Mayor-elect Jim Kenney has named temporary placements to three high-level city positions, including Fire Commissioner Derrick Sawyer, while he completes a national search for his final picks.
Aside from 30-year Fire Department veteran Sawyer being named Acting Fire Commissioner, Kenney selected the current chief of staff to the Commissioner of the Department of Human Service, Jessica Shapiro, the Acting Commissioner of that department and Mike Resnick will serve as the Acting Prisons Commissioner.
Currently Resnick is the Director of Public Safety, a position he has held since 2011.
Sawyer, 18 months into his current job, replaced former Commissioner Lloyd Ayers. During his first year running the 2,100 member department, Sawyer dealt with the loss of a firefighter – the first woman in the department to die on duty, and at least 25 fire incidents in 2014, including a blaze over July 4th that killed several children and a deadly food truck explosion that same month. This year, his team was among the first responders to handle the Amtrak train derailment that claimed eight lives.
