Fire staffing review committee sets goals
Published on January 30th, 2002
STONEHAM, MA - A new committee is led by an opponent of committees who tried to turn down the chairmanship and a vice chairman who doubts whether anything the committee does will matter.
The only agreement seems to be that this shouldn’t take long.
“And when you’re done you could say we should study it more,” added Town Administrator Dave Berry.
The Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) Consulting Company studied the staffing needs of the Stoneham Fire and Police Departments last year. The study was funded by the Gutierrez Company, the Burlington based developers who bought the former BRMC property. That’s not going well for them, but at least Stoneham got a free survey.
Town officials wanted to know if Stoneham would need a second fire station if the Gutierrez development were built. The study said, no, but officials were interested in the further staffing recommendations because Police and Fire overtime have been budget strainers for the past several years.
Police Chief Greg O’Keefe told Town Administrator Dave Berry that the Police Department would handle the matter internally. Whether a department can handle its own oversight is another matter.
“I think the Police Chief did the right thing. Let the experts, the head of the department see what changes are needed,” said Franklin Street resident John DeGeorge.
DeGeorge is a political watchdog; he attends almost every public meeting in town and champions a series of causes, most notably bylaw review and limiting the number of committees formed.
But DeGeorge threw his name in the hat to be one of two citizen members of a committee Fire Chief Larry Lamey asked the TA to set up. The committee is charged with reviewing the MMA study and making staffing recommendations to the Fire Department.
“I found out that only two names had been submitted before the deadline, so I wanted the TA to at least have to make a choice,” DeGeorge said.
At the first meeting DeGeorge was unanimously elected Chairman. He had spent hours the previous week talking to members from all four of the Fire Department groups, or units, and he distributed a letter requesting feedback to local firefighters and several area chiefs. At the meeting DeGeorge argued for a co-chair, but the committee didn’t go for it, instead electing Fire Captain Joe Rolli as Vice Chairman.
“This whole thing is contingent on collective bargaining... None of what we do might work,” Rolli said.
“Then why are we here?” asked Lamey.
“I just meant we should have back up for dealing with this in bargaining if it can’t be here,” Rolli said.
Former Chief Ray Sorenson, officially elected as Secretary, focused discussion and led the committee to establish a plan: to go through the report page by page, giving positive or negative comments on all recommendations about fire department staffing.
“I don’t think this should take more than three meetings,” Rolli said.
After lengthy discussion the next two meeting dates were set for Feb. 5 and 26, both at 4 p.m. at Town Hall.
The town needs to know how many public safety people of which ranks can keep the residents safe at a reasonable expense. Defining “safe” and “reasonable expense” are key to this discussion. Union motives will influence the elimination and creation of different positions and ranks. And this committee only deals with the Fire Department. But maybe the committee can yield an informed starting point for big changes to come.
The members
The seven voting members appointed by the TA are citizen and chairman John DeGeorge, citizen Perry Cayton, Fire Chief Larry Lamey, Fire Captain and vice chairman Joe Rolli, Stoneham Firefighters Association President and Firefighter John Scullin, Firefighter Paul Dockery, and former fire chief and citizen Ray Sorenson.
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