Someone forgot to tell Grafton firefighters about the Fire Chief Search Committee
The Select Board intended to appoint the full Fire Chief Search Committee Tuesday but hit a snag — although a representative of each fire station is meant to be part of the committee, firefighters were not informed of the need to apply.
Station 3 Fire Captain Rick Allain did apply for the spot, but he pointed out that he knew to apply only because he received an alert from the town notifying residents of the at-large committee spot. While Allain and Bob Shumeyko both applied for Station 3 and Brian L’Heureux applied from Station 2, no one applied from Station 1.
“Firefighters don’t even have town emails,” Allain said. “A lot of guys have no knowledge that this is even happening.”
Select Board member Ed Prisby was astonished.
“We really need to improve our communication with the fire department, like holy cow,” Prisby said.
Putting off on the station appointments to the committee, the Select Board chose Lydia Bogar as the at-large member. Bogar has worked for the State Fire Marshall, the State Ethics Commission and provided training and service to fire departments, as a member of the Central Mass C.I.S.M. Team and a member of the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation.
Fun fact: she’s also appeared as Sparky the Fire Dog at numerous fire and safety events for children across the state.
“Lydia knows the town more than anyone on this meeting,” Select Board member Mathew Often said.
Bogar was chosen from a field that included Robert Nault, David Libbey, and Frederick Ikles. Ikles drew interest from the board as a possible candidate for fire chief himself, given his position as deputy chief/division commander at the Cambridge Fire Department and 27 years in fire service both in the military and as a civilian.
Select Board member Doreen Defazio was unanimously chosen as the board’s committee representative because of her unique credential: she did her capstone project on the Grafton Fire Department.
The Select Board will meet briefly next week to appoint the fire department representatives to the committee.
