Elections of Chiefs............
Early on, the leaders of the Hicksville Fire Department were prominent citizens and community leaders. They were landowners, businessmen, bankers, politicians, and innovators. From February of 1893 the Chiefs were elected by trustees representing Companies One through Three.
Once the Hicksville Fire District was created in 1902, the responsibility shifted to the Chief’s being appointed by five elected fire commissioners. It wasn’t until 1905, with the relentless insistence of Chief Andrew Heberer, that the Fire Commissioners created a by-law to allow Companies to vote by majority and elect a Chief and one Assistant Chief. A year later it was decided by the Board of Fire Commissioners that a position of 2nd Assistant Chief be created to help in the leadership duties.
What was noted during the research, through the 1950’s many members would serve as an Assistant Chief, but not necessarily elected as Chief. Members did not always have to serve as Captain or Foreman. One of the last noted examples was Larry Huttle. Larry never served as Captain of Volunteer Hose Company 4 but was elected Assistant Chief and Chief. There was a lot of movement in these positions, due to world events, internal politics and members not staying long enough within the department.
As noted in the 1935 By-laws through the revision of 1978, the requirements to become an Assistant Chief were to have only been an active member of the Department for at least five years. By-laws between those years could not be located, nor could a rule be found noting otherwise. The requirement to be at least a Company Captain prior to serving as Assistant Chief or Chief is only seen for the first time in the 1978 By-laws.
One thing that has not changed and remains constant is that the Assistant Chief and Chief are elected for one-year terms. In 1978 a District By-law was passed that would only allow Assistant Chiefs and Chiefs to serve no more than two consecutive years.
The annual elections are now held in December and the Chief’s terms begin in January and go through December. It hasn’t always been that way. The Chiefs Elections were in February starting in 1893, with the election of Arnold Heitz. In 1922 the elections were changed to January and that lasted until 1957. That year, the Board approved the creation of the position of a 3rd Assistant Chief and then moved elections to April. Elections were then changed back to nominations in September with elections in December in 1970. Two changes have been made since then and remain the process today.
In 1998, the Department revised the elections to include a primary election if more than two members were nominated for the same position. After the primary in November, >members would cast their vote between two members, allowing the members to be elected by at least half of the voting members.
The most recent change came in 2017, with the requirement that members must answer 20% of all alarms and meet a set of training requirements that start with the position of Lieutenant and increase with each position that is advanced.
