Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps membership recently elected officers for 2015.
Bill Wilkinson was elected RVAC chief. Rod Richardson was elected assistant chief, Amanda Zilnicki and Rachael Grattan were elected captains, and Chris Fleming was elected lieutenant, Wilkinson said last week.
The line officers elected by the membership must be appointed by the board of directors, according to the organization’s bylaws.
“All line officer positions have not yet been appointed by the board of directors,” RVAC acting president Keith Lewin wrote in an email to RiverheadLOCAL last week. The additional positions will not be filled until next month because some of the elected members were not eligible for appointment and others declined the positions due to “recent changes in their personal lives,” Lewin wrote.
The corps is supposed to have four lieutenants in addition to the chief, assistant chief and captain, according to the RVAC bylaws.
Wilkinson’s election as chief will fill a position that has been vacant since last July. At that time, ex-chief Joseph Oliver was suspended for allegedly breaking RVAC rules. The suspension caused turmoil within the RVAC community.
Oliver said in November that he was in the process of appealing his suspension. But the RVAC Appeals Board determined that the disciplinary action was appropriate and that his suspension would stand, Lewin said in the email last week.
Oliver’s one-year suspension will end July 26, when he will return to duty as a probationary corpsman, the ex-chief said this week.
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