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minutes 8-25-99Page 20 of 60 <br /> <br />in behalf of the firefighters. <br /> <br />RAY: Could you introduce yourself please? <br />QUEROBIN: Oh pardon me. I’m a retired Fire Captain of the Hawaii County Fire <br />Department. I was a former Unit Chair for this island for almost 20 years. The <br /> <br />reason - <br /> <br />RAY: State your name for the record please. <br /> <br />QUEROBIN: Excuse me. My name is Steven Querobin. Sorry about that. <br /> <br />RAY: That’s okay. We should have had sign up forms and we didn’t so - <br />QUEROBIN: The testimony should speak for itself. The main reason why we’re asking <br />for a Fire Commission is to offer stability in the Fire Department. In my 26 ½ years <br />of service with Hawaii County Fire Department, I’ve been through ten different Fire <br />Administrations and the reason we support a Commission is not to eliminate politics <br />altogether from the Fire Department but to lessen the politics that’s going on right <br />now, to sort of insulate the Fire Department from the everyday politics, and the <br />Chief has more freedom of doing long term planning. The problem we’re having right <br />now is you have somebody - I’ll give an example. Not because he was my friend, but <br />this particular Chief I’m going to talk about had tremendous vision. His name was <br />Chief Smith, Francis Smith. He took us from an ordinary Fire Department into the EMS <br />Services, into air rescue, Air Medi-cal Services, and his vision of the Fire <br />Department - we share the same vision but because of politics, his term was cut <br />short. So what I’m really saying is we’d like to see a Commission not made of <br />experts - when I say experts, so called ex-fire people, but really a citizen review <br />committee, to oversee the Department, the Administration, the Office of the Fire <br />Chief. And we submitted the Honolulu City Charter Amendments in regards to the Fire <br />Commission and it seems to be working well right now, so would ask your support in <br />forming a Fire Commission for our island. If you have any questions, I’ll be more <br /> <br />than glad to answer. <br /> <br />RAY: Okay, George. <br />MARTIN: Steve, good afternoon. Thanks for coming in. I open the Charter in CHAPTER <br />4: FIRE DEPARTMENT. It states that there shall be a Fire Department consisting of <br />Fire Chief and necessary staff. It goes on to say that the Mayor will appoint and <br />Council will confirm. May be removed by the Mayor. In this present form, do you <br /> <br />think that there would be a need to change that? <br />QUEROBIN: Yes. We’d like to see the Charter Amendment to read that the Fire <br />Commission would appoint the Fire Chief and there’s reasons behind that, obvious <br /> <br />reasons. <br /> <br />MARTIN: Thank you. <br /> <br />RAY: Other questions? Gary. <br />YOSHIYAMA: Steve, I think we have one committee or Commission now supporting the <br /> <br />Fire Department, that’s the EMS Commission, Emergency Medical Services Commission. <br /> <br />QUEROBIN: That’s correct. They deal with EMS only. <br />YOSHIYAMA: I don’t know if it’s a State mandated Commission but it is within the <br /> <br />County of Hawaii? <br />file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 8-25-99.html7/1/2011 <br /> <br />