Northwood Council voted 5-1 to make the full-time fire chief position part-time at a meeting on July 7.

Administrator Dennis Recker will now interview candidates for the position, then make a recommendation to Mayor Mark Stoner on a final candidate.

Council had questioned the need to hire a full-time chief to replace former Chief Tim Romstadt, who resigned his full-time position earlier this year. Council has advertised for a full-time chief, but had also been considering hiring a part-time chief that would save the city money.

“I really do think we need a full-time chief. But if the support is not there, it’s not there,” said Councilman Dave Gallaher, who voted against a part-time chief. “I’m telling you people that situations we get into are created by other situations that really do not seem all that important at the time. It’s not until down the road after you have a tragedy that you realize that we should have been more careful or we should have done things differently. And that’s what scares me.”

Voting in favor of making the position part-time was Councilwoman Connie Hughes, who made the recommendation to instruct Recker to interview candidates for a part-time chief, and Councilmen Mike Myers, Jim Barton, Ed Schimmel and Randy Kozina.

Hiring a full-time chief is among several recommendations made by Dr. David Miramontes following the death of a Northwood resident who had to wait several minutes for help to arrive after his wife called 9-1-1 on March 3 of this year.

Dr. Miramontes, Northwood’s former EMS medical director, had written a letter to Stoner April 16 in which he made 14 recommendations for adequate staffing, supervision and deployment of resources in the fire department. Among the recommendations was to hire a full-time chief.

Miramontes said a full-time chief would improve morale, promote recruitment, enhance training and provide oversight to the EMS mission.

The letter was written following the death of resident Tim Mix, who had waited 28 minutes for a rescue squad to arrive at his home on Parc Rue after his wife called 9-1-1 three times on the morning of March 3. Mix died two days later in Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center after tests showed he had brain damage from a lack of oxygen.

Also at the meeting, council tabled two recommendations to revise the city charter because they will not meet a Wood County Board of Elections deadline to place them on the fall ballot.

The recommendations by a Charter Review Committee made up of residents includes reducing the number of council seats to five from seven, and removing from the charter a section that limits military duty for council members to 45 days before they would lose their seats. Another section in the charter that deals with vacancies has more flexibility when a member of council is called up by the military.

Council did not vote on an ordinance that would have placed on the ballot recommendations to remove limits of military duty for council members.

“As strongly as I feel about this, I think we should do everything we can to move it forward, there’s no physical way we can make the election this year,” said Gallaher, who chairs the committee. “We just simply do not have enough days left to get it on the ballot. I will make a motion to table this, unless someone wants to discuss it in great detail. We can make a motion to table this and wait until the first of the year, bring it back and discuss it, and get it ready for the following election.”

Council debated both recommendations at a meeting June 26. Some had asked City Law Director Brian Ballenger for more information on whether state or federal law already prohibits the loss of employment due to military duty.

Hughes said she spoke to Ballenger and he told her there is no state law that protects employment in such circumstances.

“Under Ohio law, there is nothing,” she said. “And it isn’t very clear what the federal law says. He suggested the same thing, that we table it because there’s no reason to have a public hearing.”

Council had previously scheduled a public hearing on July 14 to discuss the recommendations.

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