ORDER-2018-156 : Appointment of Fire Capt. Ed Collina to Chief of the Melrose Fire Department, effective April 27, 2018

Transcript (~21 min @ 1:44)

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▶ 1:28 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Second. We have a motion to close by Alderman Forbes, seconded by Alderman Boisselle. Public participation is now closed. As I mentioned, we have one order on our agenda this evening. It's Order 2018-156, Appointment of Fire Captain Ed Kalina to Chief of the Melrose Fire Department, effective April 27, 2018.

▶ 1:50 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: motion to suspend the rules we have a motion to suspend the rules by alderman forbes second by alderman Boisselle in order to bring forward city officials we have all we have mayor inferna excuse me here this evening as well as captain kalina thank you for being here this evening

▶ 2:09 Gail Infurna: good evening thank you good evening it's always a pleasure to be to come back to the chambers so i have a statement that i just like to say and then certainly we can open it up for questions or whatever the will of committee is but I'm pleased to be here tonight to introduce Captain Ed Kalina to the position of fire chief subject to the confirmation by this Board of Aldermen Captain Kalina will succeed fire chief Chris Larry who will retire on April 27th after interviewing five candidates it was apparent that Captain Kalina is uniquely qualified to lead the Melrose Fire Department at this time Captain Kalina has 32 years of experience in the field of fire and emergency medical services for the city of melrose and has performed virtually every role in the melrose fire department including fire prevention officer shift commander asks arson investigator and personnel officer he has kept updated and educated on the most current practices and accepted new responsibilities and leadership roles He possesses extensive knowledge of dispatch operations. Captain Kalina also served as president of the Melrose Firefighters Union. During his interview, Captain Kalina impressed me when he stated that it is a point of pride that crews under my command have always been well-trained, performed their duties skillfully, and operated as a safety team. Because I also shared this vision for our fire department, it is with pleasure that I announce his appointment as fire chief, and I respectfully ask for your confirmation this evening Thank You

▶ 3:41 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Mayor Inferno Captain Kalina would you like to address the committee or would you like us to go straight to questions I will just know before we open up the floor for questions that we do have Captain Kalina's letter of interest his cover letter as well as his resume and then we also have attached to the order a letter from Mayor Inferna outlining her appointment other questions or

▶ 4:12 Scott M. Forbes: comments from the committee thank you thank you for being here this evening just to educate that us and in the general public just if you could walk us through like the the selection process it was there a say like a committee or how did how did this all like come into play sure the only people that really

▶ 4:30 Gail Infurna: for inside transfers would be eligible would be a captain's so we put a Marianne long our human resource director put a letter out to the fire department to the captains to see who would be interested in applying for the job and I believe five of them did and I went through the interviews along with mary ann long as she's the with the expertise that she has and um and then we listened to those interviews and then we kind of talked about it and we really felt ed was the most qualified

▶ 5:04 Scott M. Forbes: okay um did we bring anybody in uh you know i know i think when chief leary was went through his process we brought in a couple of former chiefs i think from brockton and holyoke uh to

▶ 5:18 Gail Infurna: go through a q a session just to have that additional some some some private conversations

▶ 5:22 Scott M. Forbes: with former chiefs with former chiefs yes okay yeah okay um i think that's all i had thank you

▶ 5:31 Michael P. Zwirko: thank you madam chair thank you uh ed for taking your time here this evening to be with us and thank you mayor inferno for this selection process so i just have a few questions um you know as you're about to land into this role on april 27th and i know that ever since about mid-march you know you've been aware that you would be assuming this role pending this confirmation i'm just curious in the time since um mayor inferno reached out to you noting that you were the candidate what what have you done in order to prepare yourself for the role and also in that assessment you know what do you see some of the the benefits of where the department is now and

▶ 6:10 Speaker 2: some of the challenges that lie ahead so for the last couple of weeks i've been shadowing chief larry and learning about the budgets and things like that i've already been doing the personnel so shift in personnel as needed to keep the cost down i've already been performing

