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Contrary to a previous post that indicated that the Mayor "can apoint anyone of his choosing no matter what experience they have in any given field", that is not true.

Back in 2007 I proposed a change to the practice that stipulated that the chief had to be appointed from within the department to allow a mayor to address the current situation that is occuring in this department by appointing a chief regardless if his experience was in the city fire deparment.

That resulted in two ordinances being changed.

Here is the first:

SECTION I. Section 43 of Chapter 20 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Warwick is hereby amended as follows:

Sec. 20-43. Appointments of officers to be made from ranks of department.

All future appointments of officers of the fire department, other than chief of the department shall be from within the ranks of such department.

The second one indicates how much experience the appointed fire chief must have.

Sec. 20-44. Experience requirements for officers.

The fire chief shall have at least ten years of experience in firefighting in any fire department. Deputy chiefs shall have ten years of experience in the city fire department, and battalion chiefs shall have seven years of firefighting experience in the city fire department. This section is only applicable to initial appointments.