Firefighters were the topic on hand at Kingston city council Tuesday night.
Before council were motions for an integrity commissioner investigation into councillor Ryan Boehme’s bid for new firefighter positions, which he voted in favour of creating at council, as well as a review and possible overhaul of the physical tests that come as part of the job application.
In the end, it was a split, with the motion for the integrity commissioner investigation passing and the motion on the recruitment process failing.
The investigation motion was put before council by the mayor, who proposed that council ask the city’s integrity commissioner to see if Boehme broke the municipal conflict of interest act when he voted to hire 12 more firefighters, and then applied for one of the jobs.
Boehme seconded the motion, but was noticeably absent from the in-person proceedings Tuesday, choosing to appear virtually.
The motion passed unanimously with little discussion.
Next up came a motion from councillor Conny Glenn, suggesting the city order a review of Kingston Fire and Rescue’s entire hiring process.
As each councillor had their say before the vote, many of them, including Mayor Bryan Paterson, said they felt no need to mandate a review as Fire Chief Monique Belair had already said there would be one.
“We will be doing a full review,” Belair says. “Right from submitting your application to what criteria are we looking for.”
The motion to mandate a review failed 8-3.
As for the review of the firefighter recruitment process, that will have to wait until a new deputy chief is found.
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