Weare News : Fire Department

New interim chief named in Weare

Goffstown Editor — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 02:44:00 GMT

BY SARAH LEBRUN

Raymond Eaton has been appointed the new interim fire chief for the Weare Fire Department.

The decision was made during a Weare Board of Fire Wards meeting on Monday, April 13.

“We decided as a board it was time for a change,” said fire ward member and fire Capt. Scott Dinsmore. “We felt Ray was a little more qualified to do the job.”

Eaton takes the place of William Tiffany, who was interim chief since Dec. 1, 2008, when then Fire Chief Bob Richards resigned. Tiffany has also stepped down as chairman of the Board of Fire Wards. John Osborne has been named the new chairman.

“This doesn’t take me by surprise at all,” said Tiffany. “I didn’t plan on being here forever anyway. That was not my original intent.”

Eaton, 77, has been a Weare firefighter for more than 53 years, and this is his third time in the position of chief.

“The first thing on my agenda is to try to get everyone to cooperate and start working together,” said Eaton. “They put me in (April 13) to try to get things together and get people working together. I’ve got broad shoulders – I can listen.”

The Weare Board of Fire Wards is currently in the process of searching for a permanent part-time chief, and according to Eaton, he does not plan on throwing his hat in ring. “I’m filling in until the fire wards decide what they want to do,” said Eaton.

Weare Fire Department takes center stage

Goffstown Editor — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:44:00 GMT

BY SARAH LEBRUN

Topping the discussion at Weare’s deliberative session of Town Meeting was the Fire Department.

Two articles involving the Fire Department, articles 17 and 18, will appear on the town ballot in March – one requests a full-time fire chief, and the other money for a new fire truck.

At the meeting on Saturday, Jan. 31, residents amended Article 17 to request $43,184 for a “fulltime fire chief with level 2 firefighting certification and EMT-I or paramedic certification.” The tax impact would be 5 cents per $1,000 assessed property value, or $10 on a $200,000 home.

“We feel like we’ve reached the point with the growth in our community that we could use this full-time position,” said selectmen Chairman Tom Clow.

The Fire Department currently employs a part-time fire chief but seeks a chief to fill critical daytime hours when coverage is most needed.

According to interim Fire Chief William Tiffany, this would be a salaried position between the hours of approximately 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. The hours, however, are not set in stone, and details need to be worked out by the Board of Fire Wards. The Board of Fire Wards has also not yet set a complete job description.

Some residents at the deliberative session felt not enough information was presented to request money for a full-time fire chief, and one resident made a motion to zero out the article.

“I want people to vote on this with full information,” said Weare resident Frank Campana. The majority of residents, however, felt this was not necessary, and the amendment was rejected.

Article 18 was amended to request “$460,000 for the purpose of purchasing a fire truck.” Originally, a new fire truck was requested, but residents felt by removing the word new, that would leave the door open to potentially purchase a used truck. None of this money would come from taxpayers, as it would be withdrawn from capital reserve funds.

According to Tiffany, Sugar Hill Station in East Weare currently has a 30-year old truck that needs to be replaced. Trucks would be shuffled around, and the new truck would end up at South Weare Station.

According to Tiffany, the $460,000 figure is price that is guaranteed through one vendor through the end of March. He is currently waiting for more bids from additional vendors.

Some residents, again, felt not enough information was presented to be able to request money for a new truck. At one point, a motion was made amend the article, requesting $250,000 for a used truck, however, residents rejected this as well.

“I will work diligently with the Board of Fire Wards to get these questions answered that were raised today,” said Tiffany.

Other articles amended include:
• The wording in Article 13 was changed to read, “Shall the town approve,” instead of “To see if the town will approve.”

• Article 19 now requests $28,055.17 for town employee, Fire Department and library raises. This is down from $46,542. The Highway Department is no longer included in the figure, as it recently unionized.

• Article 25 now requests a nine-member Finance Committee. According to Town Clerk Evelyn Connor over the past year, the Finance Committee has had a problem filling its 13-member board, and a difficult time coming up with a quorum, seven members, to have a meeting.

Weare Fire Department seeks assistance from selectmen, state fire marshal

Goffstown Editor — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:18:00 GMT

BY SARAH LEBRUN

After a Weare Board of Fire Wards meeting in which interim Fire Chief Bill Tiffany refused to resign and department animosity was brought to light, members of Weare Fire Rescue decided to bring their case to the Board of Selectmen.

“I went to the Board of Selectmen after last Monday’s (Jan. 12) meeting,” said Victor Thibeault, a 12-year member of the Weare Fire Department. “With the animosity going on in the department and rumors of people wanting to leave, I felt the Board of Selectmen and residents should know, due to the safety concerns for the town.”

Thibeault said during this closed session meeting on Monday, Jan. 19, many members requested a leave of absence from the department, to which they were asked to postpone for the moment.

“I, as well as the other (Fire Department) members, want to rectify the situations going on within the department so we can better serve our residents,” said Thibeault.

