Suffolk fire chiefs, citing public safety concerns, threaten Riverhead with state compliance complaint

Suffolk County’s fire chiefs are threatening to file an oversight complaint with state regulators against the Town of Riverhead for the town’s alleged failure to conduct fire safety inspections as required by state code.

That complaint can result in fines levied against the town and fire safety inspections being done by the state — and billed to the town, according to John (“Chip”) Bancroft, vice president of the Suffolk County Fire Chiefs Council.

Bancroft told the Riverhead Town Board at its meeting last night that the fire chiefs council is prepared to take that step if the board does not address the inability of its fire marshal’s office — currently staffed with two full-time and one part-time fire marshals — to conduct the commercial premises inspections required by state fire safety and building codes.

The Riverhead fire marshals, whose duties include a host of things beyond the state-mandated inspections — including fire investigations, site plan reviews and complaint investigations — are “working hard and doing the best job with what they have,” Bancroft said.

“But with your current staff it’s impossible.”

The fire chiefs have been pressing for the restoration of the full-time fire marshal cut by the town for budget reasons in 2011. The short-staffed department means they can’t meet their inspection responsibilities, and that’s a serious shortcoming, Bancroft said.

“Public safety and the safety of volunteer firefighters is in jeopardy as a result,” he said.

Report: 13 percent of commercial properties inspected in 2014

Bancroft told the board that, according to documents he received in response to a Freedom of Information Law request, there are 1,829 commercial premises in the town that must be inspected pursuant to state code. According to the fire marshals, that list is not all-inclusive, Bancroft said.

“At a minimum, the fire marshals are required to annually inspect permitted properties, places of public assembly and restaurants,” Bancroft said.

In 2014, the fire marshal’s office completed just 238 inspections — 13 percent of the total number of properties, according to a report Bancroft said he obtained through the FOIL process.

Supervisor Sean Walter, who has been at odds with the fire chiefs over the fire marshal issue for more than four years, interrupted Bancroft’s statement to challenge those numbers. He said he was unaware of the chief’s FOIL request and told Bancroft he has gotten different numbers from the fire marshal.

“I’d love to get to the truth of this,” Walter said. “It’s almost — it’s sad because what the fire marshals are telling you is 100-percent opposite what they’re telling the boss,” he said.

“I’m not going to do it now, but I will bring to you, which is sitting —I know where it’s sitting on my desk becasue I was about to call them in and raise cain with them and say this is not all your inspections — but what they show me is a darn good rate of compliance,” the supervisor said.

Bancroft provided RiverheadLOCAL with copies of the reports he said he received in response to his FOIL request submitted to the town clerk.

Titled “Memorandum,” the “2014 Annual Activity Report” is dated March 11, 2015 and is addressed to the supervisor and members of the town board from the fire marshal’s office. It indicates completion of 238 fire safety compliance inspections, with 324 follow-up inspections of the same 238 locations.

Bancroft also provided RiverheadLOCAL with copies of spreadsheets he said the town produced in response to his the FOIL request, which list every commercial property in the town, by hamlet, and indicate their last inspection dates, the frequency of inspection required by state code — which is determined by the type of premises and activities — and any special operational permits issued to each, such as flammable liquids or chemicals.

In a post-meeting interview last night, Walter said the fire marshals told him there were 1,600 businesses in the town “but the list they gave me several months ago didn’t even have a thousand businesses on it.” Walter acknowledged receiving the March 11 report of annual activity and said he’d already scheduled a meeting with the fire marshals to “go over what it meant.” He said he’s been asking for a more accurate list of businesses on a spread sheet — and as of 18 months ago, he said, the fire marshals didn’t even have a list.

“There are some time management issues there,” the supervisor said. “I want to know how many inspections each fire marshal is doing. Suffice it to say there are some other issues I have to deal with there that have nothing to do with the number of fire marshals.”

Walter: Chiefs’ actions ‘inappropriate’

Walter chided Bancroft for bringing the issue to the board at a regular meeting, a move he called inappropriate.

“I would love for you to sit down with the fire marshals at this table on a Thursday morning at your leisure because you’re asserting things that I couldn’t possibly defend because my fire marshals tell me something different,” the supervisor said.

“I asked the chiefs council if they would come in and weigh in on this. They didn’t respond — and that’s in writing,” Walter said. He said he twice called and then wrote to Thomas Campanaro, president of the Riverhead Town Fire Chiefs Council, to invite the town chiefs to a work session to discuss the issue, following Campanaro’s letter to the town board last month inviting them to a chief’s council meeting. That meeting took place on the same evening as a town board meeting, March 18 — rescheduled from its regular Tuesday date because of St. Patrick’s Day. In that letter, Campanaro said the chiefs would bring the issue to a public meeting if the town board members did not accept the invitation to meet privately.

Campanaro, who was present in the audience last night, denied that Walter called or wrote him. “That’s not a true statement, sir,” he called out from his seat. The supervisor had his chief of staff produce a copy of the letter he said he sent to the chief.

Walter: Town needs ‘young hot shot,’  says hiring inspector is chance to avoid limitations of Civil Service fire marshal list

The supervisor said the town board is attempting to address the inspection issue by hiring a fire prevention inspector — a job that’s already been posted and advertised in accordance with the town’s labor contract with the Civil Service Employees Association.

In an interview Monday, Walter reiterated past assertions that the move to hire a fire prevention inspector was the “fiscally conservative” option, because the starting salary and pay scale is lower than the fire marshal’s. It is $9,000 less, according to the town’s CSEA labor agreement.

Bancroft told Walter an inspector cannot issue summonses, but only make recommendations for enforcement action. The supervisor disagreed.

The Suffolk County Civil Service job description for the fire prevention inspector job title reads: “An employee in this class is responsible for basic fire code inspections of existing multiple family residential, commercial and/or industrial properties for current fire hazards and the issuance of recommendations for the correction of such hazards.”

But the supervisor said last night after the meeting that he believes the town can amend its code to authorize a fire prevention inspector to write code violations.

“If I can get a young hot shot in there to be an inspector and really start banging in this stuff out, we’d be in good shape,” Walter said.

He said an eager young volunteer firefighter would be elated to get a job that pays $50,000 on the East End. “You’re going to get 300 inspections out of him and that’s what we need,” Walter said.

“And I don’t think you’re going to get that — the fire marshal is a list and because it’s a list, I’m limited,” Walter said. “I’ve got to take the top three off the list,” he said, referring to civil service law requirements.

“The fire inspector doesn’t have a list — yet — so I have a lot more latitude at the current moment to hire a young buck from one of the four fire districts than I’ll ever have, and that’s a good thing,” Walter said.

“Maybe the fire inspector turns into a fire marshal one day,” he said, noting that fire marshal Dave Andruskiewicz was initially hired as a part-time code enforcement officer.

The supervisor also challenged the fire chiefs to help the town with fire safety inspections and plan review.

“So instead of just blaming the town, help us. We need help,” he said.

“Help me solve a problem, don’t just argue with me in the press. If you’re going to debate the supervisor of the town in the press it’s not helpful. It’s not going to solve the problem.”