Opinions Offered for ECFR-- from a Non-Selected Applicant for ECFR Chief....

I was contacted by one of the applicants for fire chief who was not selected.  He sent me a multi-page, stream of consciousness conglomeration of ideas, thoughts, opinions, and internet research data...some of it very interesting

I received an interesting email late yesterday evening from one of the more than 60 persons who applied to be the next ECFR Chief.  This individual was not selected as a finalist-but nonetheless he wanted to offer some thoughts, opinions, and ideas.  He wanted to leave his "2-cents" worth with me-so far as I could tell.

Not unlike an exit interview-this pre-hire stream of consciousness conglomeration of ideas put to paper that I received does have some useful stuff.  Although neither I nor my counterparts on the board have any voice in who gets selected ultimately in this position--it is a window into at least one applicant's thoughts as he moved through the application process.

This individual forwarded pages and pages of bullet points, data he had researched, comments he had read online about the department, information he had compiled about our department, and other tidbits of information he felt was important to pass along.

I responded to him, and I thanked him for his interest in the position and for his thoughts and ideas--some of which I believe have merit, some of which we are already working toward, most of which I was already aware--- and some of which I do not believe would be supported by the board.

Nevertheless---there are some nuggets in his email--which I have saved exactly as he sent it-unedited- here.

(I did remove his name, email and phone number from this document though.)

From his email:

---"Staffing Issues:

Career Staff:

"This may make you think I am crazy, but if you change from the 3 shift (24/48hour shifts) to a 4 day shift (2 – 10 hours day, 2 - 14 hour night and 4 days off) system you actually can save money. As you will see in the examples below that cutting down on Overtime will help with the Budget a lot. Yes you will need to add more personal but it will save money over all on salaries."

---Apparatus

"I do feel that there is to many Apparatus and the maintenance Program is over tacked to keep it all up and operating at 100%. Someone needs to figure out a realistic number of Apparatus that are needed for Front Line Service and Reserve units in each class of Apparatus With all these Engines shown above, I feel are too many and you should reduce to:Engines = 1 per Station and In the Volunteer Companies only as many as they can provide the 4 per Engine manning for.  Have 1 Reserve Engine for every 5 Front Line EnginesAs replace Front line Apparatus, the best of the Apparatus taken out of service should be moved to Reserve Status and the Reserves at that time be sold off"

---Staffing/Salary:

"Work to get volunteers train so if and when there is a Department hiring they are able to apply for career positions. Utilize all Volunteers as long as they seek to VolunteerChanging over to a 4 Work Shift system and adding a Flying Squad to each shift"

Read his complete, unedited and unmodified document with suggestions and ideas for ECFR here.