MEMO: To The Chief
MANAGEMENT
TO: Fire Chief
FROM: City Administrator
I hesitate to even write this letter because personally you and I seem to get along pretty well – at least since our last threehour conversation on the budget. However, there are some things I’ve just got to tell you and this is the only way I can get it all down and pick every word carefully (Remember how we both got angry at the misunderstandings about budgeting?)
Your group of citizen volunteers is well respected. We all know you have to carry your pagers and be ready to respond to an alarm from wherever you are. I know I’ve seen guys fighting fires on Sunday morning wearing their good suits under their bunker gear and I know the small check you get every year doesn’t pay the cleaning bills. We all know you’re making our city a better and safer place to live. We all know you risk your lives for our lives and property and I know you all can quit if this makes you mad. Public safety is your reason for being and you accomplish your mission.
Please allow me my observations and accept them for what they are meant to be, my attempts to ensure that we have the best fire department we can.
You and your volunteers maintain the fire hall but please remember it’s the property of all the citizens. Their tax dollars are still going toward the bond payments. So, it’s a fire hall and not your clubhouse The city charter doesn’t allow alcoholic beverages in public buildings and your annual bean supper can’t be an exception.
After we bought the new pumper, you all started right away talking about a new one. I know there is a great deal of pride involved in a new engine, but we shouldn’t be asking the citizens to buy a new one because the volunteers want one but rather because the need is there. I guess I feel like more time and money could be spent on equipment maintenance and less on after-five war stories.
Last year the department’s training budget request went up again. We ve talked before and you know how I feel.
Training funds to keep our volunteers safe and healthy, to reduce citizens’ financial losses or risk are acceptable, but the trip for you and your three captains (and all your wives) to a threeday equipment seminar wasn’t training. I won’t cut a cent in personnel training, but you can’t justify the trip in question with “we deserved the vacation.
How come, when I review the monthly report (thanks for finally getting them to me) I notice about 10 names always responding to alarms. We’ve got over 30 volunteers and yet the same 10 or 12 guys are doing the work. I also notice too, they are the same dozen that are on the slow pitch team. Chief, cliques are dangerous! When one group gets your recognition, the others suffer. Maybe that’s why the turnover is so high Think about it.
I know you’ve got quite a few years experience as chief, but just because the department has “always done it that way” doesn’t mean it’s good. I’m not asking for change for change’s sake but don’t you think the state’s instructors could expose your people to some new techniques? Why do we have all those air bottles when all we do is pour water on the outside of the building? What good are our new radios when you can see every fireman at the scene of a fire by walking halfway around the house? And, Chief, you’re not going to make a whole lot of friends by (1) jumping the line foreman when the line crew “took too long” to disconnect the power (He has offered to train all the volunteers in that technical area.); (2) calling the ambulance drivers a bunch of faggots” because one threw up after treating a burn victim, or (3) telling the next township fire chief he “wouldn’t know a fire if it burned his ass.” Chief, you can’t build walls around your people, department or city. The days are gone when “macho” ruled. Gone too is local autonomy, an unlimited budget, a closed mind and no communication with the rest of the community.
Your department is a part of the whole city operation. I want to keep it that way. I’d like it to be the best volunteer department in the state. I know you’ll read this letter to the guys at your next training session and I’ll probably be loudly criticized. I can live with that but not without the fire department. We can both make life and job miserable for the other or we can help each other. How can I help?
