May 17, 2007
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| There’s a new chief in town after the Board of
Selectmen unanimously approved the promotion of Assistant
Fire Chief Peter Siecienski to succeed Fire Chief Sanford
Anderson when he retires on Aug. 1. Chief Siecienski, a Greenwich native who was chief of the Danbury Fire Department for five years and assistant chief for another seven, has been with the Greenwich Fire Department since last November after a nationwide search. Chief Siecienski’s promotion was hardly seen as a surprise. First Selectman James Lash has said he wants to make sure there is a clear line of succession in town departments, particularly police and fire, so that promotions can be made from within rather than looking outside in nationwide searches. When he was first hired last year, Chief Siecienski seemed to be put in place for an inevitable promotion. However, Chief Siecienski said he was never promised the top spot when he was hired. While he said he was interested in succeeding Chief Anderson if the opportunity came up, it was never a condition of his coming here. Chief Siecienski came to Greenwich directly from Danbury, where he’d reached the retirement age, and said he didn’t consider it a demotion of any kind to go from the top spot to having to report to someone in a new department. “I saw it as a pretty good challenge to come here,” Chief Siecienski said. “You have to look for things that will develop your career, and rank doesn’t really have anything to do with it at that point. This department offered a lot of challenges that I wasn’t familiar with in Danbury. You have about 33 miles of shoreline here, which is very interesting and a learning curve for me to get exposed to.” Since he’d reached the retirement age in Danbury, Chief Siecienski said it made economic sense to come to Greenwich. He said he liked the fact that both towns had “combination departments” with both career and volunteer firefighters, but that he believes Greenwich has more volunteer support and wanted to be able to interact with the neighboring departments here in a regional concept. Chief Siecienski said he also was eager for the challenge of the busier use of the railroad tracks and Interstate 95 in Greenwich as opposed to Danbury. He said he felt the job would be bigger. In making its decision, the Board of Selectmen had plenty of praise for the town’s new fire chief. Mr. Lash praised his “long, distinguished and successful” career in Danbury and said he felt when the town first hired him he was the right man for the job. “I watched him last night defend the fire department’s budget and you would have thought he’d been here for 20 years,” Mr. Lash said. “He answered all the questions down to a level of detail that I was surprised at. He was able to blow right by the questions without any problem.” Selectman Peter Crumbine said he was “delighted” to support the promotion, and Selectwoman Penny Monahan said she saw before how popular he already was within the department. “In talking with different people in all phases of the fire department it’s amazing that I haven’t heard one negative comment,” Ms. Monahan said. “The comments ever since he came aboard have been so positive that it’s great for the department and for our town.” Chief Anderson also had praise for his successor, specifically endorsing him in his letter to the selectmen announcing his retirement. In his letter, Chief Anderson said he had been very fortunate to have someone as “experienced and knowledgeable” as Chief Siecienski work with him in the department. “I could not think of a more qualified person for the job,” Chief Anderson wrote. Working on budgets is nothing new for Chief Siecienski, and he said his previous administrative experience will make it easier to transition to the leadership in Greenwich. “The problems here are typically the same that they are in Danbury,” Chief Siecienski said. “I had an idea of what to expect coming into this budget and there weren’t any surprises.” Chief Siecienski is the first to admit there have been a lot of changes since he last lived in Greenwich as a child, but he’s had no problems adjusting to the town. “The community and the department have been just wonderful,” Chief Siecienski said. “The firefighters here have a tremendous amount of motivation and they’re looking to step up and take the department to the next level.” Last year the town also created four new deputy chief positions. Mr. Lash said this would enable the town to have a clear line of succession in place for Chief Siecienski’s tenure and beyond. “Certainly having in place good, competent people at all levels of a town department and having an orderly succession process is the best thing for the town and for the department involved,” Mr. Lash said. “I think here in the fire department at the moment we have a good, solid chain of command. We have a lot of good, young firefighters and lieutenants who are getting lots of experience. I think we have a succession line in place for a while.” Mr. Lash said he wanted to establish a similar line at the police department, particularly with Chief of Police James Walters and Deputy Chief Pat Chila both retiring in the coming months. Deputy Chief David Ridberg was recently promoted to his position, but ongoing litigation has prevented Mr. Lash from making further promotions of another deputy chief or new captains. “We’re a little bit more challenged there in filling the senior ranks, but hopefully we will get that resolved,” Mr. Lash said. Chief Siecienski said he can see the town’s firefighters responding well to the idea of having a line of succession. “I think they’re enthused about the whole concept of developing people within the department and establishing a succession plan,” Chief Siecienski said. As he gets set to take over officially late this summer, Chief Siecienski said there are many issues the department is already getting a handle on. He said progress will be made on issues like installing dry hydrants in the community, establishing better water sources and building a new fire station in the northwest part of town. Chief Siecienski said the department remains “strapped” for personnel and steps would be taken to attract new staff. “I’m impressed with the community involvement that’s down here,” Chief Siecienski said. “I met with a neighborhood organization yesterday, for example, and they were chomping at the bit to get this new fire station built on King Street. It’s the first time I’ve ever been faced with community representation in my office urging a project to go faster. Sometimes when you want to build a firehouse you get that ‘not in my neighborhood’ mentality, but here you’ve got a community that’s fully behind its fire department and can’t wait to get these projects off the ground.” kborsuk@greenwich-post.com © Copyright 2007 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers |