Is there something in the water?  Or, is the town of Bourne, Massachusetts, situated on a latitude that brings the sun’s rays in at just the right angle to generate screwball thinking at city hall?  The town council keeps dreaming up ways to plunge themselves into the national limelight and they’ve gone and done it again.

Dave Statter of STATter911 fame kept us informed for about 8 months of a string of administrative embarrassments that just kept a’comin starting back in October of last year, many of them related to an attractive woman holding the rank of fire lieutenant who first filed criminal rape charges against her own husband, a deputy chief in the same department, and then was caught on a police surveillance video attending a drug-buying rendesvous while in uniform.  (You can check out Dave’s archived postings on this modern-day Peyton Place HERE.)

The town council took the postion of trying to conceal the problems and the Cape Cod Times took the position of exposing the problems.  So the politicians decided to blame it all on the union and tried to drag them into the affray, even going so far as to attempting to put the firefighters “under oath” when being questioned by the politicians who were trying to punch their way out of the paper bag.  As a result, contract negotiations have been stalled and the  FF’s have been working without a contract since June 30.  Since Dave is out west chasing down grizzly b’ars for a couple of weeks, we thought we’d better take the lead and fill you in on the latest act coming out of the Circus Bourne.

Now it has been disclosed that the town has broken off negotiations and have filed an action with the State Division of Labor Relations to force the tiny union local to split into two separate locals, one for the firefighters and one for the fire officers.  Yesterday’s Cape Cod Times reported:

Selectman John Ford Jr., chairman of the board, said the decision was made after a series of discussions about recent personnel issues within the department. “They do an excellent job in fighting fires,” he said. “But when the fire hat comes off … issues happen.”

Splitting officers from regular firefighters would allow for better management and would eliminate the need for officers to choose between the department and the union in the face of problems, he said.

Ah, yes.  If only we could split the firefighters up into even smaller groups, then we could better manage them.  And the officers would be relieved of that constant pressure of choosing sides the next time the town balls up an investigation.  “But wait, there’s more!”   The Times continues:

Ford, who served as the town’s chief of police from 1989 to 2007, said the selectmen wanted to split the union to cut down on problems that were handled by the town but “should have been addressed within the organization.”

You got that?  The motive bubbles up eventually.  The former police chief wants to blame the firefighters for the police department’s failure to properly investigate criminal activity.  Small-town politics can be amusing to watch from a distance, but for the firefighters who have to go to work in the firehouse every day, this stuff is hard to take.  They have my sympathy.

The Cape Cod Times has posted links to their extensive collection of FD-related flare-ups HERE.  It will take a while to read through them all (and there are other issues besides the fun-loving lieutenant’s escapades), so we’d better get this equipment checked out first.  I’ll make plenty of coffee to last through this unique story.  Thanks to Dave L. for sending it along.