Hamilton (MT) City Council Starts Search for New Fire Chief

hamilton fire department seal

Jackson Kimball – Ravalli Republic, Hamilton, Mont.

Dec. 18—Mayor Dominic Farrenkopf and the rest of Hamilton City Council anticipate hiring a new fire chief by the beginning of February 2025.

At a meeting on Dec. 17, council members approved an updated fire chief job description and appointed council member Rod Pogachar to the fire chief interview panel.

After the former volunteer fire chief of 35 years, Brad Mohn, resigned in October following allegations of misconduct, city officials felt it necessary to update the fire chief job description before proceeding with the hiring process.

“As positions in the city evolve, some updates become necessary,” Farrenkopf told the Ravalli Republic. “All of us felt that a few of these minor changes would be good updates to the description.”

One of the updates to the job description, which can be found in the meeting’s agenda packet, was the designation of where applicants could reside in relation to the fire district center. The new description requires applicants to live within 10 miles of the center of the Hamilton Rural Fire District, which is near the intersection of Skalkaho Highway and U.S. Highway 93.

Reasoning behind the revised residency requirements related to wanting rapid incident response times.

“We’d want someone who could respond right away,” Farrenkopf said to the council.

Council members noted that despite the requirement, “a great candidate” who resided outside of the 10-mile radius would not be barred from consideration.

Farrenkopf said that after drafting and receiving input on the updated job description from the Hamilton Professional Firefighters Association, they presented it at the Dec. 11 Rural Fire District Board meeting, where it was approved by board members.

Hamilton City Attorney Karen Mahar said the requirements in the new job description were derived directly from the Montana Labor Code.

“There’s a statute which has a long list that involves 12 different statutory duties,” Mahar said. “They form the basis of the job description.”

Mahar said that “great collaboration” went into curating the new description.

“Everybody’s changes were incorporated,” Mahar said. “I think it all got circulated out so that firefighters could review it and digest it and think about it. So we’re trying to move promptly to the selection process but also put some thought into it.”

City council’s next step includes forming a selection committee to oversee the hiring process that will likely include Farrenkopf, another Hamilton city council member, Public Works Director Donny Ramer, Police Chief Steve Snavely, one member from the Rural Fire District, and two local firefighters.

“The mayor would like to try to extend an offer of employment and have someone fill that by the first part of February next year,” Mahar said. “We’re on a pretty prompt timeline.”

Council members anticipated a special city council meeting in late January to review the hiring process up to that point and extend an offer of employment.

“Hopefully we can get somebody up and running in the first part of February,” Mahar said.

The City of Hamilton could start accepting applications for the new fire chief as soon as Thursday, Dec. 19.

Jackson Kimball is the local government reporter for the Ravalli Republic.

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