As you may have seen in today’s Journal Sentinel, the Police and Fire Commission has approved the hiring of Ryan Behling, son of outgoing Chief Jay Behling, as a full-time firefighter.
You can read the story here.
The City Council will vote tonight to recognize the hiring and place Ryan Behling, a paid on-call firefighter with the department for more than six years, in the proper pay range.
I’d like to know what you think of the hiring, which has drawn criticism from the firefighters union. Post your comments below..
South Milwaukee Blog 
I would like to know how you feel about it, Erik.
Personally, I have no reason to question Ryan Behling’s qualifications or abilities as a firefighter. And I also do not question the role of the Police and Fire Commission, which hires public safety personnel in order to remove politics from the equation. This is the right approach to these types of decisions. That said, the timing is bad. I wish we hadn’t given the Journal Sentinel the chance the write the story it did. While I understand we have a looming retirement in the department, I still think it would have been better to delay the hiring, perhaps until we have a new chief on board.