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Date: 7/20/2021
SOUTHWICK – The Select Board met July 12 to interview and hire two new firefighters, discuss the future of hybrid meetings in Southwick, and to discuss The National at the Wick 338 that had taken place July 10.
The board interviewed Morgan McDonough and Brandon Patoine for the two open firefighter positions. McDonough went first and said she had heard of Southwick’s Fire Department from other people across the state. While she does not yet have fire training, she is an EMT.
Fire Chief Russ Anderson said during the meeting that both candidates would need to complete the fire academy after they are hired.
Patoine said he grew up in Southwick and has lived in the area for most of his life.
Both candidates were asked about the command structure of a fire department in an emergency and non-emergency situation. Both said that in an emergency situation, a paramedic would largely take command of a medical situation over their superiors in the fire department. Anderson later said that their answers were correct. One exception Anderson said was if the scene itself became dangerous for the medics, then he would take command for the safety of the crew.
McDonough said in her interview that she was excited to grow alongside the relatively small Southwick Fire Department, and that she hopes she can one day take a leadership role when she has the experience. Patoine said he hopes to become a career paramedic and firefighter and move up in the ranks of the department.
Both candidates were hired unanimously.
Hybrid meeting options discussed
Later in the meeting, the Select Board discussed the future of hybrid municipal meetings in Southwick, which are currently permitted in Massachusetts until next April. Select Board member Douglas Moglin said that Chief Administrative Officer Karl J. Stinehart and town staff have been working to better equip different rooms in Town Hall with better infrastructure to conduct hybrid meetings.
Moglin said he would like to see more consistency between boards and commissions in respect to hybrid and in-person meetings. Some boards and commissions, such as the Historical Commission and Board of Health, have so far opted to conduct their meetings in-person since restrictions have been relaxed in recent months.
Moglin said he would like to see more meeting rooms in Town Hall equipped with equipment to broadcast the meetings over Zoom.
“It provides people the ability to participate and observe the government in action from the comfort of their own home,” said Moglin. “The expense is not huge to support the hybrid model.”
Select Board member Russell Fox said that he was open to expanding hybrid meeting capabilities.
“There are still people who aren’t comfortable. Now we are dealing with variants and people are nervous about that,” said Fox.
Stinehart pointed out that the main obstacle for some of the rooms in Town Hall was that they don’t have any sort of screen on which to project the Zoom participants so that people who are in-person can easily see them.
Nationals executed smoothly
The Wick 338 hosted their first National motocross event since the COVID-19 pandemic began on July 10, with as many as 30,000 people attending.
Fox praised the event and said that it went about as smoothly as it possibly could have.
“It was obviously put together quickly and had a lot of challenges,” said Fox, “but with the Fire Department and Police Department, they did a great job.”
He said the crowd that attended the motocross event were “the nicest and friendliest people I had ever seen at a motocross national.”
He and the other board members said people were likely tired of being kept away from others for such a long period of time during the pandemic and came out in droves when it was safe.