UPDATED: Three Senior Advisors for Fire District Resign in Protest

Updated: Thursday, Oct. 27, at 2:37 p.m.

Three volunteers on the Senior Advisory Council resigned on Tuesday in protest of the new board of trustees—a move which certain district board and staff members have written off as unfounded and political.

“Please hear us loud and clear,” Monica Samars told trustees as she read from the group’s resignation letter. “We are U.S. citizens first and will not be anyone’s puppet. All of your actions make us disgusted and sick to our stomachs.”

The council acts as a liaison for senior citizens living within the district. Samars, along with volunteers Sandra Marshall and Heleane Battaglia, have served on the council since its creation in 2009.

Among their reasons for resigning, the women’s letter cited the firing of certain district employees, including Barbara Utterback and Tom Dubelbeis, and called the investigation into Deputy Chief Joe Madden and former Chief Bryant Krizik, whom they describe as “two of the most dedicated, knowledgeable, professional and honest men,” political rather than criminal.

But the “final straw” came when Rosemaria Genova, a public relations consultant for the district, approached two of them in private about not disagreeing with the board in public, Marshall said.

“This group has been working together very well for the past several months,” Genova would later say. “(It’s) unfortunate that the three of them have chosen to resign rather than to work through the transition (of a new board) peacefully. I enjoyed spending time working with them, and we’ll look forward to bringing in some new members to the council.”

In their resignation letter, the women also cited the alleged cancellation of the district’s annual golf outing, annual pancake breakfast, senior luncheons and citizens fire academy as their reasons for stepping down.

After the meeting, Hickey noted that the pancake breakfast and golf outing have not been cancelled but merely not put on the calendar. He took credit for creating the council in 2009 as an advisory group that set up its own events, which firefighters or trustees could attend. As such, he said, the council has never come before the board with its own proposal for an event and has therefore never been denied money.

“For the last six months, these women didn’t do anything,” he said. “They’re always snickering, sniping, they’re making comments while we’re doing the meeting.”

At two points during Tuesday’s board meeting, trustee Blair Rhode answered his cell phone, leaning back in his chair to avoid his microphone. A murmur arose from the women’s seats, provoking Rhode to respond, “I’m a doctor, so I take calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

As of Wednesday morning, four volunteers remain on the district’s Senior Advisory Council.

“When (Hickey) put it together two years ago there were almost 25-30 people on that council,” district spokesman Ray Hanania said. “Now there are less than seven, and it was these three people that really, I think, chased everybody away …

“But maybe now they can revitalize as a council and take it away from politics, and focus on what they’re supposed to do.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Marshall said Hickey was not responsible for creating the council, adding, "He told us recently he didn't even know there was a council."

Later in the day, Hickey said he made the motion to create the council but left the structure of the council up to former Board President Patrick Maher and the seniors.

Patrick Maher wrote in an email Thursday he had started the advisory board, and it never had 25-30 members on it. He also noted that volunteers joined the board to work various events held.

"The current trend of the fire district continues to go on a down-slope with the loss of these three women," Maher wrote in the email. "They are great people, fantastic representatives for the district, and hard working residents who gave more time to the fire district than some of the people employed by the district.  As the former President of the fire district, I appreciate everything they have done for the district since the inception of the advisory board."

Also Discussed

• Former Chief and consultant Robert Buhs is expected to give trustees a staffing level report on Nov. 1. Hickey said the district needs proof that the cost of hiring new firemen outweighs current overtime costs. The test scores of the 11 applicants who were hired and then frozen last spring will still be used if the board agreed to hire more firemen, Hickey said.
• The search for former Chief Bryant Krizik’s successor has been extended two weeks to Nov. 18. Hickey said the district has only received one to two dozen applications so far and would forgo a qualification that all applicants possess graduate degrees to attract more.
• A proposal to purchase software which would automatically archive district e-mails for $8,277 did not garner support to come to a vote. Hickey said the district was looking to save time and money, in the event another forensic audit of the district computers, but board members needed to see pricing alternatives first.