Two Westbrook firefighters are upset the city has held up their applications to assist federal relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Westbrook firefighters Kathy Reynolds and James Rogers said they believe the delay could keep them from assisting in the relief.

“I’ve gone from trying to get information to them, to being frustrated, to being upset, and now I’m angry,” said Reynolds, who has family living in the New Orleans area. “I don’t want to fight with the city. I just want to do what I’m trained to do.”

Last Thursday, the Federal Emergency Management Authority issued a request for 1,000 two-person firefighter teams to volunteer to help the victims of the hurricane in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.

Upon learning of the FEMA request for help, Rogers and Reynolds submitted their applications to Fire Chief Gary Littlefield. Because the city did not have a written policy covering this request, Littlefield did not immediately submit the applications to FEMA and instead brought the request to the city administration to come up with a policy.

On Tuesday afternoon, Reynolds said she still had not heard anything from the city about her application, and she was getting concerned that the delay would keep her from being able to go. “By the time the city of Westbrook makes its decision, it’s going to be too late, but they’ll be able to say ‘we tried. We created a policy,'” Reynolds said.

City Administrator Jerre Bryant said the administration was aware of the timing involved. But the city needed to make sure it had a proper policy in place to handle the situation before allowing personnel to head down to the disaster area.

“We don’t have a set policy in place for this type of request,” Bryant said. “We’re trying to develop a policy as quickly as possible, realizing that time is of the essence.”

Reynolds, who is the same firefighter with whom the Maine Human Rights Commission sided in her sexual discrimination complaints, has some doubts about the urgency with which the city is handling the situation. She said she heard nothing about her request by the time City Hall closed for the long Labor Day weekend.

“Everyone left Friday afternoon,” said Reynolds. “Nobody let us know what was happening with our applications.”

Reynolds said she called the city of Portland about this issue and Rogers called Bath, both of which she said were sending firefighters in response to the FEMA request. She then called City Hall to let them know those cities had worked out whatever issues had to be worked out. She said she did not get a response.

Rogers is also getting frustrated with what he sees as a lack of movement on the problem from City Hall. “Why does it take a week to make a policy,” he asked. “I just don’t understand why they can’t just jump in and be proactive for once. It’s frustrating that the city’s waiting this long.”

While FEMA would be taking care of the firefighters’ salaries while they are on assignment, the city is working on dealing with the questions of insurance and making sure the city is adequately covered by emergency personnel while the teams are down there.

Human Resources Director Tina Crellin said the administration is working as fast as it can to come up with a policy. “We’re still working on a city-wide response,” she said. “There’s a huge liability issue here. We don’t want to give a knee-jerk reaction and end up with a situation we can’t manage for the local community.”

While he said he did not know all the details surrounding Reynolds and Rogers’ request, City Council President Jim Violette said he thought the city should find a way to send the two firefighters down south, as long as the city is not adversely affected. “My feeling is respond in a way of neighbor helping neighbor,” Violette said.

Littlefield pointed out the request by FEMA was for career firefighters to commit to a 30-day deployment to the area, but the work they would be doing would be mostly be limited to helping people with minimal first aid and distributing information and taking reports. Once the city comes up with a policy to handle the issue, Littlefield said he would open up applications to everybody in the department.

Reynolds said she knows her training would allow her to be an asset to the relief effort, no matter what she would be doing down there. “I think being medically trained, I can help out,” she said. “I think the need is immediate. If they need people, I want to go. I’m healthy, strong and willing to go.”

While he can appreciate the administration’s desire to come up with a policy before allowing anyone to go down to help, Violette said the situation does not allow the city the luxury of time to come up with a policy. He said any policy would have to be voted on twice by the council, and by the time that happens, it would be too late.

“It could be November before a policy is in place, and November’s too late,” he said. “They need help now. We can work on a policy while they are down there.”

The situation is a personal one for Reynolds. She said she has a brother living 45 minutes from New Orleans. Her son, Jeremy Reynolds is serving in the Army and his unit, based at Fort Hood, Texas, has been mobilized to deal with the disaster. In addition, her mother is living in Alabama.

“This is hitting very close to home for me,” she said.

At least one city employee has already left to be part of the relief effort. Fire Inspector Lt. Chuck Jarrett, a member of the New Hampshire Air National Guard was activated last week and left on Friday for a two-week deployment.

Mayor Bruce Chuluda said the city already had a policy in place to deal with employees who were called up by the military, it just had nothing to deal with the question of civilian employees. “We’re not prohibiting anybody that’s been duly activated from going,” Chuluda said. “I’m certainly very respectful of anyone who wants to pitch in down there. But we need to take care of the local issues, we don’t want to leave the city unprotected.”

Crellin added that the relief effort would be going on for quite some time, and the city needed to prepare for requests from city personnel in a number of areas to go down to be a part of the recovery. “As this situation develops, they’re going to have different needs for different skill sets,” Crellin said. “We need to be prepared for the long term, not the immediate situation.”

While the city is looking at the long term, Reynolds contends there is an immediate need that she can help fill, and she feels the administration is not taking that into consideration. “At our level, at the local level, we’re trying to respond, but there’s absolutely no interest” in helping us, she said.

Both Reynolds and Rogers said they are afraid by the time the city makes a decision, all the spots in the FEMA program will be filled, and it would be too late. On Monday night, Reynolds said she had seen on the Internet that most of the spots had been filled.

Rogers said, despite that news, he is still going to hope the situation is resolved quickly, and he is continuing to prepare to be a part of the relief effort. “All I can do is hope that we get down there in some way,” Rogers said.

Editor Brendan Moran contributed to this story.

Westbrook firefighter Kathy Reynolds, who appears here speaking to reporters after the Maine Human Rights Commission ruled in her favor, is frustrated that her application to assist hurricane relief efforts in Louisiana have been held up by the city.

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