Hawai‘i County to post open position for fire chief in March

Hawaiʻi County is planning in the coming weeks to post the job opening for fire chief, which unexpectedly became available in December with the death of Kazuo Todd at age 45.

The Fire Commission approved minimum requirements during its meeting Thursday.

The job description will be written by the Hawai‘i County Department of Human Resources, which also will post the opening.

Deputy Fire Chief Daniel Volpe, who was appointed as temporary chief, said Thursday he intends to apply for the permanent position.

“My goal was always to be a good fireman and a good paramedic and my friend (Todd) asked me to be deputy chief,” Volpe said. “I never thought I’d be here.”

Human Resources Director Sommer Takihiro said the county is required to post the job once a week for at least three weeks in one or more newspapers in the state. The department will screen applicants for minimum requirements, and the commission will come up with supplemental requirements to narrow down the candidates.

According to the County Charter, the fire chief shall have had a minimum of five years of training and experience in fire control, including at least three years of experience in a responsible administrative capacity.

Additionally, the fire chief shall have a combination of education and experience substantially equivalent to possession of a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university.

The salary for the fire chief is set by the Salary Commission, and is currently $201,204 per year.

Commissioner Gerald Kosaki asked if the posting could follow the same process that was recently done for the police chief position, which was posted in October after former Police Chief Ben Moszkowicz retired in August.

Takihiro told the Fire Commission how the police chief position was posted, saying she believed the newspaper ad ran on Sundays.

“We also post all of the job openings on our jobs website, because that’s how our applicants will be submitting their application, and we also post it to our social media,” Takihiro said.

In preparation for interviewing candidates, the commission also will undergo an interview and selection training to help commissioners through the process. Takihiro said the training goes over laws related to hiring, equal employment opportunity and developing interview questions.

Human Resources screened 64 candidates for the police chief positions, where 27 of them met the minimum requirements. The police commission developed a questionnaire for the 27 applicants to further narrow the pool.

In January, police commissioners interviewed eight finalists and chose Reed Mahuna, who was serving as interim chief, to take on the position permanently. He will have a public swearing-in ceremony on March 6 in Hilo.

The next Fire Commission meeting is on March 19.