▶ 6:36 Speaker 2: and as far as what the second party question was just in terms of your assessment you know what

▶ 6:43 Michael P. Zwirko: are some of the what position you know what are some of the benefits of where we're positioned now as a department as well as some of the challenges that lie ahead well the department

▶ 6:54 Speaker 2: is in good shape as far as the training we have some of the best firefighters in the area both suppression side and also on the fire based ems system i believe we're second to none and the ambulance is really doing well and that's a testament to chief leary and before him chief Brian for setting that up and the guys and girls they really they embrace the training we have some of the best equipment out there which is it's good for the citizens but also the equipment helps keep our injuries down you know it's a very complicated to explain but of automatic stretches where you don't have to lift them up it's all battery powered now and how we drag people downstairs it's really some great equipment out there automatic Lucas device for chest compressions you know so I'd like to continue that keeping staying on the cutting edge of the technology changes that we can sustain the best possible service as it pertains to fire EMS and also on fire firefighting

▶ 8:03 Michael P. Zwirko: and thank you for that and and how long generally is the term is it like a five-year appointment that is it in perpetuity until removed I understand

▶ 8:13 Gail Infurna: that until they reach a retirement age okay all right thank you for your time

▶ 8:18 Speaker 3: appreciate it thank you that's all I have madam chair

▶ 8:23 Monica C. Medeiros: Alderman Medeiros thank you thank you captain Kalina I honor of knowing you for a number of years and I most respect and I know you'll do an excellent job in this position I believe you have as Mayor Inferno pointed out a well-rounded background we're going to meet Miss Chief Leary and we thank him for his service in particular one of his strongest strengths is the medical background that he brought to the job and I know that's one area that is of the areas that you do have a lot of experience and it's probably not one that you have as much experience in can you talk about how you might fill that gap and who you'll rely on and um so in as it pertains to medical yeah we have a uh again some

▶ 9:13 Speaker 2: of the best paramedics and dmts in the area i mean second to none and the chief and all of us

▶ 9:20 Speaker 2: we rely on this this core group of medics to to bring forth training that they wish to to uh to have to bring to other firefighters and chief larry finds the funding to to make that happen we work in conjunction with pro ambulance to keep everybody's skill set up to the highest standard possible i would rely on those medics to to guide me to continue and keeping us at

▶ 9:55 Monica C. Medeiros: the plateau that we need to be at in the city thank you and um what do you foresee the process will be to fill your role is that already in the works the backfill is the captain yes once the

▶ 10:11 Speaker 4: the position opens up we'll start the interview process for that okay well i'm i'm happy about

▶ 10:15 Monica C. Medeiros: this decision and i'm proud to to uh vote in favor of your appointment thank you thank you thank you

▶ 10:25 Francis X. Wright Jr.: alderman wright thank you madam chair um congratulations um chief larry thank you for

▶ 10:35 Francis X. Wright Jr.: of service um in uh the melrose fire department enough to educate me as the captain is that a

▶ 10:41 Speaker 2: union position the captain yes it's a union position okay so as chief you'll be coming

▶ 10:43 Francis X. Wright Jr.: over to the other side of the table that's correct okay and i presume you don't anticipate any problems dealing with issues related to probationary candidates discipline 111F issues as regarding whether or not an officer is actually out on duty injury as opposed to non-work related injury, because all those things have to be dealt with quarterly through the medical panel per statute. Have you thought all this through? Have you been through all this? Have you been dealing with, because the captain effectively is a management level employee. yeah so ultimately all these now fall on your shoulders so it's different as somebody who practiced law on the union side for 10 years I've been on the city side for the last 20 the role is different but obviously if you have the skills you can move from one side to the other so I just want to make sure you're going with your eyes wide open they answer okay excellent thank you very