According to Thibeault, a state fire marshal told him that fire marshals are in place to oversee boards of fire wards, but won’t step in there is a safety concern for the town.

After being told this, he delivered a letter to state Fire Marshal Bill Degnan on Friday, Jan. 16, about the issues within the department, citing departmental issues as a safety concern, as mutual aid has needed to respond to many calls, as Weare Fire Rescue has not responded.

Weare selectmen declined to comment on the issue, and Degnan could not be reached as of press time.

Four Weare firefighters resign

Goffstown Editor — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:22:00 GMT

BY SARAH LEBRUN

Four Weare Fire Rescue members have resigned from their posts after a meeting in which the Weare interim fire chief refused to step down.

Capt. Scott Dinsmore, firefighter Dave Richards, and EMT/ firefighters Wanda McLain and Julie Bickford all left the department after a Board of Fire Wards meeting on Monday, Jan. 12.

After Fire Chief Bob Richards resigned Dec. 1, an interim was needed to fill the position until the annual Town Meeting. Board of Fire Wards Chairman Bill Tiffany was appointed to the position after much discussion, under the condition that he refrain from incident command at emergency scenes, as he does not have the credentials to be chief.

When Tiffany was asked to resign on Monday, he said the town attornies advised him not to do anything until he heard back from them.

When Bob Richards originally took the job of fire chief, he told everyone he would be chief until he turned 45. He turned 45 in September and stayed on as chief for another couple of months to work on two projects. “It was to the point where it was more a job than anything. I was tired of doing administrative work,” said Bob Richards. “I just wanted to go out and wash the truck.”

Many department firefighters and EMTs have questioned why this appointment was made, instead of appointing fire commissioner Raymond Eaton. According to Dave Richards, Eaton has the proper credentials and is well-liked by the entire department.

“Ray said he didn’t want the chief job before interim was even discussed,” said Tiffany. After Tiffany was appointed interim chief, the board discovered through “gossip” that Eaton did want the job. During the meeting, firefighter Ricky Hippler cited N.H. RSA 154.5:

“I. The chief fireward, engineer or fire chief who is appointed, rather than elected in any town, village district, precinct, city or area shall be appointed for an indefinite period of time or for a definite term, as determined by the legislative body, and the tenure of office shall depend upon good conduct and efficiency. The chief fireward, engineer or fire chief shall be technically qualified by training or experience and shall have ability to command firefighters and hold their respect and confidence.” “The general consensus (for this RSA) right now is no,” said Hippler.

According to Dave Richards, morale within the department has been terrible.

“I think a lot of it started when our voting rights were taken from us for captains, deputy chiefs, etc., and I think a lot of morale would come back if the board and interim chief would listen to what we have to say. “We feel as though we could actually have a team (with Eaton),” said Dave Richards.

“The members have no say in this Fire Department anymore. None. They just want to be part of this department,” said Dinsmore. “If this department doesn’t start pulling together now, there will be a lot of people walking.”

Due to the tension between members within the department, EMT Newell Bailey said there were many times in the last year when mutual aid was used. Local fire and rescue crews were in the area, but didn’t want to be at the same scene together. Many department members also see him as being hard-nosed.

“How do we look when we go into a house and the oxygen tank is empty?” said Bailey. “Wanda, how did you feel when you sat on that needle? Yeah, I am hard on people.”

According to fire Lt. Harry Lamb, in the last year, many firefighters also ignored standard operating guidelines.

“This is why we’re so unpopular,” said Lamb, “because we try to enforce these things.”

“When are are we going to go back to acknowledging the things we’ve done right instead of all the things we’ve done wrong?” said McLain.

“I hope things can get smoothed out enough so the town doesn’t go unprotected,” said Bob Richards.

“We all hold grudges,” said Hippler. “This is 2009. Let’s start a new year and new slate.”

Fire guts home

Goffstown Editor — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:31:00 GMT

BY LAUREN SAUSSER

A family lost almost everything in a two-alarm fire that ravaged their Weare home on Tuesday, Jan. 6.

Weare firefighters, the first to arrive on the scene at 11 Cilley Hill Road, said the blaze started about 12:51 p.m. Local trucks arrived within five minutes.

Later, teams from Henniker, Bow, Dunbarton, New Boston and Hopkinton also responded. Firefighters were able to recover a pistol that saved Jimmy Gilman’s father’s life in World War II more than 60 years ago from a dresser drawer in one of the bedrooms.

“They were able to save that. Everything else is pretty much gone,” said Chris Douglas, husband of Virginia Gilman and one of the residents of the house that burned to the ground in a matter of hours.

Fire officials suspect the fire originated in the chimney of the two-story house, but Douglas said the structure, built in 1981 on land that has remained in the Gilman family for six generations, had also recently experienced electrical problems.

No one was home when the fire started. Virginia Gilman said she pulled into the driveway, saw flames and immediately dialed 911 on her cell phone. “There were flames coming out of the house. I was on the phone. I called 911,” said Virginia Gilman, the daughter of Jimmy Gilman.

