Copyright 2006 Newsday, Inc.
By ZACHARY R. DOWDY
Newsday (New York)
Robert J. Mirabile says he took action when he felt the safety of his colleagues at the Garden City Park Fire Department and the community was at risk after someone began selling bogus fire department jackets — complete with names, badge numbers and department logo stitched on them.
“I was concerned with both the security of the community and, in a post-9/11 world, a possible terrorism issue,” said Mirabile, 35, a former captain, explaining why last year he posted on the fire department’s bulletin board a letter criticizing his superiors’ handling of the issue.
The jackets were made by an unknown person who had called the department, threatening to sell them to the public, and Mirabile feared someone could use them to impersonate a firefighter.
His pen set off a chain of events that got him expelled from the volunteer department, but now he’s fighting in State Supreme Court to get his job back. He said members of his engine company, who finally bought the jackets on their own to prevent them from being sold elsewhere, felt top brass did nothing about a serious threat. They passed a motion to have Mirabile voice their “outrage.”
So he brought their sentiments to the head honchos in a series of letters, one of which said Chief Michael Rivers had failed to act and his reputation was “tarnished.”
Mirabile twice posted a note dated April 15, 2005, because Rivers had removed it the first time. That posting got Mirabile suspended 11 days later.
After a hearing in June, the board of commissioners found Mirabile showed a “complete lack of respect” for Rivers and department rules. In October, it made the final judgment to revoke his membership.
Now, the 14-year veteran firefighter who was elected company captain seven times is challenging his expulsion in court, saying his First Amendment rights were violated in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner because the department had no clear rules for what could be posted on bulletin boards.
The case goes before Justice Edward W. McCarty III March 6.
Rivers and Garden City Park Fire Department officials didn’t return phone calls. But in department papers concerning Mirabile’s dismissal, they said he was insubordinate. Rivers said that he had notified the board of commissioners and sought legal advice on the jacket issue.
The board stated that it felt Mirabile’s letters critical of Rivers were less a cry for public safety than “a retaliatory strike” stemming from an April 12, 2005, letter that Rivers wrote to Mirabile notifying him that he had not met quarterly attendance rules.
In October, the three-person board voted 2 to 1 to oust Mirabile from the department.
“I had been volunteering to help my community for almost 14 years,” he said. “It’s sort of like a small-town thing here where word travels fast and rumors start. I have lost some very good friends.”