WESTFIELD- The Fire Commission will hold a special meeting today at 3 p.m. at Little River Fire Station to vote to bypass pre-screen interviews so they can appoint two new fire captains from within the department in another special meeting, possibly next week.
There are six Westfield firefighters on the civil service eligible list for the position of captain. Those six firefighters are Joseph Szenda, Michael Hawthorne, Jonathan Starr, Micheline Turgeon, Benjamin Hogan, and Christopher Brown.
The captain’s roles were opened because of the recent promotion of Fire Capt. Benjamin Warren to the position of deputy fire chief. Albert Masciadrelli, the chair of the Fire Commission, said that the commission chose to make a second opening for another captain because Fire Capt. Christopher Regan, the brother of former Fire Chief Mary Regan, is expected to retire June 30.
The commission chose to hold a special meeting rather than waiting until the normally scheduled meeting in July because they are anticipating the possibility that several people may be away on vacation at that point in the summer. Friday and next week were the only times that it could be guaranteed that all three commissioners and the firefighters up for the position could be present at the meetings.
“What we are trying to do is get Chief [Patrick] Egloff’s core management team, deputies, and supervisory captains in place to start off the new fiscal year,” said Masciadrelli, “It is more productive to do it this way, and it’s more cost effective for the city.”
In order to expedite the process and vote on two new captains, the commission will vote to forgo the pre-screen interviews for each captain on Friday, and hold the final interviews and vote next week. Each of the six firefighters has taken and passed the Massachusetts Human Resources Department (HRD) civil service test. The process for the appointments will require that each of the six candidates have a public interview conducted by the three members of the commission. Each candidate will answer the same set of questions as guided by the HRD.
Once each candidate has been interviewed, the commission will discuss and call a vote for each of the open positions.
