"A new year.... new fire officers." Great, JUST great!!

I would have to say 95% of the fire departments in Eastern Connecticut is volunteer. Some of those volunteer fire departments have chiefs appointed by town officials or board members, and stay chief until they either retire, die, or just step down. Line officers such as Captains or Lieutenants are then appointed by the chief and his assistant chiefs, etc.

Now, the other half of the departments have elections. Some annually, some every two or three years, but either way, they have elections. This way to me, seems to be a hindrance, because in my mind, in order to move a department forward and being pro-active takes more than a year, or two, or three to see the progress. To me, voting would be a popularity contest at times, and in some departments there is a maximum amount of years that you can serve as chief. Granted, you'd be bringing new ideas and new ways of thinking into the department by elections, but you'd also possibly have differing opinions between administrations(much like politics).

So, most departments that have elections have theirs in January, figuring "it's a new year, let's have new officers." So we in dispatch now have to look forward to dealing with some brand new, "green" fire officers on the radio. It tends to provide many entertaining shifts, where these new officers wouldn't like the "ribbing" or "poking fun" of them at dispatch when the microphone is not keyed...

And on a side note, one thing that has really annoyed me, is a certain department which will remain un-named who establishes incident command for everything, and I mean EVERYTHING! Most departments will only establish command for certain calls, such as fires or moderate/severe car accidents, but this department will establish command for a nose bleed! If I was ever to become a member there, and get elected by votes to be their chief, that's the first policy I would change after my inauguration, DAY 1 of my term! But then again, some of their members wouldn't like that and vote me out of office the next year. LMAO...