Fire chief scolded over remarks

BREWSTER -- Roy Jones has been putting out fires in Brewster for 40 years, but now he seems to have started one.

The fire chief in this fast-growing Cape Cod town spoke out in a Globe report on fire department response times, in effect accusing the town's leaders of undermining public safety to save money. His fire department covers 25 square miles from a single fire station, putting some residents a 10-minute drive away from an ambulance or a fire engine.

In reply, the town selectmen summoned Jones to a hearing last night to face discipline ''up to and including termination."

The selectmen unanimously voted to issue a written reprimand to Jones after getting legal advice that a suspension would be questionable and that firing the chief would not hold up in court.

Before the hearing, Jones said he was willing to accept a reprimand, though he still believed what he said was true. ''I was taking a stand because I was frustrated," he said. ''I said I would apologize, though it's still my opinion."

The trip to the woodshed demonstrates tensions in cities and towns across the Commonwealth, as two decades of limits on tax increases have put pressure on local budgets.

''We're watching the dismantling of local government," said Charles Sumner, Brewster's town administrator. ''If healthcare and personnel costs continue to go up 12 to 15 percent a year, we can either reduce services or try to explain to the citizens why we need more money. You can only go to that well so often."

Those pressures are most acute in fast-growing communities like Brewster.

Jones has seen the year-round population grow rapidly, up by more than half in the past two decades, to about 11,000. That balloons to 25,000 in the summer season. In 1985, the fire department handled about 900 calls for fire and rescue. That grew to 3,000 last year.

In an interview published in the Globe on Jan. 30, Jones said: ''Since 1998, I've been trying to get a station location and response time study, and it was submarined. Quite frankly, the people in power don't want this information out because it might mean spending more money. Life safety is not the top priority here -- saving money is. Unfortunately, we are not alone in this situation."

The chief's passion is commendable, said Selectman James Foley, but Jones went too far when he described a fatal fire where two volunteers arrived within seven minutes, but couldn't get inside without air tanks. It was several more minutes before the first fire engine arrived. A woman was revived briefly but died at the hospital. ''If we'd been there a minute earlier," Jones said in the Jan. 30 story, ''I'm sure she'd be alive."

That comment was ''most outrageous," Foley said. ''You can never know whether it would have made a difference. It reopened the wounds of a family that is grieving."

Jones also had his facts wrong, Foley said, because the town's leaders have supported the fire department. The number of full-time firefighters has risen, though still the town has only two on duty at night. In 2002, the selectmen proposed spending $4 million to overhaul the old fire station, but voters defeated the plan. The selectmen did reject Jones's request last year to study fire station needs and locations, but they still put the question before the town meeting, where it was defeated overwhelmingly. It may come up again this year.

Bill Dedman can be reached at dedman@globe.com.