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Councilor Grow,
I will readily admit that it was extremely difficult to follow the discussion that night on the removal of the chiefs from civil service. Apparently not only for myself but for O@A members Councilor Foote, Councilor Tobey and Councilor Romeo. Councilor Foote at times spoke both in favor of and against your "motion/recommendation". When it came time for the vote Councilor Romeo was visibly not certain on what she was/was not voting for. In fact she voted only after Councilor Tobey leaned over and told her how to vote. Immediatly after voting she realized she did not "kill this right here" as she intended by her words but actually unintentionally voted to move it to the full council. She immediatly tried to recant her vote but you jumped up like a child on the playground saying "you voted, you voted." At that point my recollection was that Concilor Romeo asked for a motion to reconsider and my understanding was that it was granted. Apparently it was not. So apparently you did get your motion moved to the full council based on a misunderstanding by Councilor Romeo. Fine, let the full council discuss it at a council meeting.

Regarding, "It's the Mayor's responsibility" that I repeatedly get told to me by councilors. Technically, it is the Mayor's responsibility as the appointing authority to start any action against a civil service employee. It is the Mayor's signature that is required. However, that does not relieve the councilors of their responsiblity to advocate to the Mayor to start this action and go on record as such if they feel such actions are warranted. That is not "interfering" in areas where you are not wanted. What you are doing now is ducking perceived personnel issues through a smokescreen of attempting to change the the structure rather than address the issues. This is because no one is willing to start the documentation process against a poorly performing individual. This is a classic example of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Regarding "slapping you around for discussing the contract:" You can discuss the contract all you want with whoever you want and put your recommendations forward to the administration's negotiators. However you cannot negotiate the contract from the council floor as you continuosly attempt to do. Not only is it in poor taste, it is a violation of bargaining practices. It is almost as annoying and in as bad taste as campaigning for a mayoral candidate from your seat on the council. You have the right to support and campaign for anyone you choose but again, just like discussing contracts, that does not give you the right to do so from the council floor. Hopefully Council President Tobey will be less lenient with these infractions than former Council President Destino.

I am curious on another matter. I always quote my sources when I present factual information. Where are you getting your statistics on civil service departments? I wold like to see a reference to an actual document. My suspicion is that your statistics are skewed by the large amount of volunteer fire departments which cover the majority of the state. Since volunteer departments have no paid staff are they obviously not civil service and since their chiefs usually come from within, they will be non-civil service also. My impression through working in the fire service is that the majority of paid departments are governed by civil service although again, I am willing to review where you are getting your information. You mention 290 commonwealth communities. I'm pretty sure there are not 290 paid fire departments. A more useful statistic would be how many paid fulltime fire departments have civil service chiefs and how many don't. My guess would be that it is a much more even split than what your are representing.

I am always suspicious of statistics until they can be reviewed. Statistics can always be presented in a slanted manner. Previously on this board persons quoted national statistics that showed fire deaths and structure fires are down nationwide as a justification to further cut the Gloucester fire department. I warned at that time about applying national statistics to select portions of the country and that the east coast does not mirror that national trend. Where are those persons now that the Massachusetts Fire Marshall's office has recently released current statistics that show fire deaths in Mass are up over 32% in 2007 from 2006? (Google fire deaths up 32 % in Mass, numerous articles) Again, one should be wary of taking general statistics at face value.