Interim police Chief Ta to lead fire department during Vallejo fire chief ‘absence’

VALLEJO – Interim Vallejo Police Chief Jason Ta will lead both the fire department and the police department due to Fire Chief Kyle Long’s absence, according to Vallejo Fire Department spokesperson Kevin Brown.

“Our command staff is going to continue to manage the daily operations. So our services to our citizens won't be impacted by any of this,” Brown said. “We're not at liberty to discuss the specifics regarding Chief Long's absence.” 

Ta took over leadership of the department on Thursday and city leaders will meet to discuss how to assist Ta in managing the fire department next week, according to Brown. 

“So what that's going to look like is the command staff, our battalion chiefs, they run each of our daily shifts, they'll get together with city leadership and Ta, and they'll divvy up some of the other responsibilities amongst themselves,” Brown said “So that way, everything continues as smoothly as possible.”

This is not the first time a police chief has taken on leadership of the Fire Department in Vallejo, Brown said. Former Police Chief Robert Nichelini took over as interim Chief of the department while the department searched for a new chief, he said.

“It happens, right, you might get a chief of a smaller city department and then they get offered a position with a bigger city or at another department. And they leave pretty abruptly,”  Brown said. However, he gave no indication that this is the reason for Chief Long’s absence. 

He added that it is common for a chief of either public safety department, police or fire, to step in when one department has a leadership vacancy. 

“There's a lot of similarities,” Brown said. “We share a dispatch center so overseeing that remains the same, the way that 911 calls come in and are managed – there's a certain level of expertise that we share.”