▶ 11:55 Shawn M. MacMaster: much thank you thank you uh alderman mcmaster thank you madam chair thank you for being here captain thank you mayor for uh for being here uh captain i'm just wondering what your vision for the melrose fire department looks like their particular priorities that you have in mind so under your administration as fire chief what should we expect to see whether it's enhancements in the areas of of training addressing the opioid crisis uh or anything else for that matter so so

▶ 12:23 Speaker 2: training is is is paramount which is always going to be training uh we again we have to keep our skill set on all levels fire suppression and dms up to where to an acceptable level the opioid

▶ 12:35 Speaker 2: crisis that you speak of is challenging because the amount of resources it takes at any given

▶ 12:45 Speaker 2: time to have a successful outcome from police, fire, EMS, so we want to make sure that we

▶ 13:02 Speaker 4: have ample levels of Narcan and all the equipment that we need to have a successful outcome.

▶ 13:04 Speaker 2: My vision for the fire department, aside from the training, would be we have the fire station

▶ 13:14 Speaker 4: committee, which I'll be meeting with John Schenner from the DPW tomorrow to bring me up to speed on that process. That will be years in the making, I'm sure, but that is a huge priority to make sure that

▶ 13:27 Speaker 2: our fire department needs to get met on that project.

▶ 13:34 Speaker 2: I'd also like to bring the department into a CAD system, computer aided dispatch, record keeping.

▶ 13:48 Speaker 2: Right now, we spend a tremendous amount of time hand typing out reports, hand writing.

▶ 13:54 Speaker 2: And then, I think we're the only department in the commonwealth that still faxes fire reports to the fire marshal's office.

▶ 13:58 Speaker 4: We can't send them electronically. so I'd like to look into initiating that type of a program and also when the public comes in looking for certain records that we can just punch in an address and print out the reports pertaining to that particular address instead of spending an hour, hour and a half researching.

▶ 14:20 Speaker 5: Thank you, Captain.

▶ 14:21 Speaker 2: Thank you.

▶ 14:24 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Alderman Tramontozzi.

▶ 14:26 Speaker 6: Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

▶ 14:28 John N. Tramontozzi: Well Captain, congratulations, we wish you luck and best wishes in your new role, in new capacity. Assuming that you are appointed, of course, I just want to say that I'm very impressed with your resume.

▶ 14:42 John N. Tramontozzi: Your 32 years of service to the city of Melrose are very impressive, and I appreciate that, and thank you.

▶ 14:47 John N. Tramontozzi: I know that you've got experience dealing with personnel, and I think that's an important aspect of your background dealing in your new role as the chief.

▶ 15:03 John N. Tramontozzi: Also experience with the EMS. But I'm going to tell you, I think one of the biggest challenges you're going to be faced with soon will be budget. As you know, we're going to be approaching a budget season, and I wish you the best of luck in that. I hope that through your years of service, and you've seen what we try to accomplish in the budgets is try to reduce, if at all possible, the overtime budget, especially.

▶ 15:36 John N. Tramontozzi: Hopefully you'll work your magic, and the challenges that you face, and you'll prepare a budget for us to review that will take those issues into consideration, and I appreciate that.

▶ 15:47 Speaker 2: Thank you.

▶ 15:49 John N. Tramontozzi: We'll do. Thank you.

▶ 15:50 Speaker 6: Look forward to working with you. Same here.

▶ 15:53 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Thank you.

▶ 15:53 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Thank you. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Thank you. I would reiterate my colleague's wishes to you, and thank you for stepping forward, and to Chief Leary for his service. And adding to Alderman Tramontozzi points, and to some of your own about the interest in technology being cutting edge, and also I'm pleased but not surprised that you would have taken the opportunity in these last few weeks to start working through the budget and thinking about the capital plan for our fire station i'm wondering if you're aware of any um in the near term large investments that we're going to need to make in any of the equipment that the fire department maintains any of the technology upgrades that might be necessary

▶ 16:36 Speaker 2: i'll be meeting with chief levy later this week to go over the budget we had a meeting scheduled today that was actually canceled and he'll be bringing me up to speed and all that okay but

