Why, in the next meeting after yet another vote barring Wiscasset firefighters from washing their cars at the station, would selectmen require direct deposit for firefighters?

I get the fairness aspect that was cited Tuesday night — all town employees have to take direct deposit — but as Phil DiVece's coverage notes, Chairman Ben Rines Jr., the lone dissenter, didn't see the firefighters as employees. And moreover, the problem I have with it is the timing.

The firefighter car-washing ban has been controversial and the board has taken it up repeatedly this spring, each time ending in a majority vote upholding the ban; and in the short time I've been writing editorials, no other has come close to generating the number of comments I have gotten, and still get, on the one criticizing the ban. Each comment, from a resident's handwritten, mailed (the old-fashioned way) note to countless in-person comments, has agreed with the editorial.

Bringing firefighters' pay method in line with the town's pay method might at another time have been seen for just the housekeeping matter it is. Instead, with no time passage since the hammer fell once again on car-washing at the board's last meeting, Tuesday night's action risks creating the appearance of a one-two punch on the department.

It wasn’t. However, the timing was insensitive politics. I doubted that the car-washing issue would impact membership. I doubt the direct deposit vote will either, again because the caring the members show by serving suggests it’s about more than the perks, or in this case, how the members get paid.

Some people like direct deposit, some don't. Rines' point about firefighters' status (volunteers, he called them) may or may not resurface as a board issue just as the car-washing one did. If they are employees, it would follow that the direct deposit policy applies. But given the level of interest on the washing ban, it would be better if the dust could have settled before the board invoked another mandate on the department.