The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Safety panel mulls residency regulations
TORRINGTON — Does a firefighter have to live in Torrington to be committed to the city?
The Board of Public Safety and Torrington Fire Chief Gary Brunoli discussed that idea last week, as they considered a residency requirement included in the job description for the next deputy chief of the department.
Board member Glenn McLeod raised the issue Wednesday, asking for Brunoli’s rationale for requiring candidates for the position to have lived in the city for a year. Three battalion chiefs in the department do not live in the city, he said.
“Wouldn’t you say that, as soon as a firefighter goes in their first burning building, they have a vested interest in the city of Torrington?” McLeod said. “We don’t require any other employee in the city of Torrington to live in the city of Torrington . ... I think that’s a slap in the face to your battalion chiefs in particular, and all the young men that we just hired, who you ask to buy into Torrington when you hire them.”
McLeod said the next deputy chief has a reasonable chance of becoming fire chief, and the requirement narrows the pool of candidates. There is already a requirement for firefighters to live within close distance to the city, he said.
Brunoli said he had moved to the city from Burlington in 1992 upon being hired. Previous chiefs dating back to the founding of the department have lived in the city, he said.
“I think the chiefs of the Torrington Fire Department should have a vested interest in the spending of our tax dollars and how our operation runs,” Brunoli said.
Six members of the department qualify for the position as it is currently written, four of whom would have to move, Brunoli said. The job is open to assistant chiefs and battalion chiefs, he said.
“Our department is very, very young. I felt we had qualified candidates from assistant chiefs and battalion chiefs to apply for the position, and I feel the residency requirement is very important,” Brunoli said.
Each of the Board of Public Safety members weighed in on the issue during the discussion Wednesday.
Douglas Benedetto agreed with McLeod, and objected to the idea that lieutenants were not eligible for the position, while Angelo LaMonica said those with a stake in the city should live there.
“If you want to work in this town, what’s wrong with living in this town?” LaMonica said.
Job qualifications are often desired qualities, but not necessary hard-and-fast rules, Mayor Elinor Carbone said. The board should have confidence in Brunoli, who it appointed to be the fire chief, she said.
“I think that that confidence, when that chief was selected, included the confidence to recognize where his leadership was going to come from,” said Carbone.
McLeod said he was not against giving preference to Torrington residents, but did not want to bar a superior candidate over the issue.
He said he had respect for the chief, who was much better-versed in firefighting, but he would have preferred the issue be raised earlier in the process to be discussed.
Former Deputy Fire Chief Christopher Pepler died Nov. 1.