First in a series
[img]2585|right|Chief Sellers||no_popup[/img]The good news about Chris Sellers is that it is true what people have said for years about the retiring Fire Chief.
He is as humble as a be-robed monk who has not raised his eyelids since entering the monastery.
After 35 years in the fire service, the last 30 with the Culver City Fire Dept., how is it possible to spend 11,000 days with the same gang of supremely confident outgoing guys, 24 hours at a time, and emerge with an unbruised vanilla ego?
The personality traits of public servants, even in pocket-sized communities, seldom are known. Historically, members of the Fire Dept. swing the lowest profiles in town. That suits the youthful Mr. Sellers. His daughter is about to graduate high school. If her dad had been her Prom Night date, he might have been mistaken for a classmate.
Four years as fire chief, succeeding the retired Jeff Eastman, scarcely have aged the 52-year-old Mr. Sellers.
Fittingly, when Mr. Sellers, in full dress uniform, was honored at last evening’s meeting by the City Council, this was not the typical farewell tribute with the shopworn language and revved up emotions.
Instead, this was an old-fashioned for-real interlude, a visit ringing with authenticity.
Councilman Mehaul O’Leary and Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells, two of City Hall’s type-A personalities, dually honored Mr. Sellers’s exceptional modesty. The mayor appeared on the verge of breaking down as she called Mr. Sellers a hero. She said one of the proofs that Mr. Sellers is a “true leader” is that he consistently deflects credit to others.”
The chief said that his career was based on three trenchant pillars: “Competition, commitment to our mission and passion.”
But the most revelatory words from Mr. Sellers probably were these.
“I don’t know that I have a lot of achievements,” he said. “But those I do have I owe to my family and to my co-workers.”
(To be continued)
