Annapolis firefighters took a pair of hometown grievances all the way to Texas this week, and came home with two formal rebukes against local officials. Delegates at the International Association of Fire Fighters' biennial convention in Arlington voted to censure both Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Anne Colt Leitess and Annapolis Alderman Rob Savidge, capping years of friction over paramedic prosecutions and fire department staffing.
The two censure resolutions appeared on the convention's Wednesday agenda and were submitted by Annapolis Professional Firefighters IAFF Local 1926, which represents roughly 133 active and retired Annapolis firefighters, paramedics and officers, according to Eye On Annapolis. The 58th IAFF Biennial Convention ran from August 9 through 14 in Arlington, Texas, drawing delegates representing more than 365,000 firefighters and emergency medical workers from the United States and Canada, as reported by WRIC-TV. The gathering, held every two years, considered more than 62 resolutions in all, including a separate, high-profile censure of Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger.
A Paramedic's Prosecution and Its Aftermath
Resolution No. 66 formally censures Leitess over her office's 2023 prosecution of Bridgett Weiss, a former Annapolis firefighter-paramedic. Leitess charged Weiss with misconduct in office in February 2023 over patient-care documentation tied to a June 2021 emergency call, per the local 1926 resolution. The Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County dismissed the case, Leitess appealed that dismissal in July 2023, and Maryland's appellate courts ultimately upheld the dismissal, according to the same account.
Local 1926 says the prolonged prosecution contributed to Weiss leaving the Annapolis Fire Department altogether and created a chilling effect among emergency medical providers wary of having their field decisions second-guessed. Local 1926 President Joe Pilat said the union believed Weiss had been unfairly singled out, and that her case raised broader concerns about scrutiny of emergency medical decisions made in the field. The IAFF resolution directs that copies of the censure be distributed to government, political and labor organizations at the local, state and national level.
Leitess serves as Anne Arundel County's chief prosecutor overseeing Annapolis and has, in the years since the Weiss case, assisted state and federal agencies on major local financial crime and homicide investigations, including cases previously reported by Hoodline. Eye On Annapolis reached out to both Leitess and Savidge for comment and says it plans to update its reporting when the officials respond.
The Fight Over a Peak-Time Medic Unit
The second censure, contained in a revised Resolution No. 67, targets Savidge over his role in this year's budget fight over Annapolis Fire Department staffing. In May, Annapolis and Anne Arundel County officials proposed joint funding for a new peak-time medic unit that would run 12 hours daily, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., to handle rising EMS demand, according to FireRescue1. The FY27 city budget had set aside $588,000 for six new fire department positions tied to the unit, which was designed to increase ambulance availability during high-demand periods.
Savidge introduced a budget amendment to eliminate that funding, and was the sole Annapolis City Council member to vote for removing it, per the resolution. He has said he asked the fire department to follow its own strategic plan regarding the peak-time medic unit and requested the underlying data supporting the request, but said he never received it. Savidge has also said he did not oppose building the peak-time medic unit itself, framing his objection instead around missing metrics like unit-hour utilization and an incomplete, 16-month staffing analysis the department's strategic plan had committed to completing before staffing decisions were made.
Local 1926 pushed back hard on that framing. The union has said operational data demonstrating severe EMS strain had in fact been available for more than 16 months, and that Annapolis has experienced periods when all available city ambulances were fully committed during peak call times, forcing the city to rely on mutual aid from neighboring jurisdictions. Pilat said the budget amendment culminated years of Savidge's opposition to staffing and resource requests, pointing to the union's warnings dating back to July 2025 that emergency response resources were dangerously understaffed even as EMS demand kept climbing.
What the Censures Actually Do
Passing an IAFF censure requires approval from every local union present at the convention, and the IAFF issued 15 censures in total this year, serving as formal public rebukes from an organization representing hundreds of thousands of members. The resolution against Savidge states his actions damaged Local 1926 members' trust and confidence in his commitment to public safety. But the censures carry no legal penalty and no statutory mechanism to remove either official from office — they are symbolic, not binding.
Savidge has said he respects the members of Local 1926 even amid the dispute, and has pointed to his own record on firefighter safety funding as evidence his opposition to the medic unit wasn't about hostility toward the department. He has cited his sponsorship of city funding to replace PFAS-containing turnout gear, dispose of toxic firefighting foam, acquire replacement cardiac monitors, and provide annual professional cleaning for protective equipment — initiatives relevant given that firefighters face significantly elevated cancer rates from exposure to PFAS and other carcinogens.
Annapolis firefighters currently meet the national response-time standard, and the department holds an ISO Class 1 rating, the highest classification available. Still, the city's fiscal picture in mid-2026 was tight: the Annapolis General Fund sat at its 15% reserve floor, and the city projected exceeding its 10% debt service policy target for five consecutive years, a backdrop Savidge cited in explaining the pressure to scrutinize new spending requests. Whether the council revisits peak-time medic unit funding once the fire department completes its staffing analysis remains an open question, as does how the twin national rebukes might ripple into upcoming local political campaigns in Annapolis and Anne Arundel County.
