The assistant albany fire chief was loaned to the city of Cairo after internal struggles left the department wanting for a fire chief.
“I guess the city looked around to some of the larger departments and ended up asking our department for some assistance in turning their department around,” Jolivette said.
After being approached by city leaders, Albany Fire Chief James Carswell tapped Jolivette to the task.
By September 2007, Jolivette was firmly in possession of the reigns of the department which he said was a daunting task.
The department was understaffed, over budget and wasn’t even state certified to fight fires, Jolivette said.
“When I got there, there were a lot of internal issues that had divided the department,” he said. “The first priority was to try and ease those tensions so that the department could function without dealing with those other issues.”
Jolivette said he worked quickly to get the department’s certification and training up to par.
In addition to the strife within the department, Jolivette said he quickly found himself dealing with a beast he has seldom had to face: a hefty budget.
“That was one challenging aspect to running that department,” he said. “That’s one reason why the department was struggling so much. So there was a little pressure from outside the department to get the budget reigned in.”
Jolivette said that the previous fire chief had resorted to dipping out of his own pocket to pay overtime to firefighters after city leaders asked him to keep the budget in check.
On his arrival, Jolivette said, he reorganized shifts and scheduling so that the amount of overtime needed by firefighters would be minimized, which in turn helped the department stay on budget.
When he returned in November ’07, Jolivette received a plague commending his work with the department which was sent along with a letter from Cairo Mayor Richard VanLandingham to the heads of the Albany city government thanking the city for loaning Jolivette to their city.
Today, Jolivette said that hardly a day goes by when he doesn’t run into someone who thinks he’s still down in Syrupmaker country putting out fires.
“Every time I have to tell them that that adventure is over,” Jolivette said.
A stipulation to the city’s agreement to send Jolivette was that he wouldn’t be allowed to apply for the full-time position, so that Albany would get their highly-trained assistant chief back.
It’s a move that Jolivette doesn’t regret, saying that he’s at least going to stay in Albany until he’s eligible to receive his retirement benefits and pension, which will be about another eight years.
“But after that, who knows?” he said.