ADAMS, Mass. — The Fire Department is seeking clarifications on how the state's mandatory retirement age for firefighters will affect its older members who aren't involved in firefighting. 

Earlier this month, the Fire District questioned the impact of the retirement mandate after four Dalton firefighters, including the interim chief, had to retire.

During a workshop on Monday, board members said they will seek a legal opinion regarding the district's available options. With Chief John Pansecchi set to retire, First Assistant Engineer David Lennon intends to run for the chief position, while Edward Capeless plans to run for Lennon's current role.

Pansecchi went over some of the department's policies, stating that members 65 and older are just support members and are exterior only (as opposed to entering a building).

The board is looking to also clarify its insurance related to what ages it covered. 

"We have documentation that in 2021 our insurance company said that we were covered for everything, but after 70 we weren't covered for heart circulation. We're trying to verify the current age," Pansecchi said, stating the company may have changed its policies.

He also would like to know if the district creates a separate support person, what would be needed to make sure they cover their insurance bases.

Lennon brought examples from other communities which have had to deal with the mandatory retirements and how they used home rule petitions through the Legislature to keep older firefighters on. Some had done it by department and some by individuals, and got district meeting votes before applying. 

They plan to ask state Rep. John Barrett III to guide them on a home-rule petition as well as look at sample language from others who have applied.

Lennon suggested having fire company members who are 65 and older not wear fire gear at a scene,  but rather a coat or vest that will show they are affiliated with the department.

"What we would like to do, to keep the Prudential Committee comfortable with what's going on, because we do want to have safety for all of our firefighters," he said. "The safety of my guys that are inside are directly affected by the person I have outside. So he's making judgement calls, and he's getting resources that we need, and there needs to be somebody to do that.

"And when take some of those people away that can do that, but can't be interior, we remove more interior people, which is not advantageous."

He said Capeless is a valuable asset as he usually is outside of the fire.

"We just had a structure fire, and the way that worked was, we got to work. We took over command, stayed outside. He did the radio work. He got resources while the people were inside. Now, if we take that out of that picture, that means one of the people working [inside] has to now go outside, and so that's where we come down to," Lennon said.

The team is also working with legal counsel to find out if support members should be driving the vehicles and what other liability exposures there might be.

Pansecchi said the department is comprised of a core of 15 members and will lose one once he leaves next month, and the loss of another five affected by the mandate will have a deleterious impact.

"Thirty-three on the roster. If you remove these five individuals, bring us down to 28 out of those, one's on regular military leave, two apprentices have not been showing up and may be removed in their future, one of the engineers has not responded to a call in months," he said. "That brings us down to 23 then we have about eight members, not including the above members, that have made less than 10 percent of the calls." 

Board members agreed to start the uniform differential with the older members and said  they will consider next once they have more information.