Anderson fire board approves hiring three full-time firefighters

By George L. Winship, Editor
Updated Thursday, October 15, 2009

With two of its five members absent, the Anderson Fire Protection District's board of directors unanimously approved a request from Fire Chief Andy Nichols to begin accepting applications for three new permanent and full-time firefighters.

Funding for the firefighters, estimated by fire board chairman Keith Webster at $28,800 per year, will come in large part from eliminating three seasonal firefighter positions as well as money saved by not filling the vacancy created when Nichols, formerly Deputy Fire Chief, took over as Fire Chief on Sept. 14.

"By not filling my position and the savings from letting three of our seasonal firefighters go, we can hire three full-time firefighters," Nichols told the governing board.

Nichols said he will start accepting applications on Monday, Oct. 19, and will continue to collect them through Nov. 20.

"We will start screening those applications in about 30 days," said Nichols, who added that he hopes to begin screening the new hires in late December or early January.

"We should be able to have them on duty by Feb. 1," Nichols added.

In response to questions from Webster and board member Paul Bosetti, Nichols said he will invite officials from two other agencies -- California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the City of Redding -- to serve on an oral interview panel along with representatives from the City of Anderson.

Oral interviews will take place on Mondays and Tuesdays each week during December, Nichols said.

In other business, Norma Comnick of the fire board announced that the Grand Jury, on a judge's order, had received a copy of the investigator's report that led to the resignation in July of former Fire Chief Joe Piccinini.

Although he was not present at the fire board meeting held Tuesday, Oct. 13, Redding attorney Mike Fitzpatrick, the Anderson fire district's part-time legal counsel, said by phone Wednesday that on direction from Stephen H. Baker, Shasta County's presiding Superior Court Judge, Fitzpatrick had presented the chairman of the 2009-2010 Shasta County Grand Jury with "several volumes" of papers making up the final report of investigator Neil Purcell's investigation into management practices of the fire district.

When Piccinini resigned July 1 for personal reasons, Fitzpatrick had instructed the fire board members not to discuss or release information from the report to anyone unless so ordered by a judge.

Copies of the investigator's report have since been requested under the Freedom of Information Act by the Anderson Valley Post and the Redding Record Searchlight, neither of which has received a copy of the report to date.