|
New East Hartford Fire Chief Chosen
(Hartford Courant, The (CT) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Aug. 27--EAST HARTFORD -- A battalion chief with the West Hartford Fire Department will be East Hartford's new fire chief.
Mayor Melodie A. Currey announced John Oates' appointment at Tuesday night's town council meeting, a day after acting Fire Chief William Perez turned down the position.
Perez will return to his former position as assistant chief.
Oates, 42, is a 20-year veteran of the West Hartford department and serves as deputy fire marshal in his hometown of Granby.
Officials had scheduled Perez's swearing in for today, but were forced to cancel it after Perez rejected the terms of employment as chief.
The point of disagreement was over holiday pay. Under a policy that Currey enacted when she was elected, managers do not receive overtime or holiday pay "unless they are grandfathered in by some former contract," Currey said.
The discrepancy came to Perez's attention when he received a formal offer letter for the chief's position from the town's human resources director, who was out of work last week.
When Perez received the letter, and saw that he would not receive holiday pay, he spoke with Currey, then chose not to accept the position. Perez said that he would have earned thousands of dollars less.
"I just didn't think it was reasonable for me to take the fire chief position, which comes with many more hours and responsibilities, and to make less than I was making as acting chief," Perez said.
Perez's base salary is $96,673, plus about $7,000 in holiday pay and any overtime he receives. The chief's salary he was offered was $106,340.
East Hartford's former chief was paid under the old system and received the holiday stipend, Currey said. "Sometimes confusion happens," she said.
Currey said that Perez has served the town well as acting chief.
"He's been an asset to our fire department," she said. "This was simply a personal choice he made. There are certainly no ill feelings."
Perez, an Andover resident and member of the town's board of finance, served as assistant chief for the past six years. He joined the fire department as a firefighter/paramedic in 1993.
Oates said Tuesday evening that he is looking forward to beginning work in East Hartford.
"It's a neat community. It's a great fire department," Oates said. "It's a challenging opportunity and it looked like it would be a good fit for my combination of education, experience and training."
Oates said that he has gotten to know many East Hartford firefighters through training courses that he taught and by attending courses with them. "I've met some exceptionally sharp people in the organization that are good at what they do," Oates said.
Contact David Owens at dowens@courant.com.
To see more of The Hartford Courant, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.courant.com/.
Copyright (c) 2008, The Hartford Courant, Conn.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
|
INDUSTRIES
Activate Email 
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East, January 20-22, 2010. Miami, FL.
