The news that the Chatham-Kent Fire Department hired an assistant fire chief from England broke over the municipality like a thunderstorm last week.
When the Voice first reported the story, there was an outpouring of opinion, most of it centered on how Chatham-Kent went abroad to fill the position.
Actually, the municipality didn’t “go abroad”; the applicant applied here. The fire department couldn’t reject an applicant from England any more than it could reject someone on the basis of skin colour.
When it comes to hiring locally for fire chiefs, you have to go back a long way. The late Jim Anderson in 1989 had a decade of tenure before amalgamation brought the trend (not just in the fire department) of being attracted to bright, shiny degrees.
We want the best and brightest, so the story goes.
Those impressive credentials haven’t resulted in a suitable internal candidate for chief nor a succession plan to speak of.
Given the historic absence of females in its management perhaps a diversity program may be something else for the department to develop.
It didn’t help the fire department’s image that news about the applicants’ hire (down to the details of a celebratory dinner before it was official) was fairly common knowledge in the community before Chatham-Kent council was aware.
Given the fact that council had adopted a “hands-off” policy toward staffing issues, perhaps that situation may be reviewed.
Although we didn’t publish what, in retrospect seems like a departmental justification for the hiring, we wish the new assistant chief well.
With the number of large scale fires becoming thankfully more rare, his expertise in fire prevention will perhaps see the day when firefighters’ main responsibility will be the odd vehicle or brush fire.
That sounds like an amazing commitment on the part of the new hire. After all, the relocation costs alone for him and his family must of been astronomical I.e. Travel, accommodations, moving fees etc. Etc. It is impressive that he would choose Chatham to invest that kind of $$ for a new job so far from his homeland.
Give us a break. Nobody in Canada applied? Did anyone in Canada know to apply? Still sounds like BS to me. And your saying to reject someone from England would be as racist as rejecting some one of colour. Where do you guys come up with this crap. You could then say not to hire a Canadian is also racist.
How did he find out C-K fire department had the opening ? Is he related to some fireman ? Maybe he was on vacation and just decided to apply. What do you think ?
Please, do not think of getting council involved in hiring anyone other than the CAO. His / her job is to develop a program of defining the needs of the municipality and then attracting the best people possible. Part of attracting the best includes developing staff training that gives them the skills needed to advance. After that wide open competitions are only good for the best set of employees. The practice of the " good old days " when friends and relatives of councillors or staff had first crack at attractive jobs is one that we do not want to see return . A smaller community like ours needs the fresh ideas and perspectives that talent from outside can provide.
Oh, I just read in a related article that " Case's moving expenses will be within municipal standards, with any additional expenses being paid by him personally". Does anyone know what are "municipal standards".. ??