Fire Cadet Diversity Sparks Criticism

This concerns the Ventura County Fire Department’s recent decision to cancel the training academy and look for more ethnically diverse personnel (“Fire Academy to Seek More Diverse Class,” Sept. 14).

I have been a professional firefighter for 15 years, and this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of in my career. If anyone needed a better example of what Proposition 209 would stop, it’s this.

Fire Chief James Sewell stated no applicants will be rejected on the basis of gender or race in the exam. But it seems to me he did just that!

Residents and firefighters once could rely on a fire chief to get the best people for the job. Instead, Chief Sewell has bowed to the politicians in their continued effort to make fire departments politically correct fashion shows.

ROBERT H. LAUNIUS

Channel Islands

* In a recent article it was stated that after two years of testing 1,600 applicants who were narrowed down to a final 12 cadets, Fire Department officials decided to cancel everything and start over since the final 12 did not match the local ethnic and gender makeup of Ventura County.

Our society is so bent on the hiring of women and minorities that the best-qualified people get booted out even after a fair and lengthy two years of testing.

My question is this: If this final class did not have the proper percentage of white males compared to our society, would the plug have been pulled on the final 12, if they consisted of minorities and women? The true answer is known to us all.

LARRY BICKMANN

Moorpark