Albe Bassett

‘This Is Not a Best Practice’: Fire Commission Pushes Back on Removal of Funding for Assistant Chief

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Saying it’s a matter of public safety, members of the municipal body that oversees the New Canaan Fire Department are calling for the town to re-add funding for an assistant chief position in the agency. The Board of Selectmen following a back-and-forth with Fire Chief Albe Bassett removed a request for $121,000 in salary for the full-time assistant chief position in January, during the first major phase of the fiscal year 2025 budget process. (The job would also come with a benefits package that town Human Resources officials put at about 40% of the salary.)

After Bassett submitted a memo to the Board of Selectmen saying he could try to make do with $71,000 in overtime that would go to line officers in lieu of the full-time assistant chief, the selectmen did add a $50,000 overtime line item to the Fire Department’s budget (which still must be approved by the Board of Finance and Town Council). In the memo, obtained by NewCanaanite.com through a public records request, Bassett listed five duties that cannot be filled by line officers “on a 24/7 basis.” They include representing the chief as needed, supervising the other line officers, HR functions such as negotiations, budget-related work and fire marshal duties. Members of the Fire Commission during a special meeting held Feb.

Albert Bassett

New Canaan Boy, 6, Receives ‘Bravery Award’ from Fire Department

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About two months ago, 5-year-old New Canaan resident John Tashjian was sitting in a car seat while his father, Luke, drove them up Route 20 in Sturbridge, Mass. 

Suddenly, a motorist swerved into the oncoming traffic lane in the 50 mph zone and hit the Tashjians head-on. While his dad suffered a broken vertebrae, young John suffered a broken collarbone and his car seat harness, while it did its job, tore the skin off his shoulders. The pair “rolled backwards across two lanes of oncoming traffic without being t-boned on John and my side of the car,” Fire Commission Chair Jack Horner said, reading from a firsthand account from Luke Tashjian at Tuesday night’s regular meeting of the appointed body. “Our car rolled about 250 feet since it was slightly downhill to where it hit a parked car at the local towing company where they impound your car after an accident and stopped,” he continued at the meeting, held in Fire Department headquarters and attended by the Tashjian family. 

Incredibly, though his dad found himself unable to move, the little boy became “very calm and authoritative and told me to call 911,” Luke Tashjian said in the firsthand account. 

It continued:
“I was lying in a puddle and told him I didn’t have my cell phone. He told me to find my cell phone and call 911.

Fire Commission

After Brooks Road Fire, Officials Urge New Canaan Homeowners To Safely Clear Out Ash Pits 

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Officials are urging New Canaan homeowners to ensure the ash pits below their fireplaces are emptied regularly and safely—as well as installed properly—following a house fire last week on Brooks Road that was ignited due to improper design. Fire officials responded on the afternoon of March 2 to a two-alarm fire at a Brooks Road home. It had been ignited in a crawl space below a hearth extension for the fireplace in the living room, according to Fire Marshal Paul Payne. “What had happened, the fireplace had an ash dump in the fire box and the ashes dumped down below the chimney into the foundation area, which was exterior to the house,” Payne told members of the Fire Commission during their regular meeting Tuesday night. “Well, the smoke and the fire was in the crawl space and when I got in there with the guys, they were just finishing up,” he said during the meeting, held via videoconference.

News

Fire Officials Pursue ‘Dry Hydrant’ Installation in Northwestern New Canaan

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Town officials say they’re working on a plan to install a pipe system that will allow firefighters to more readily withdraw water from a pond located near the intersection of Dan’s Highway and West Road. Fire Marshal Paul Payne said during the Fire Commission’s Jan. 12 meeting that he and Chief Jack Hennessey are working with a contractor regarding the possible installation of a dry hydrant in Lockwood Pond. Commission Chair Jack Horner asked during the meeting whether that was the pond that New Canaan firefighters drafted from in fighting a structure fire in November 2019. 

Payne said yes. “I had heard we had an easement on one of the properties up there and so I researched the deeds and indeed we do have an easement for a dry hydrant on one of the properties up there,” Payne said during the meeting, held via videoconference.

Fred Baker

New Canaan Fire Marshal Fred Baker To Retire Friday

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Fred Baker, one of New Canaan’s most visible and experienced public safety professionals, is set to retire at the end of this week. After more than a dozen years as New Canaan’s fire marshal and nearly a half-century in the field, the new grandfather will step down from a position with which he’s become synonymous here. “I’m feeling great,” the mustachioed Redding resident told NewCanaanite.com when asked for his thoughts on retirement. “I’m looking forward to it. I’ve been in the fire service, as they call it, for 47-plus years, and I’m looking forward to doing my projects at home—puttering at home.