The New Fire Chief: A Question of Trust

It’s no secret that I am an admirer of the Gray Fire Rescue Department. I know many of them personally, and quite a few I call good friends. My admiration has led me to become a fire-rescue voyeur. I have a scanner in my kitchen to listen in on their calls and radio chatter. Often the calls at 3 AM wake me up, but lucky me, I get to roll over and resume my sleep while our volunteers have to throw their clothes on and dash out into the gloom, deferring concern over their day jobs until after the emergency is met.

In an era in which the ME generation has begot X and Y Gen impatience and self-absorption, the selflessness of the Gray Fire Rescue feels like an anachronism. There was a time, not long ago, when Americans understood and embraced sacrifice. When “supporting the troops” meant Victory gardens, buying war bonds, rationed butter, gas, meat, sugar, blackouts, rather than just a magnetic yellow ribbon on the back of the SUV.

In the wake of 911, many Americans seem to suffer from FAF (Firefighter Admiration Fatique). It’s been 6 years, enough already!

Not me.

I know that we in Gray have good fire facilities and lots of emergency equipment (much of it paid for by the volunteers themselves) , but I also know that we don’t have a Fire-Rescue Department without the volunteers. I know the precarious thread by which our volunteers continue to serve. The same pressures that limit our time affect them no less. But more is always demanded of our volunteers, more training, more certifications, more education, more drills, more emergency calls, more public service events.

So the last thing we as a community need to do is to dispirit the morale and undermine the efforts of the Gray Fire Rescue volunteers. And that is exactly what has happened.

Ignoring the stated wishes of Gray Fire Rescue Members Association, the Town Manager eschewed promoting from within and instead hired a professional firefighter from Florida as Gray’s new fire chief. Now the Manager likes to admit in a folksy way that she doesn’t know a hoseline from an ALS, and that is true...unfortunately. Yet somehow, she has the uncanny insight to be able to determine the type of leadership Gray Fire Rescue will require now and in the future.

To advise her selection, Ms. Cabana assembled a blue ribbon interview panel of non-fire lay people and one Fire Chief from a town outside of Gray’s mutual aid network and without any exposure to Gray’s culture or performance needs. What was conspicuously missing from this entire process was input from the Gray Fire Rescue membership. No Manager would hire a Code Enforcement Officer without including members from the ZBA on the interview panel , nor would one hire a Town Planner without input from the Planning Board . But wait, Ms. Cabana made such hires precisely without consulting the jurisdictional volunteer boards..

The Gray Fire Rescue Members Association did not wait for an invitation to comment on who should be the next Chief.. In keeping with tradition, the Gray members sent a letter to Ms. Cabana recommending their preferred candidate. BUT for the first time in 127 years, the Town’s Chief Executive Officer ignored the volunteer’s recommendation.

What a brilliant way to maintain volunteer morale. Lets look at Ms Cabana’s record in undermining department espirit d’corps:

1. Chief Barton dies in August 2006, leaving the department devastated and in need of immediate leadership. Ms. Cabana refuses to acknowledge and appoint any of the existing deputies as interim chief, resulting in lack of any supervision over full-time and part-time paid employees, and a disruption in unit cohesion.

2. While the department is administratively leaderless and off-balance Ms. Cabana oversees the dismantling of the Gray Dispatch Center and the immediate firing of its employees.

3. Stung by a successful citizen petition, Ms. Cabana signs an interim contract with Cumberland County.

4. Ms. Cabana takes over six months to name Deputy Bob Ryan as the acting Chief to provide some administrative leadership until she decides how to restaff the position.

5. Ms. Cabana doctors the explanation of the Dispatch Issue on the June referendum ballot so that only one side of the debate is presented. No mention of the lower quality of service provided by Cumberland is mentioned (and it is lower-I listen and have noted a significant reduction in communications reception and response) The $200,000 savings cited on the ballot is patently inaccurate.

6. Saved monies from the dispatch contract with Cumberland are diverted to the general fund rather than a portion being returned to the department budget for training, as promised by the by Council in October.

7. The Gray Fire Rescue members vote and send a recommendation to the Manager to appoint one of their own deputies in order to maintain the existing department culture and continuity of the leadership.

8. Despite public praise for the Acting Chief and in defiance of the members request, Ms. Cabana appoints a Chief from a paid professional department in Florida to provide leadership for a volunteer department.

Gray Fire Rescue volunteers are not just dispirited. They are angry. Many are asking why they have to put up with such disrespect after all these years. This department is at a more critical crossroads than Ms Cabana can imagine. That thread that volunteers suspend from is becoming overstretched. And we pay the price if it breaks.

Just for the record, Fire Chiefs from full-time paid departments tend to maneuver volunteer departments towards paid status incrementally over time.
Hang onto your wallets guys, its going to be an expensive ride.

The Windhamization of Gray

I want to be excited about Hannaford coming to town, I really do.
But the more I look at this deal the more its beginning to look like a pig in a poke.

First question I have is why do we have to zone yet another area of strip commercial development in Gray? Do we not have strip commercial extending the entire length of Rte 100. First step in the Windhamization of Gray. In the rush to chase commercial tax dollars, we are selling ourselves short. Remember that Hannaford is a big prefab box that does not have a high taxable value, with most of the value in inventory that escapes the personal property tax. So where's the big payoff?

Second consideration: Hannaford does not wish to build on 26 to capture the Gray-New Gloucester market, the intent is to snag dollars from the touristas and the Oxford County commuters who have long plagued our town with choking traffic. After suffering for so long and paying so much to get the bypass in, now we'll shoot it in the foot by welcoming in a new logjam…yes there will be traffic lights and traffic at the very throat of the bypass Shaker Road intersection.

Why did we spend all that money to install a water line down Portland Road, if we are not going to funnel new business in that area? If we encourage business to locate anywhere but in the TIF district then, 1) tax dollars will have to be used to pay off the bonds rather than captured value, and 2) any resulting tax revenue will NOT be sheltered from the school funding formula for ten years. Talk about an uncoordinated and costly plan.

Why did we also spend all that money and time to do a Comprehensive Plan that specifically discouraged strip commercial from that portion of the Route 26 corridor, only to ignore the contractual wishes of the townspeople 2 years later. Did we not have over a year of Town meetings to solicit the wishes of the people? To blatantly override these wishes after pummeling everyone incessantly to participate negates the creditability of the Town government..dare I say it borders on tyranny. Tea anyone?

Afraid that we'll never get a date for the prom, Gray is willing to promise its virtue to the first bozo who asks. Is this the way we want our town to be?

I don't and that is why I am voting a resounding NO on July 31st.