Firefighter Ricky Hippler, the first emergency responder to arrive on scene, said the flames had engulfed about 30 percent of the structure and quickly spread. The fire department established a 4-inch water line to pump water to the site and the fire was completely under control within two hours.

Creosote buildup in the chimney was the likely cause of the fire, which destroyed the house, said Hippler.

“It is a complete loss,” Hippler said. “This is the perfect example of why you should have your chimney regularly cleaned.”

Douglas, who arrived at the scene minutes after his wife, said he was still in shock after the flames had been extinguised. “I almost crashed into the snowbank coming into the driveway when I saw the house,” said Douglas. “I’m still pretty surprised that it happened.”

The family’s two dogs, a chocolate lab and a boxer, were safely removed from the building. As of Jan. 6, a house cat remained missing.

Officers, firefighters requested

Goffstown Editor — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:14:00 GMT

By Michelle Kim

WEARE – New buildings and bodies are the main requests voters will see before them at the upcoming Feb. 2 deliberative session of Town Meeting,

Voters can expect to see articles on the town warrant regarding the operating budget, as well as improvements to the Bolton Field Memorial Complex, a new public works and transfer station facility, requests for additional police officers and full-time firefighter/EMT personnel, and a standardized pay-raise merit system for town employees.

The proposed operating budget came in at $4.7 million, about 9.5 percent more than last year, which was a default budget, and 2.8 percent more than the default budget for 2008. The proposed operating budget would have a property tax impact of $2.25 per $1,000 of assessed property value.

Town Administrator Fred Ventresco said this operating budget is similar to last year’s proposed budget.

“Both years the board has tried to hold the line as much as possible. If you see increases, it’s mainly for fuel and necessities,” he said. “It’s really bread and butter issues.”

Among approximately 41 articles on the warrant, seven deal with zoning ordinance changes, four assign land parcels to conservation commission care and four are petitioned articles.

At the Jan. 21 meeting, where the Board of Selectmen decided which articles to recommend, much of the discussion circled around reluctance to hire staff or make major expenditures in the face of a possible economic recession.

An article on the Bolton Field Memorial Complex that would issue a $125,000 10-year bond for improvements narrowly failed to win the board’s recommendation in a 3-2 vote. Selectmen Heleen Kurk, Wendy Clark and Donna Osborne supported the idea but not the timing.

The $900,000 bond for a new Public Works and Transfer Station facility did win unanimous selectmen approval.

The board decided not to recommend the articles requesting $92,000 for two new police officers, $80,000 for two full-time firefighters/EMTs to cover the daytime shift starting halfway into the year and approximately $23,000 for EMTs to cover weekends and holiday, starting halfway into the year.

A petitioned article to turn the building department secretary’s part-time position into a full-time position for $16,769 also did not win the board’s recommendation.

Other petitioned articles call for tax exemptions for solar energy, a reduction in the amount of land use change tax that goes toward the conservation commission from 75 percent to 50 percent and a non-binding resolution to reject the “pledge” against new taxes, introduced in multiple New Hampshire town warrants by a group called the Granite State Fair Tax Coalition.

One article that the board withheld making recommendation for or against was the $125,000 article for implementing a step merit-based pay scale system for nonunion town employees.

Clark and Kurk said they commended the work of the committee that had established the pay scale, but had gone over the numbers and felt the figure in the article was high.

Clark said she could not recommend the article.

“If we are in a recession, it’s going to be a long one. It’s a lot to ask taxpayers to step up,” she said.

Kurk supported the idea behind the article but not the figure.

Since the figures in the articles could not be changed until the deliberative session, the board decided to meet in a workshop to possibly come up with a viable alternative to present to voters at the deliberative session.

“I want this to pass and the only way it’ll pass is if the whole board supports it,” said Chairman Tom Clow.

Fire Department proposes two new staffers

Goffstown Editor — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:47:00 GMT

By Michelle Kim

WEARE – The Fire Department proposed the addition of two full-time staff members to its volunteer force during the week days, along with more money for fire inspections in its requested operating budget for 2008.

Fire Chief Bob Richards said the request for two full-time staff members is slightly different than the request proposed last year, which called for two positions for seven days a week.

This request would be for eight hours a day during the weekdays. Weekends and holidays would be covered on a per-diem basis.

“We’re just putting it out there this time because we did it last year and we justified it last year,” said Richards.

The full-time positions would be trained as emergency medical personnel and in firefighting, explained Richards.

Richards told the Board of Selectmen on Nov. 26 that Weare is unable to cover about 50 percent of the calls that come in during the day.

With 63 square miles in Weare and with the additional wait time that comes with depending on mutual aid, sometimes people can end up waiting a long time for an ambulance, he said.

The department is looking for a 25 percent increase in fire inspections if the budget request goes through, according to Richards.

The $260,000 proposed operating budget for 2008 is about 50 percent more than the actual budget for 2007, which was funded at a default level and about 13 percent more than the requested budget for 2007.

Richards estimates the department has seen an increase in calls of about 3 percent a year.