The Manchester Fire Department building at 37 Readfield Road. The town is seeking to hire a new fire chief to replace Francis Wozniak, who resigned in August.  Jessica Lowell/Kennebec Journal file

MANCHESTER — The town’s search is on for a new fire chief.

Town Manager Debora Southiere will begin accepting applications for the town’s newly vacant fire chief position after the Select Board approved a job description during a meeting Tuesday.

Southiere said the position, which will be posted in the next week, will also include a newly created “Project Assistant” title, which is intended to encompass the duties the fire chief often performs in the absence of other available staff, such as putting up signs across town.

The job description, though, will remain the same as the one used for Francis Wozniak, the town’s former fire chief who resigned in August amid a police impersonation scandal. Southiere passed out the job description to board members at their last meeting on Sept. 24 and asked for any changes. She said she received no suggestions for edits.

“We were deciding if we should go forward with what we had, or if there was something we needed to check,” Southiere said. “We’ve decided that we’re going to leave it the way it was.”

During the meeting before Wozniak’s resignation, many residents said the fire department should keep more specific records of policy, trainings and hours — with several pinning blame on Wozniak for a lack of preparation for a state labor investigation. Southiere said Tuesday she will hope to enforce more effective record-keeping with the new chief to ease those concerns.

“I want the person that we hire to keep a record of everything, so that we know where the hours are going to be and how the time is spent,” Southiere said.

Southiere also said she wanted to be more involved in the selection of lower leadership positions in the fire department, including assistant and deputy chief. But John Black, a former longtime Manchester firefighter who left the department during Wozniak’s tenure, said he was concerned about the town interfering with fire department leadership below the chief.

“To me, the in-house firefighters should be the ones to vote on those positions,” Black said. “The chief’s already going to be there. To me, there’s a little bit of politics there. I might be wrong, but it worked out good for years.”

Historically, and according to the fire department’s decades-old bylaws, fire department leadership has been elected by fire department members and confirmed by the Select Board. Southiere said she has never seen the bylaws.

Manchester Fire Chief Francis R. Wozniak Andy Molloy/Kennebec Journal file

The chief search comes less than two months after Wozniak resigned as fire chief, saying he didn’t “like the direction the town was heading.” He said there had not been enough support for the fire department during his time as its chief and that there was a group of residents in town who would be happy only once he had resigned.

Prior to his resignation, Wozniak had spent about two months on administrative leave after being charged by police with impersonating a public official.

Hallowell police alleged he falsely represented himself as a police constable when he sought to have a blue light bar installed, and that he used the blue flashing lights when responding to a fire call earlier this year. Wozniak, who denies the allegations, made his first court appearance Tuesday in connection with the charge, but no action was taken. His next court appearance is scheduled for November and a trial could be scheduled for next summer.

Under Maine law, constables are appointed for a term of no longer than a year and can have the powers of a law enforcement officer during that term if they undergo proper training. Wozniak has never enrolled in such training. Blue lights are reserved for law enforcement use and Manchester has no constable position.