“Toxic” culture alleged as longtime Farmington Fire leaders step down in San Joaquin County
By Charlie Lapastora
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SACRAMENTO (KOVR) — Barry Hickerson has more than four decades of experience as a paramedic and worked as an EMS chief for 12 years for Farmington Fire in San Joaquin County. That is, until a few weeks ago, when he tendered his resignation after seeing his Battalion Chief Conni Bailey and Assistant Chief John Kalebaugh also resign.
Hickerson worked closely with both of them and said he talked to Bailey on Wednesday. Bailey’s been with the department for 34 years, and Kalebaugh for 25 years.
“It was tragic to see what happened to them,” Hickerson said. “I mean, the chief should’ve left with a retirement party, not being kicked to the curb. When you do that, when you have a small community like that and these people are connected and have been there for two or three decades, when you see that happen to one or two of them, the other ones are affected gravely.”
Hickerson said he thinks the “community is heartbroken” and told CBS News Sacramento why he decided to leave, as well, claiming there were “oppressive” conditions.
“I think anybody, you just couldn’t work under those conditions where somebody is oppressive. They’re over your shoulder every day, micromanaging what you’re doing, and just talking negatively about them every day, so it was just very challenging to see,” Hickerson said. “I wound up turning in my resignation after they did, given what the department was left with, I didn’t feel the department was safe to function as a firefighter or EMS responder.”
Two captains and a majority of volunteer firefighters also left, according to Hickerson.
“The community is left with now a couple of hopeful and willing probationary firefighters, but they have no senior members there now. They can’t even drive fire apparatus, so they had to have one of the board members that was involved in this, who was a former firefighter, I believe that he has his license to drive fire equipment,” Hickerson said.
This all came around six months after the board changed leadership, including a new board president, Jeff Briggs.
“It was the board’s decision to create that atmosphere that ran those leaders out,” Hickerson said. “They could’ve chose a different way to do it. If they wanted change, there’s definitely better ways to do it. But, literally, they created such a terrible atmosphere. They literally forced the hand of those fire executives to leave. And, believe me, that’s the last thing they wanted to do.”
Hickerson called the work environment “toxic.”
A San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors’ emergency meeting was recently held regarding a new ad-hoc committee looking into the Farmington Fire Department practices. Farmington Fire Board Vice President Jake Samuel represented the board at the meeting.
“At our last board meeting, after we presented that as a recommendation to move forward with the posting of that acting chief, is when we had some, guess you could say, distaste to the direction of where the board of directors was going with an acting chief, someone else from the outside of Farmington coming in and, hence, this is where we’re at today,” Samuel said. “But, we’re trying our hardest to make it right for our community.”
Samuel was appointed to the board in October 2025 and admitted they’ve had struggles.
“I live in the community,” Samuel said. “I want to make sure we have adequate coverage. That’s been the concern of a lot of the people in the area, to make sure we have that adequate coverage.”
Samuel also mentioned the board is looking to add someone outside of the fire district to help with the department administration work, including payroll and paying bills.
“The department ran fine,” Hickerson said. “Those individuals that lost their positions, they counted every dime in that place. There was no funny business, nothing. I mean, they ran that department tight. They never took an extra dollar out of it, and they did a great job year-after-year-after-year-after-year.”
The Farmington Fire board motioned to hire Collegeville’s chief, Vanessa Herrero, as their temporary emergency acting chief until they can find another acting chief while Conni Bailey’s son, Matt, who is Farmington’s Fire chief, is on disability leave.
Hickerson told CBS News Sacramento that if the situation were right, Bailey would come back.
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