He said outcome may have differed with full staffing
By Milton J. Valencia
The Boston Globe
RANDOLPH, Mass. — Fire chiefs from throughout the state came to support Fire Chief Charles D. Foley Jr. during his disciplinary hearings this summer, in part because they were baffled that he might be punished for complaining about budget cuts after a blaze in which two half brothers died.
The chiefs were further surprised yesterday to learn that Foley has been suspended for 15 days without pay for suggesting, following a deadly fire in May, that the two could have been saved if the department was fully staffed.
Chiefs said they sympathized with Foley’s cause because it was something they could have done, knowing the emotions firefighters face when someone dies on their watch and the frustrations they face with budget cuts.
“Every chief feels for Chief Foley,” said Kenneth Willette, chief of the Concord Fire Department and president of the Fire Chiefs Association of Massachusetts.
“He’s certainly a dedicated fire chief; he’s certainly a firefighters’ fire chief,” Willette said by telephone yesterday.
Randolph selectmen decided on the suspension Monday night, based on a hearing officer’s report that concluded that Foley had used the tragedy to publicize his concerns about budget cuts.
The hearing officer also concluded that Foley inappropriately pushed a newspaper article about the fire into the chest of Selectman James F. Burgess Jr. a few hours after the fire.
Burgess, who sought the disciplinary hearing, said an independent hearing officer was brought in to decide the outcome of the case without accusations that politics were involved. Town officials hired Joseph E. Coffey, who practices law in Marlborough and Boston, to conduct the hearings.
Burgess said the suspension was appropriate. “Chiefs have to understand that they do answer to somebody,” Burgess said. “You can’t use a tragedy to ask for an increase in your budget.”
The disciplinary hearings held in July and August typified tensions that often divide the public safety and public policy sectors of town government. Fire chiefs said that they can best speak for the needs of their departments and that Foley’s comments were fueled by frustration after the fatal fire.
“He was just doing anything we would have done, wishing we could have done it better, wishing we could have had a more positive outcome,” said Weymouth Fire Chief Robert O’Leary.
Firefighters who were called to the single-family house on Union Street in May fought back roaring flames before they could enter the building, according to testimony during the hearings.
Six brothers, a cousin, and her infant son were asleep when the fire broke out about 5 a.m. Most of the brothers fled the apartment after smelling smoke. The cousin, a 21-year-old who had been left in charge, threw her baby out a second-floor window onto a blanket and jumped to safety.
Half-brothers Emmanuel Labranche, 17, and Valensky DuGuaran, 8, were trapped inside the house and killed. One brother said after the fire that firefighters had arrived by the time he fled the building, and that there was time to save his brothers.
But Foley had said after the fire that a limited team of firefighters responded at first and that their priority was to attack the flames that obstructed them from entering the house.
Later, Foley held several press conferences at the scene in which he decried budget cuts that had short-staffed his department. “I can’t promise you that there would have been a different outcome,” Foley said at the time. “All I can tell you is that the operation would have been more enhanced by additional staffing.”
Just three months earlier, Randolph voters had rejected a proposed override that would have included $108,000 for the Fire Department.
The independent hearing officer found that Foley still had $100,000 in his overtime budget when the fire occurred and that there was still funding for an additional firefighter. Foley argued that the funding was to be used during the upcoming summer weather, when vacation time spikes. He also said he could not hire anyone at the time, given the uncertainty over budget finances.
But Burgess said the chief has responsibility to make such decisions and should not pass blame.
Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company