The Paducah City Commission unanimously voted during a marathon-length special called meeting Friday to fire a captain in the Paducah Fire Department who also leads the local firefighters union. During the meeting – which lasted over nine hours – his attorneys suggested the hearing on whether to terminate his employment was motivated by retaliation.
The all-day affair centered on whether Nathan Torian’s actions in recent months, coupled with his discipline history, were grounds for termination. Ultimately, the city commission found Torian guilty on six of the nine charges he faced during the public hearing.
Torian – who had been with PFD for over two decades – testified that he felt targeted by the fire chief and other officials for raising safety concerns about the promotion of a fellow firefighter and for other actions he’s taken in his capacity as a union representative.
“I've been provoked. I've been treated awful. I'm being retaliated against. Some of the testimony that I have heard today about myself – those people wearing that uniform [who testified against him] are disgracing this city. I don't disgrace the city, and I never would,” Torian said.
Peter Jannace, one of the attorneys representing Torian, implied during closing arguments that Torian’s role as president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 168 – a position he’s held since 2017 – played a part in the city seeking to fire him.
“You have to ask yourself, if you think that this is motivated by retaliation – filing a lawsuit and his other union advocacy – well, then yes, this is the city's chance to avoid what happens next,” Jannace said. “If you think that [retaliation] is what motivated this, then that is not only insufficient grounds to terminate Nathan's employment, it is also unlawful.”
The charges that Torian faced stemmed from four separate incidents he was involved with earlier this year:
- Referring to a Paducah Fire Department employee by the wrong rank while responding to a call in the field
- Leaving a voicemail with a state supreme court justice about the lawsuit Torian is involved in against PFD and the city
- In his role as a union leader, staying at a meeting where he was told union representation for another firefighter was not entitled to be present
- Asking to remotely join a local Area Maritime Security Committee meeting when PFD leaders say he was not asked to attend
Misranking a PFD leader
One of the primary focuses of the day was Torian referring to another Paducah Fire Department employee by the wrong title while responding to a large water leak in June at Paducah’s Jackson House, an apartment complex for elderly and disabled residents.
Jeffrey Mando, an attorney representing the city in this hearing, argued that Torian deliberately mistitled April Tinsman – who was promoted in December to the rank of battalion chief – when the union leader levied concerns over her promotion to the city commission.
Prior to her promotion, Tinsman served as a deputy fire marshal for around 10 years.
PFD employees explained that, when responding to an incident, the highest-ranking officer who first arrives at the scene assumes the role of incident command and leads coordination efforts. According to the PFD chain of command, being promoted to battalion chief allows Tinsman to assume incident command before anyone else outside of the chief and deputy chiefs. Torian said he had concerns about her training related to being able to lead certain types of scenes – because he said Tinsman lacks some official certifications in the firefighting field required for other leadership roles in PFD – which he raised to the Paducah City Commission.
Torian was issued a verbal warning earlier this year for breaking chain of command by taking his concerns about Tinsman’s promotion, and safety implications it could carry, to the mayor and city commissioners. He was also suspended for three days in 2024.
When responding to the water issue at Jackson House, Torian referred to Tinsman as a deputy fire marshal when speaking over the firefighter radio system, not her current role of battalion chief. Torian testified that he did not intentionally misrank her, and said he would not "blatantly disrespect” Tinsman in that way.
Paducah Fire Chief Steve Kyle testified that no other employee at the department has been reprimanded for using the wrong rank to refer to another person during his tenure. Several firefighters also testified that they did not believe Torian deliberately referred to Tinsman by the wrong title.
The city commission found Torian guilty of “exhibiting rudeness and impoliteness to Tinsman by referring to her by a lower rank.” However, he was found not guilty of exhibiting disrespect and insubordination to Tinsman and of engaging in a dispute with her.
A lawsuit against the city, and a phone call to a supreme court judge
The local firefighter union president is also involved in a lawsuit filed in 2021 against the City of Paducah over a residency rule requiring firefighters to live within a 45-minute drive time of PFD’s Station 4. The Kentucky Supreme Court heard oral arguments in that case in August.
Nine days after oral arguments, Supreme Court Justice Shea Nickell – who’s from Paducah – filed a disclosure stating that Torian had left him a voicemail mentioning the lawsuit. Torian testified that he called wanting to know when the Local 168 could expect the state supreme court to issue its ruling.
Jannace, Torian’s attorney, said that kind of ex parte communication would be allowed under judicial ethical guidelines. However, Mando argued that the call could also be seen as Torian trying to sway a judge to rule in his favor.
Kyle said Torian calling a judge about this case he’s involved in qualified as “conduct unbecoming” under the city’s ethics ordinance. The fire department head said that voicemail was part of the reason he recommended the city fire Torian.
In relation to the voicemail to Nickell, Torian was found guilty of “disgracing the City of Paducah and City of Paducah Fire Department by attempting to engage in inappropriate and unethical ex parte communications” with the judge and of engaging in improper conduct.
Attorney says witness not entitled to union representation, but local IAFF leaders disagree
Torian’s conduct while trying to accompany another union member in a June meeting with the City of Paducah’s attorney, who was investigating allegations of verbal harassment against the fire chief, was also litigated on Friday.
Stacey Blankenship, who typically acts as the City of Paducah’s attorney but is not employed by the local government, testified that she was asked to investigate accusations that Kyle verbally harassed firefighter Hunter Matlock in 2024 over alleged uniform violations. Matlock asked Torian and two other union leaders to accompany him to the meeting with the city attorney and the city’s human resources director Stefanie Wilcox. However, Blankenship said, because Matlock was a witness and was not the subject of the disciplinary investigation, he was not entitled to union representation for their meeting. After some back and forth discussion, Torian and the other union leaders left.
A significant portion of questions that attorneys asked on Friday centered on whether Torian and the other two union representatives were ordered to leave the meeting, and whether Torian was being insubordinate by staying in the meeting space despite Blankenship and Wilcox saying that union representatives were not entitled to be there.
Torian and the other two union leaders filed a grievance the following day over not being able to stay in the meeting to represent Matlock.
Torian was the only person from that meeting that the fire department has pursued disciplinary action against, though Wilcox said the other two union leaders at that meeting could also be disciplined.
The city commission found Torian guilty of engaging in impoliteness and rudeness toward Wilcox in relation to this incident.
Asking to attend AMSC meeting against alleged prior orders
The city also accused Torian of violating orders from his higher-ups when he called a member of the local Area Maritime Security Committee – a group of federal, state and local stakeholders that the U.S. Coast Guard brings together regularly to discuss security on the waters around the port of Paducah – and asked to join an August meeting remotely.
David Denton, a PFD deputy chief, testified that though he sometimes asked Torian to go to those meetings in his place, Torian was not to attend unless Denton instructed him to.
Torian refuted that, saying that he and Denton sometimes went to those meetings together and that Denton said Torian should be in the know with what the AMSC does because of his role leading PFD’s water rescue group.
Torian was found guilty by the city commission for insubordination and engaging in a dispute against Denton for trying to remotely attend this meeting. However, the commission said he was not guilty of “acting rudely by interrupting the AMSC meeting” – which a representative of the group testified had not started yet when Torian called.
The city commission’s vote to terminate Torian was effective immediately.
The public hearing can be watched on WPSD Local 6’s website.
