The City of Plymouth is moving ahead with efforts to allow retiring firefighters and paramedics to keep their helmets and boots. An ordinance giving fire department employees the chance to purchase their helmets and boots for a dollar was presented for first reading during Monday’s Common Council meeting.
It’s similar to a policy adopted last year allowing police officers to buy their service weapons upon retirement. City Attorney Sean Surrisi says each equipment purchase will have to be approved by the council, “The officer or the fireman has to make a request to the chief before they retire and then there has to be a resolution passed by this board that designates it as surplus property and sets it for sale at a dollar.”
Surrisi says he plans to make a slight change to the proposed ordinance before the Common Council considers its approval. “I expect that before your next meeting, I’m probably going to make a revision to this to try to consolidate the ordinance we passed before with the police handguns,” he says. “Really, the language is the same in all of them; it just might be simpler to add an extra section there.”
The proposed ordinance was developed at the request of council member Gary Cook, who wanted to give firefighters and paramedics an opportunity similar to the one now available to police officers.
