Here are some brief thoughts on recent happenings in Franklin County and the North Quabbin region.
Last Thursday’s front page headline sounds positive: “Baker: Vaccine doors fully open April 19.” Well, big deal … not! The people who are already eligible to get their COVID-19 vaccine still can’t get it because there are not enough doses.
On Saturday morning, the message on our local vaccine website, www.franklincountymavaccine.org, read: “Unfortunately, there will be no new vaccination appointments for the week beginning on Monday, March 22. Our weekly allocation is only enough to meet second dose clinic obligations. Please check back Friday, March 26 for new clinic information.”
There is a huge bottleneck of seniors 65 and older who have not yet been vaccinated because there are no openings in Franklin County and the North Quabbin area clinics. And now those people will have to compete with the general population starting April 19? Our message to Gov. Baker is, “Not so fast! Get our seniors vaccinated before you throw wide the doors.”
We can’t resist commending our local firefighters who rescue dogs from an icy death. The latest was on Lake Pleasant, where Montague Center firefighters answered the call of a dog through the ice.
“The dog was hanging on and was tired enough that it didn’t fight them,” Chief Dave Hansen said. “The dog was pretty lethargic and exhausted. I’m sure that’s due to hypothermia and just the struggling of trying to hang onto the ice, the poor thing.”
We took some flak after the last such editorial for not calling out the owners who let their dogs run loose on the ice. So this time we want to say, “Owners, dogs are short on common sense. Use your own and keep them on a leash, for their own protection.”
Ashfield’s Selectboard received the results of a 54-page report by West Barnstable Fire Chief Joseph V. Maruca, who reviewed the volunteer fire department at the request of Town Administrator Jennifer Morse. The impetus was the impending retirement of Fire Chief Del Haskins.
One of Maruca’s recommendations is for Ashfield to get a full-time career fire chief. Marcia listed 12 aspects of the job — including strategic planning and risk management — that can be handled by a full-time chief but not a part-time one. “In fact,” Maruca wrote in his report, “most people admire and respect Chief Haskins for having done the job in a part-time capacity for a long time, for little money, and well past the point when most people would have walked away telling the town it was time for them to hire a full-time chief.”
This is the case not only for Ashfield (population: 1,734) but for all the other small towns in our region. It’s safe to say that part-time fire chiefs are the most undervalued members of our local leadership, given that the people they serve have absolutely no idea of what they do, beyond responding to fires.
Maruca puts the cost to the town of a full-time fire chief at between $88,500 and $102,000, accounting for salary, benefits and other expenses that come with a new position. Maruca acknowledged this is a lot of money for a small town, but said the price tag is a bargain for the value that would be added.
Selectboard member Tom Carter admitted the town doesn’t have “a magic wand” to implement Maruca’s recommendations, which also included hiring a core of part-time firefighters and updating infrastructure.
Ashfield is not the only small town with a part-time fire chief at retirement age. Maruca’s report is a wake-up call for them, too.