By Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

I’d like to take this space this week to discuss our recent firefighter hires, free of the grandstanding and vitriol that has resulted in a lot of false information making the rounds. While baseless rumors and wild-eyed conspiracy theories may make for good theater, what the people of this city deserve is responsible government, which, as I will explain here, is what we have delivered.

This whole matter dates back to September of last year when the city received a new list of prospective firefighter candidates from the Massachusetts Human Resources Division (HRD). The State maintains a rolling list of candidates which is designed to take local politics out of the hiring process. HRD has clearly defined policies for who ranks where on the list and how municipalities may use the list. Once the City of Somerville gets a certified list and begins the process of screening the candidates, no new candidates may be added to the list. However, if conditional offers of employment have been made prior to the expiration of the list, the City has a legal obligation to honor the offer so long as the conditions are met.

This way the City isn’t trying to hire from a constantly-shifting pool of firefighter applicants. Applicants go through a detailed screening process and the City then makes conditional offers of employment to the successful applicants. A group of candidates from the September list (to whom conditional offers of employment had been made in October and November), still awaited full appointment from the Board of Aldermen as of February 24, 2010. There is nothing unusual about that as it takes some time to move from conditional offers to full appointment. For instance, one of the candidates had a two-month delay due to military deployment.

However, at 5:35 p.m. on February 24, the City received an email from HRD stating that the City must insert two new names onto the September list, including Sean O’Brien, who ranked at the top of the list due to his veteran status. City officials immediately got in touch with HRD to explain that conditional offers had already been made to those on the September 2009 list prior to the expiration of that list. Upon hearing that information, the HRD Senior Compliance Officer instructed the City to fax over all pertinent documentation along with a written request for another extension. The Officer also instructed the City to disregard the earlier email as the conditional offers of employment established a binding obligation and no other candidates could legally interfere with those hires.

In the official record is the City’s request for the extension, dated February 24, and the stamped approval of HRD Senior Compliance Officer Luz Henriquez, dated February 25 (done after making sure all of the transmitted documents matched the information given during the phone call made the previous evening).

I understand this is dry material, but the central point here is that the City does not control who is on the certified list. It gets the list from the State, and the State Human Resources Division approved the extension.

Mr. O’Brien subsequently filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission concerning the extension. After hearing the complaint, Civil Service upheld all of the City’s hires from the September list and instructed that Mr. O’Brien remain at the top of the next certified list the City requests from HRD. I want to stress that, had the City improperly hired one person instead of another, Civil Service could have overturned the hire. That did not occur here, and the City is satisfied with the consideration given to Mr. O’Brien at the top of the next list.

The situation unfortunately has been politicized by Mr. O’Brien’s representative on this matter, his father-in-law Andrew Puglia. Mr. Puglia, as I’m sure many recall, is a former Alderman and attorney who plead guilty to embezzling from his clients and public agencies, and served jail time for his offenses. Apparently, after failing to get the State to overturn the City’s hires, he is now trying to make mischief with the Board of Aldermen. Last week, in front of the Board, he smeared the integrity of diligent, conscientious people who work for this City and he attempted to tarnish the reputations of the young firefighters the City has recently hired (including several decorated veterans), whose only offense is that they went through proper channels and are now employed by the City.

As I stated in front of the Board last week, my administration will provide any and all information the Board requests, but I take exception at Mr. Puglia’s blatant disregard for the upstanding people who serve this City. My sincerest hope is that the Board now will move forward with a reasoned assessment of the information in hand rather than allowing this matter to be a platform for Mr. Puglia’s self-indulgence.

Ultimately the question here is how best to align our local hiring practices with a State-mandated and controlled set of hiring regulations. Seeing that Civil Service has upheld the City’s hiring decisions, the recently hired firefighters deserve the courtesy of doing their jobs without becoming political footballs. And seeing that HRD approved the extension of the September list, city administrative staff deserve the courtesy of recognizing that they went through proper channels in the performance of their jobs.