division," worked an average of at least nine hours of overtime per week, or the equivalent of 12 weeks of extra work per year.

The Town of West Warwick disclosed the payments earlier this month, in response to a Journal request, under the state Access to Public Records Law, that was filed more than eight months earlier.

Larocque logged the overtime inspecting buildings, reviewing construction plans, investigating the cause of fires, and filling in for regular-duty firefighters who were out, according to Town Manager Wolfgang Bauer and Fire Chief Charles D. Hall.

Asked whether the numbers indicated Larocque was stretched thin during the period before the Station fire, Hall responded, "Is he stretched thin? My answer to that, quite bluntly, is, we're all stretched thin.

"We're all being asked to do an awful lot." he said. "It's part of the mission that's before us."

Hall said the situation had nothing to do with the unsafe conditions at The Station. "Denis didn't miss anything" at The Station, he said. "Denis is very accurate, very conscientious, very thorough."

Asked whether The Station was in full compliance with the fire code, Hall said, "I'm not going to comment any further on that."

The Station burned to the ground on Feb. 20 last year, killing 100 people. Six weeks before, Larocque had complained in a letter that his office was "severely understaffed" and called himself a "one-man fire prevention division."

"It becomes difficult at times to handle all inspections, investigations, plan review and public education duties in a timely manner," Larocque wrote on Jan. 6, 2003. Larocque, 48, declined to comment for this story.

A few months before the Station fire, the Town Council approved a plan to train another firefighter to become an assistant fire marshal. The firefighter completed the training shortly before the fire, and began work soon afterward.

Even with the assistant, the fire-prevention office reported that it was unable to catch up on its backlog of work, and the Fire Department assigned a third firefighter to the office last October. The third inspector stayed in the office until this month.

"We'd been talking about adding an [inspector] for a couple, three years, not because we thought there was any problem with the inspection process, but because we had a problem with the [construction] plan review process," said Bauer, the town manager.

"Because of the council's desire to keep the tax rate low and so on, there wasn't a lot of money. We weren't creating new positions."

Bauer said he never heard any complaints from Larocque about his workload. "Denis never complains about anything. He's not a complaining type of person," said Hall, the fire chief.

Before the fire, in addition to his fire-prevention duties, Larocque had been on the "callback" list to fill in for other officers who were out sick or on vacation. Last fall, Hall said, he removed Larocque from the list to give him more time to devote to his normal duties.

SINCE THE STATION fire, many survivors and relatives of victims have asked how the flammable foam glued to the walls of the nightclub could have gone unnoticed or unreported by local inspectors, despite annual inspections.

Most of the handful of lawsuits filed so far by the fire's victims have accused the Town of West Warwick, and Larocque specifically, of negligence. More lawsuits are expected. The town maintains it is not at fault, and has pledged to vigorously defend against the suits.

In December, a statewide grand jury indicted Jeffrey A. and Michael A. Derderian, the club's owners, and Daniel M. Biechele, the road manager for the band Great White, on charges of involuntary manslaughter. All three pleaded not guilty.

Part of the state's case against the Derderians hinges on the claim that they violated the state fire code by installing the flammable foam on the walls.

Although Larocque was frequently late in completing construction plan reviews and other tasks, Bauer said, he never let his workload affect the quality of fire inspections.

"I'm not aware that he had gigantic problems. I was aware he was working hard, working a lot of hours, but not to the point where it ever came to [saying] 'I'm not going to do this anymore,' " Bauer said. "The guy is about as professional as you can get.

"I never thought there was a problem with the inspection process. I've always thought the problem we had was a customer-service problem."

The Station fire prompted Governor Carcieri to order a statewide inspection blitz of nightclubs and other places of assembly. In May 2003, The Journal reported that West Warwick had conducted fewer of those inspections than any other community with as many residents or as many places to inspect.

At the time, Bauer said the apparently slow pace was because Larocque's new assistant was not fully trained, and because the inspectors were focusing on thoroughness rather than on attaining a high volume of inspections.

THE JOURNAL requested information about Larocque's work schedule last September. By law, the town had 10 days to hand over the records, deny the request, or ask for more time.

In a letter, Town Solicitor Timothy A. Williamson, who is also a Democratic state representative, offered the "gross amount" of overtime that Larocque worked, but then did not disclose it. (He said later that the offer was a "misprint.")

The request languished until last month, when, in response to repeated requests, Williamson disclosed the total amount of overtime payments Larocque collected over a six-year period, but not the requested year-by-year breakdown.

Finally, after demands from The Journal's lawyer, the town disclosed that Larocque collected $14,537.19 in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1998, $15,985.23 in fiscal 1999, $15,363.14 in fiscal 2000, $13,810.65 in fiscal 2001, and $17,369.06 in fiscal 2002.

Larocque was appointed fire marshal in May 1998, according to a separate town record.

From July 2002 to June 2003, the period before and after the fire, he collected $26,446.57 in overtime, the town said. It cannot be learned from the town's disclosure how much of that overtime was logged in the days after the fire, when Larocque poked through the rubble and assisted with the investigation.

According to other overtime records, only two other town employees -- both police officers -- collected more overtime payments than Larocque did that year.

Citing a four-page opinion from Joe Gaeta, a special assistant attorney general, the town denied The Journal's requests for more specific information about Larocque's overtime work, including hours worked and a week-by-week breakdown of overtime payments.

The Access to Public Records Law requires disclosure of the "gross amount received in overtime" by a public employee. Gaeta concluded that the framers of the law did not intend for the information "to be disclosed in a manner that could lead to a determination of a work schedule or any other information not specifically deemed public by the General Assembly."

The Journal calculated the hours logged using the formula for overtime in Larocque's union contract -- the worker's base salary times 1.5. By contract, Larocque's base salary this year is $50,536.

Zachary Mider can be reached at 277-8068 or zmider [at] projo.com