Town Notes
Published on February 20th, 2002
STONEHAM, MA -
Fire Department study
The Fire Department Management Study Committee hasn’t liked many of the suggestions in the report prepared by the MMA Consulting group.
The Committee met last on Feb. 5. The members agreed on four items centering around dispatch procedures but opposed the overall department reorganization proposed by the study.
Committee members gave thumbs up to maintaining the combined emergency response from the Fire Dept. and Action Ambulance; to training dispatchers as emergency medical dispatchers; to sending a “first-responder” fire engine and an Action ambulance to provide advanced life support in such situations; and to continuing the procedure that leaves the decision to send advanced life support to the police dispatcher. For the most part the Committee agreed with recommendations for procedures already in place.
But as for reorganizing the department with battalion chiefs, the idea was laughed off the list by the firefighters on the Committee. The MMA report recommended breaking the department into three divisions — Fire and Emergency Medical, Fire Prevention and Support Services — each led by a senior captain given the title of battalion chief. Former Stoneham Fire Chief Ray Sorenson said this model has never been popular in New England.
“We listen to our firefighter experts,” said Committee Chairman John DeGeorge.
Stoneham Fire is budgeted for a Chief, Deputy Chief, two Fire Prevention Officers and four groups each with a lieutenant, captain and seven firefighters. The Fire Study Committee so far favors maintaining this structure with minor changes in hours and the addition of more firefighters.
According to Chief Larry Lamey, due to two military leaves, two long term injuries and one new recruit away in training, the Department is running three groups of eight and one group of seven as of Feb. 20 for a total of 35 of the budgeted 40 men.
The Committee meets next on Feb. 26.
Clarification: the MMA Consulting Group is a private firm based in Boston with no connection to the Mass Municipal Association.
Drainage saga
For three decades a Franklin Street drainage problem has kept John DeGeorge soggy and frustrated.
DeGeorge alleges that illegal land filling by neighbors from 1973 to 1975 has resulted in 30 years of water woes, including thousands of dollars of damage to his 148 Franklin St. home.
At the Selectmen’s meeting on Jan. 4, 2000, Selectman Darin Leahy said the town is not admitting any liability. But Selectman Cosmo Ciccarello said the town has at least a “moral obligation” to help DeGeorge. At a May 25, 2000, Selectmen’s meeting, Select-man Pat Jordan said, “When the land was filled in, the house was getting flooded. It wasn’t before... the Town has the obligation to solve it.”
The town took action in the form of an article sponsored by Selectmen at the Oct. 23, 2000, Special Town Meeting. Town Meeting approved spending $25,000 of public money to bring pipes from the state funded Franklin Street reconstruction project to the edge of DeGeorge’s property. This work is on the plans and could take place any day now.
But DeGeorge says he deserves more. Since, he believes, the town caused his problem, he wants the town to fix it completely by spending an additional $5,000 to $6,000 to bring the pipes from his property line further into his yard.
Selectmen at their Feb. 12, 2002, meeting said they worried about spending public money on private property. DeGeorge argued that the town already spent $25,000 for him specifically.
“Why not finish the job?” DeGeorge asked in a separate interview.
Ciccarello said the Board plans to again bring the request for funds to the people as a Town Meeting article. DeGeorge worries people will think he is asking for something else; he is emphatic that what he has always wanted is work to prevent the flooding that started after neighbors filled property without any action from the town’s inspectional services.
Leahy reminded DeGeorge that the town had settled this issue in court in the 1980s (Leahy’s father, Thomas Leahy, was the Town Counsel). DeGeorge insists that his counsel handled the case poorly, and that the settlement didn’t even cover damages from some of the earlier instances of flooding.
It looks like the people will have the final say in this 30-year saga at the May 6 Town Meeting. Hopefully the Franklin Street skies will remain blue, at least until then.
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