By Jonathan Schuppe
The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey)
Copyright 2007 Newark Morning Ledger Co.
All Rights Reserved
NEWARK, N.J. — Michael Lalor has a long list of accomplishments during his career with the Newark Fire Department.
As the department’s new chief, he has an equally long list of goals.
But what says the most about him was his description of the new job’s downsides.
“The negative aspect of the job for me is adapting to being out of the firehouse, the limited camaraderie with the men and the public speaking, which I hate,” Lalor wrote in preparation for an interview with a reporter.
Lalor, a Newark native who spent 36 years on the streets, is a frontline firefighter at heart. That’s why the rank and file like him so much.
“I think we’re all pretty happy with the way this worked out,” Newark Firefighters Union President Chuck West said. “He’s a guy who worked his way up through the ranks and knows what the guys need to be safe and effective.”
Lalor, who turns 60 this year, is the son and grandson of 30-year Newark firefighters. He grew up in the city’s Vailsburg section, where he also met his wife, Colleen, a nurse. They now live in East Hanover.
He joined the department in April 1970, after returning from Vietnam with a Purple Heart for surviving a bomb attack that left shrapnel in his legs. For 29 years he worked out of the Avon Avenue fire station, moving up through the ranks. He made deputy chief in 2002, and was named acting chief in May 2006, just before former Mayor Sharpe James left office. He remained in that position under Mayor Cory Booker, who took office July 1.
As chief, Lalor is responsible for the day-to-day operations, while the director, former union head David Giordano, handles finances and policy.
Their appointments have helped create peace between the city administration and the unions - something that hasn’t existed for years.
Morale also seems to be improving within the 634-member department, now that the city is hiring more firefighters, promoting more supervisors, ordering new trucks and modernizing its record management and communications systems.
But Lalor, who served as acting chief for more than a year before his May 7 promotion, says the department still needs to develop plans to keep itself adequately staffed and equipped.
While the number of fires annually in Newark has dropped in the past decade, from 3,839 in 1997 to 1,339 last year, the fire department’s calls have increased from 13,806 to 15,468, officials say. That’s because the department has more responsibilities, like responding to carbon monoxide alerts and modern house alarms, even as the city’s housing stock has become less fire-prone.
Lalor wants to renovate the city’s ancient firehouses, hire a new class of recruits every year and build a training academy to replace the one that was closed in 2003 (the city has since trained members at academies in Morris and Bergen counties).
“You keep people well trained, and safety will follow,” Lalor said.
John Sandella, president of the Newark Fire Officers Union, says training is by far the most pressing issue facing the department. With 123 new recruits hired in the past year, too many are showing up at firehouses without any practical experience in what it’s like to battle fires in Newark. But Lalor is trying to overcome that by scheduling training exercises in abandoned lots and unused buildings around the city, Sandella said.
“The fire officers’ job now is harder because of a lack of a training facility, and Mike Lalor understands that,” Sandella said. “He’s a firefighter’s firefighter.”