Good News for Fire Rescue...Finally!

Strike Up the Band: Chief Motes Has Located His Locator

Resending to add the byline omitted in an earlier version.

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For weeks, Clay News & Views has been reporting the challenges Clay’s brave fire rescuers are facing—some are working out of fire stations that would likely be condemned in the private sector, and their administrative leaders don’t exactly have a working relationship with good decisions.

With all the doom-and-gloom reported, it seems only fair to celebrate a rare moment of sunshine. And today’s bright spot? Break out the confetti—Acting Fire Chief David Motes has finally located the locator in his county vehicle—and turned it on… at least twice.

The Automatic Vehicle Locator (AVL) is a GPS-based real-time tracking device installed in county fire rescue emergency vehicles and in those that upper management in the fire department drive full-time. The AVL shows the name of the driver, date, time, vehicle’s location and speed.

County policy says the locators must be on at all times to allow dispatch to know where all resources are positioned, who is in route and where command folks are positioned in case they are needed.

Also, upper management is required to have the locators on to model accountability to the taxpayers and to county fire-rescue crews—the intent of the modeling means that crews and the folks paying the huge salaries of those in fire rescue management can trust that chiefs are earning their pay and not detouring for boiled peanuts again.

Motes’ habit of vanishing with his locator turned off has left everyone routinely playing “Where in the World is Acting Chief Motes?” Some fire rescuers think that Motes’ AVL is generally off due to the fact that he has only skimmed the operating manual; others believe that perhaps he’s doing his personal business on county time so he can accrue lots of sick and personal time to sell back to the county.

A few think that maybe Motes, God love him, needs a lot of “me time” during his workday.

Nevertheless, the good news happened on February 25 when the acting chief’s locator lit up like a Christmas tree, surprising and confusing the heck out fire rescue dispatchers.

The surprising part was that Motes had finally found the switch to his locator.

Some of the confusion was that he was suddenly “running hot” at 93 miles-per-hour toward Putnam County, when his actual job is to back-up Fire Chief Lorin Mock to ensure that stations, crews, trucks and equipment are ready and functioning properly for all emergencies. Once emergency vehicles have been dispatched, a Battalion Chief, who typically oversees the day-to-day operations and major incidents—large structural fires, mass casualties, or hazardous material spills—assumes comand. Clay’s fire chief and acting chief rarely show up in person.

Adding to the confusion was that Motes was driving like his britches were on fire to a call in another county involving a man stuck in quicksand-like mud at a borrow pit.

According to documentation, despite his excessive speed, Motes was way-late for the party since everybody and their brothers were already on scene—including Putnam County Fire Rescue, Palatka Fire Rescue, Clay County Fire Rescue-Station 15, the Putnam County’s Sheriff’s Office, the press and employees of the borrow pit—all led by a passel of battalion chiefs, captains, and lieutenants from both counties.

Clay’s fire and EMS vehicles have “governors” on their engines. The governor, not the DeSantis kind, limits how fast Clay’s trucks can go to 67 miles-per-hour. The fire chiefs’ vehicles do not have governors.

To add a tad of bad news to the good, for the record, chiefs are not supposed to be driving their take-homes 93 miles-per-hour anywhere—mostly because county policy, state law, and basic common sense all frown on turning an emergency vehicle into a race car, even with “audible and visual signals” (sirens and lights).

Watching his driving habits, some folks swear Motes is most likely practicing for the Daytona 500. They may be on to something. The other time he successfully managed to engage his locator was on October 22, 2025, when he was heading to a car accident on Highway 16 in Green Cove Springs. His AVL showed he was driving 108 miles-per-hour.

Nobody knows where he was when he first heard about the accident, but since it was practically in the shadow of the Fire Rescue headquarters and the county administration building, where he’s known to linger, people are still scratching their heads. Mainly because no one can quite figure out how he found enough open road to build up that kind of speed without taking flight.

But there was more good news, at least for the acting fire chief. Despite reaching speeds usually reserved for airplanes, some county commissioners—who want a big fat raise—the county manager and the fire chief appear to be asleep at the wheel and blissfully unaware of what’s going on under their collective noses—so Motes has escaped any consequences.

It appears that since he’s finally figured out how to turn on his locator switch, he’s devised another method to keep meddlers out of his speeding business. Rescuers say Motes has apparently developed a warm relationship with the county’s IT folks—warm enough that his locator, as of this week, now does not show his speed.

So, after 39 years in Fire Rescue, Motes is living the life surrounded by good news. He’s drawing a paycheck that makes even the real fire chiefs in other Florida counties fan themselves, cruising around Clay County in a free SUV with a locator whose speed indicator has been gagged and he’s running hot in a world where audible and visible grant him full immunity.

Bless his heart!