The chief of the Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps has been suspended from the corps by the organization’s board of directors, RiverheadLOCAL has learned.
Joseph Oliver, a 10-year corps member and its chief since 2013, was suspended from service in late July.
The suspension came to light when Oliver told a reporter Nov. 21 he could not comment for a news story on behalf of RVAC. The disciplinary action was taken by the board of directors for allegedly breaking RVAC rules and disobeying an order of the board of directors, Oliver said.
Oliver said he in the process of an internal appeal and declined further comment.
Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps board president Bruce Talmage refused to discuss the suspension.
“There are some disciplinary hearings going on that are still ongoing,” Talmage said Monday. “I’m not going into it.” Talmage would not say when Oliver had been suspended or when the suspension will end.
Assistant Chief Lisa Corwin is now “filling the role of chief,” Talmage said.
Oliver, 28, was in the middle of his second one-year term as chief when he was suspended from service. His term as chief was set to expire at the end of the year. RVAC bylaws limit a corpsman to two consecutive one-year terms as chief. The chief is elected by a vote of the membership at its annual meeting in December, subject to the approval of the board of directors, according to the organization’s bylaws.
Corwin confirmed that she is filling the chief’s duties in Oliver’s absence. She, too, declined comment.
Numerous RVAC members interviewed for this story would speak only on the condition of anonymity, saying they are not allowed to speak to the media and that they feared disciplinary action if their identities were disclosed.
All said RVAC membership has never been formally notified of Oliver’s suspension, either by the corps’ officers or its board of directors. At monthly membership meetings, people have asked “What happened to our chief?” one member said. The questions go unanswered.
“We’re told we don’t have a right to know, we don’t need to know,” the member said.
“It’s been confusing and it makes us angry that we don’t know,” another member said.
Word of the chief’s suspension and the circumstances giving rise to the action spread throughout the corps anyway.
Oliver reportedly rode on the hood of the chief’s vehicle in the car wash at the Mobil gas station this spring. He did it as a takeoff on the “ice bucket challenge” that was then the rage, RVAC members said, to raise money for RVAC EMT Ira Marguiles, a 48-year-old father of two who was battling terminal cancer. A video of the stunt was posted on Facebook. When members of the RVAC board saw the video, they took immediate disciplinary action against Oliver, according to RVAC members.
Initially, they say, his punishment — meted out by the board president in late July — was being banned from driving the just-delivered new chief’s vehicle for 72 days. The new chief’s vehicle had not yet been put on the road.
Oliver defied that order, sources say, because another, 10-year-old first responder’s vehicle was long overdue to come off the road and was considered unsafe by the RVAC operations board. Under the organization’s bylaws, decisions about equipment are the exclusive authority of the operations board, which is made up of the corps’ line officers — the chief, assistant chief, captains and lieutenants.
Oliver put the new vehicle on the road and then suspended the president of the board for violating the organization’s bylaws. After that, acting president Keith Lewin suspended Oliver from service until September 2015, according to members close to the chief. Oliver is currently appealing the suspension, they say.
Several veteran members of the corps complained that morale in the organization is at an all-time low, thanks to lack of communication and perceived favoritism, they say.
“Punishment is not even-handed,” one said.
While other members have been allowed to participate while they appealed suspensions, Oliver cannot, another member said. “He is not even allowed on RVAC property. And it’s a public building!”
“It’s sort of like a ‘good old boys’ club with the board. If they don’t like you, they do their damndest to get you out of there,” he said. “Anyone who stands up to them, they get rid of you.”
Another member said she was warned about talking to nonmembers, especially the media, about the situation. “I know it’s an internal matter, but it’s an internal matter that’s affecting the town,” she said. “Morale in the department is terrible, the worst I’ve ever seen.”
“Joe is as dedicated as they come,” another corpsman said. “Even though he hasn’t been riding with us since July, he’s still on our top 10 responder list for 2014 — that’s how many calls he goes on.”
The ambulance corps is one of the busiest on Long Island. It has already answered more than 3,000 calls this year, according to members.
“What happened to Joe is cruel,” another member said. “What he did was a minor thing, really. No one got hurt, nothing was damaged. I think they’re trying to get Joe to just quit.”
Oliver, who joined RVAC in 2004 and recently became a paramedic, has joined the Flanders-Northampton Volunteer Ambulance. In that capacity, he can still be found answering ambulance calls in the Riverhead district, when RVAC can’t respond and asks for mutual aid from FNVA.
“The morale in this department has gone down so much. When people ask what happened with Joe, they tell us it’s none of our business,” he said. “The whole department wants Joe back.”
The Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps Inc. is a private, not-for-profit corporation that provides emergency medical services to the Town of Riverhead Ambulance District pursuant to a contract between RVAC and the district. The Riverhead Town Board sits as the board of the ambulance district. Ambulance district tax revenues fund a budget proposed by RVAC and approved by the town board. The current contract between RVAC and the ambulance district expires Dec. 31.
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