The Lake Placid Village Board of Trustees approved the department’s new officer lineup during the board’s meeting on Monday, June 26 securing Michael St. Louis as the department’s new fire chief. St. Louis will replace former Chief Torry Hoffman. Former Capt. Arron Barney, who was not reelected in April’s election, was ultimately renamed as a captain on Monday.

LPVFD holds its officer elections — for fire chief, two assistant chiefs and four captains — at its April meeting every year. Though the department is owned by the village and new officers must be approved by the village board, LPVFD is a private entity that holds internal ballot-based elections. This year, most officer positions were filled in the department’s election on Tuesday, April 4. However, former Fire Chief Hoffman and then-Captain Barney were not reelected, and no one else was nominated for their positions in the election — meaning their positions were technically left vacant. The department held another election at its monthly meeting on Tuesday, June 6 to fill out the vacancies.

What happens when an officer is not reelected — but when no one is nominated to fill the vacant position — became the subject of debate among fire department members during the annual election in April, according to longtime member Liane Colby, who was elected as fourth captain during June’s election.

While some members expected the chain of command to automatically move up with the vacancies left in April’s election, according to Colby — with the newly-elected first assistant fire chief moving up to fire chief, the second assistant chief moving up to first assistant, and so on — Colby said that the department’s bylaws state that Hoffman was to remain as the acting fire chief until he could be replaced, or until another chief could be elected by the department. The automatic moving-up process anticipated by some department members would only happen in the case that Hoffman left the department entirely, Colby said.

However, now that St. Louis — who was elected as first assistant chief in the annual election — has been elected as chief, that moving-up process has partially come to fruition.

With all of the seats filled and approved as of Monday with the new election results, the officers are as follows:

– Chief: Michael St. Louis

– First assistant chief: Jennifer Marshall

– Second assistant chief: Josh Pelkey

– First captain: Byron Skeels

– Second captain: Arron Barney

– Third captain: Gavin Martin

– Fourth captain: Liane Colby

Colby told the News in April there was a feeling during the annual elections that a portion of the fire department’s members had been “up to something” — that a faction of members had strategically planned to trigger the moving-up process by not reelecting Hoffman and not nominating another chief. However, Colby said this was a misunderstanding of the department’s bylaws, which were clarified by the department’s lawyer at LPVFD’s monthly meeting in May.