▶ 16:48 Speaker 2: i do know we have aside from the fire station uh issue we uh you know have an apparatus

▶ 16:57 Speaker 4: that's starting to age and has to be looked at for for down the road purchases and things like that

▶ 17:04 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: okay um and i thought it might be helpful one thing that i thought was really important in your letter and then also your resume and i've i talked to chief leary last year a little bit about how the the mission and the responsibility of the fire department has really shifted over the years into emergency management and so it sounds like you had a lot of history with that and experience with that and maybe you could just for the public who are watching at home and for us just talk a little bit about how you helped with some of the leadership in in moving that mission forward

▶ 17:36 Speaker 2: so aside from the 32 years here at the city as a firefighter i um 34 years in the town of lexington It's a public safety dispatcher, and about 14 or so of the last 14 years in Chelsea,

▶ 17:53 Speaker 2: which is a high-paced city where there's a lot of action going on on both sides.

▶ 17:59 Speaker 2: But back in 2008, when I became union president,

▶ 18:07 Speaker 2: we were looking to work with the Chief O'Brien at the time in the city to expand and gain back some of the personnel that we had lost, we had to take on additional roles. And one of the roles was to look back at the fire-based EMS system.

▶ 18:24 Speaker 2: And we put together a program. We were lucky enough to get some federal grants for staffing. And, you know, we had to sell it to the firefighters. We had to sell it to the aldermen because it was a big commitment to go forward into that program.

▶ 18:41 Speaker 2: but i believe um that it's a it's a very successful program and it pays for itself

▶ 18:48 Speaker 2: and again we're providing a service to the to the residents that's second to none that's great thank

▶ 18:53 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: you maybe next year um as fire chief you can encourage your your team to share with us your winning chili recipe several of us competed against you and didn't come away with the prize thank you so much for your time motion to recommend second we have a motion to

▶ 19:14 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: recommend by Alderman Boisselle seconded by Alderman Medeiros on discussion

▶ 19:20 Scott M. Forbes: Alderman Forbes thank you and I'll be brief just a follow-up question on the initial ones that I had for you at any point in time during the selection process was that what was the union ever involved or did you ever get any of their feedback as far as rank and file in the house no far as any type of

▶ 19:41 Gail Infurna: recommendations no no I don't believe so no we didn't okay you know what I also wanted to add Alderman Forbes is that it was my decision to keep it as an internal promotion feeling with the caliber of the captains that we do have in our department we just felt with an internal you know promotion that we would be able to find somebody in our captain rank so that's why we did not go

▶ 20:07 Scott M. Forbes: outside this the city okay I guess the the concern that I would have it if it being an internal promotion is I mean did you find it weird that nobody with any firefighter experience was asking you any questions during the interview

▶ 20:26 Scott M. Forbes: process I guess I guess that that's really the one thing that I was I'm looking for because I these are generational hires and I know chief when you came on board we had former fire chiefs come in and ask you questions just to make sure that we knew that we were making the right decisions and I've looked at your resume resume is impeccable and you know chief Leary was here for over 25 years when he was named fire chief here but we still went through that selection process I'm just trying to make sure that you know all of

▶ 20:57 Gail Infurna: our bases are covered i did have conversations with chief larry as well as chief o'brien

▶ 21:10 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: okay all right thank you thank you any others we have a motion to recommend for passage that's been made and seconded all in favor all right any opposed okay uh this will be recommended to the full board at our next meeting um i just do want to take a minute and echo what many of the alderman have said which is thank you very much captain kalina for your service to the city and your willingness to step into this role and though he's not on camera we do have chief leary in the room and thank you very much chief leary for your years of service as well congratulations and uh you do not need to appear before the full board when we meet again although you are of course welcome to thank you we have a motion to adjourn so moved second motion to adjourn by president Seconded by Alderman Tramontozzi. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? We are adjourned.