James Gartland, San Diego’s lifeguard chief since 2018 and a fixture in the department for three decades, is no longer a city employee, city officials confirmed. Officials have not disclosed why he’s no longer on the job.<\/p>\n
City spokesperson Nicole Darling confirmed Gartland’s departure in an email to NBC 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot comment on personnel matters. I can confirm that James Gartland is no longer an employee of the City of San Diego,\u201d said Darling. <\/p>\n
Darling said Deputy Chief Dan Eddy will serve as interim lifeguard chief. Eddy currently oversees all emergency and special operations for San Diego Fire-Rescue, including the Lifeguard Division.<\/p>\n
NBC 7 also contacted the San Diego City Attorney’s Office about Gartland’s departure to which they responded they had no comment. <\/p>\n
In a separate email, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office said:<\/p>\n
“Generally, we can’t comment on whether there is an open investigation of any nature.”<\/p>\n
NBC 7 reached out to Gartland at his Clairemont home, but no one came to the door.<\/p>\n
Gartland had been lifeguard chief since 2018 and spent three decades with the department. He was a strong proponent of water safety and was often at the forefront of holiday beach safety campaigns.<\/p>\n
Gartland’s son, West, spoke to NBC 7 after conferring with his father. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor the family this is a shocking and confusing time,” said West.<\/p>\n
West also said he hopes to better explain the situation in time.<\/p>\n
NBC 7 obtained a letter Fire Chief Robert Logan sent to all personnel Monday announcing the interim leadership change. <\/p>\n
\u201cEffective immediately, Deputy Chief Dan Eddy will serve as interim Lifeguard Chief,” according to the letter, “The Divisions existing organizational structure, assignments and operational responsibilities will remain in place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gartland’s absence was noticeable during a mass rescue operations training exercise off Point Loma. His departure leaves San Diego’s Lifeguard Division under interim leadership after decades of service by its longtime chief.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Gartland, San Diego’s lifeguard chief since 2018 and a fixture in the department for three decades, is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":["post-487906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}