Fire Academy to Seek More Diverse Class

Just four weeks before a dozen Ventura County Fire Department cadets were to start their training, department officials have tossed them out and reopened the academy to new applicants so the class will be more ethnically diverse.

The class of 12 cadets and six alternates contained a disproportionate number of whites and did not match the ethnic and gender makeup of the county, said Fire Chief James Sewell.

“As you know, the policy of the Board of Supervisors and the board of directors of the Fire Department is that the work force reflect the makeup of the community,” Sewell said.

“The mix we had available to us would not have helped us in our goals.”

So, Sewell said, the department decided earlier this week to pull the plug on the academy class--which had been culled from 1,600 applicants who entered the process back in 1994 and was scheduled to start training Oct. 7--and to start a fresh search.

At least one cadet complained that after months of extensive review and preparation, he will have to start all over again with everyone else.

“It’s not fair,” said the cadet, who asked to remain anonymous.

Sewell said no applicants will be rejected on the basis of gender or race, but that the department needs a more ethnically diverse pool of qualified applicants.

The Ventura County Fire Department will join a recruitment drive with the city fire departments of Ventura and Oxnard.

They will search in neighborhoods containing the ethnic groups they are looking for, and they will publish general advertisements seeking applicants from all over the county, he said.

Sewell said the new fire academy class will be chosen in late February or early March.