By Richard E. Baldwin
The Buffalo News
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — The 133-member Niagara Falls Fire Department may be without a permanent chief for some time as a result of the firing last week of Roger C. Melchoir as the department’s senior officer.
Mayor Paul A. Dyster, who has the ultimate responsibility for hiring a new chief, said Sunday that he was looking at several different groups of people who might become candidates for the appointment but that none has been selected.
Meanwhile, the department is under the rotating command of its seven senior battalion chiefs.
“They are rotating through as acting chief depending on their individual work schedules,” Dyster said.
The mayor pointed out that at least one battalion chief works on every shift, 24 hours a day every day, and they are working out among themselves who will be acting as chief on their shifts.
The mayor said he was taking no direct role in deciding who would be the acting chief on any particular shift.
“They all are very competent, and I am comfortable with any of them filling in as acting chief. There is no reduction in our firefighting capability,” Dyster said.
As an example, he pointed out that a fire Saturday night at Collision Enterprises, 2920 Pine Ave., “was quickly brought under control, and there were no injuries.”
The mayor said he talked with Battalion Chief Gregory Colangelo about the handling of that fire, and he was fully satisfied with it. Colangelo’s regular assignment is with the Fire Prevention Bureau.
One pool of potential candidates is the present roster of battalion chiefs, but most of them would have to take a pay cut if they accepted a promotion to chief, and Dyster said none seemed willing to do that. Overtime pay and other contractual obligations push battalion chiefs’ pay to about $90,000 a year; the chief’s job pays a flat $79,092 a year.
City Council Chairman Sam Fruscione has suggested that the mayor narrow his search to Western New York instead of trying to recruit throughout the nation.
“There are plenty of competent people right here in Niagara Falls and in nearby cities who could fill that job, instead of bringing in somebody from outside,” Fruscione said last week.
The Council chairman could not be reached Sunday to discuss whether the five-member Council might be willing to increase the chief’s salary enough to make it attractive to the present battalion chiefs.
The mayor said, “We are in the process of tracking down other former finalists who were being considered when we hired Mr. Melchoir, to see if they still are interested.”
He said a search committee of top administration officials was working on that aspect of it.
Recent retirees also are being considered, Dyster said, “but there is a cap on how much income they can receive and still be eligible for their public pensions, so they may not be interested.”
Melchoir was fired last Monday for a series of alleged deficiencies in his performance culminating in what were considered to be inappropriate postings on an online forum under his name.
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