WESTFIELD- The Fire Commission will convene Monday at 6 p.m. at Little River Fire Station for the main purpose of hiring three new firefighters to the department.
Gina Favata, Timothy Rowan, and Bethany Thomas will be interviewed by the Fire Commission on Monday. Unlike recent Fire Department hires where as many as six people interviewed for just two positions, there are three firefighter positions open for the three applicants.
The possible hiring of these three would mark the beginning of a new policy being rolled out by Fire Chief Patrick Egloff, who wants all firefighters in the Westfield Fire Department to also be certified paramedics. Egloff said in the past that he wants Westfield firefighters to have further medical training than they had previously been required to have.
For those that are hired as firefighters but have not yet completed paramedic training, they would have to finish the training within a certain period after their date of hire. Egloff said that all three candidates have already completed their paramedic training.
The possible new hires come after two firefighters, Joseph Szenda and Michael Hawthorne were promoted to captain two weeks ago.
Also on Monday’s agenda is an item addressing one grievance that had been filed against the Fire Commission in June of 2018. The grievance was tabled by the commission in September. Fire Captain Keith Supinski, president of the Local 1111 union, submitted a request that the grievance be removed from the table and returned to the union.
During the June 3 Fire Commission meeting, Supinski requested the removal of four other grievances that had also been tabled by the commission. The four grievances were in relation to a group of firefighters who were placed on administrative leave last year. The grievances were filed because the firefighters did not believe that their leave was justified. Supinski said that the reason for removing the grievances from the commission was because of a judge’s ruling.
“This is because judge Sweeney nullified to the day before everybody was placed on administrative leave,” said Supinski, “Because they were not put on administrative leave in the eyes of the judge, these grievances do not exist.”
According to Supinski, the removal of those first four grievances does not absolve anybody of wrongdoing. Rather, it is a legal response to Judge Sweeney’s decision to nullify the administrative leave of the firefighters. Because it was retroactively nullified, the grievances are essentially no longer necessary.
The final items on the agenda are under the category of Operations, Equipment, Ambulance, Facilities, Apparatus and Staffing Reports. Egloff will provide an update on the fire department’s possible acquisition of new ambulances. This will come just days after the City Council voted to cut part of the fire department budget. An item in the budget of $157,153 for new department vehicles was removed from Egloff’s requested budget.
“Last night that line item was cut by $157,000 making purchasing the vehicles impossible with my current budget,” said Chief Egloff, “These vehicles are still needed so when free cash is certified I will be going back to council for appropriation.”
It was not clear if that budget cut would jeopardize the fire department’s ability to purchase new ambulances. Egloff did say that the budget item that was cut was supposed to be for a new command vehicle, training vehicle, brush truck, rescue boat, and chief’s vehicle.
