Wyomissing Borough Council decided Monday to hire a Maryland career firefighter as its next fire chief.

In a 5-0 vote at a special midafternoon meeting, council approved an employment contract with Eric Needle, effective Aug. 3, at an annual salary of $125,000. Council members Christopher Valente and Adam Berkeley were not present.

Wyomissing Fire Department has been without a chief for nearly 10 months since the resignation of Ethan Holmes last summer. Holmes was the first Wyomissing fire chief since the department was reconfigured following the termination of a fire service administration agreement with neighboring Spring Township.

The proposed contract was posted on the borough website before the meeting, which was attended by only one resident.

That resident, Adrian Jadic, complained during the public comment period at the start of the meeting about a lack of transparency in the hiring process. He said just a few hours before the meeting the borough posted the proposed contract with the name Eric Needle included.

“There is still no public resume, no public certifications, no candidate packet, no written explanation why this person was selected for one of the borough’s top public safety jobs,” Jadic said.

He also questioned why, after 10 months without a chief, a special meeting was needed to vote on the appointment.

“If the official start date is not until August, there is no reason this had to be rushed through today at 12:45 with the basic record still missing,” Jadic said.

He asked the council to table the appointment until the resume qualifications and selection basis are made public.

Council President Kristen Gajewski explained that council relied on three local fire chiefs to sift through the resumes.

“They narrowed it down to three,” she said, “and then there were three people on council along with Michele Bare (borough manager) who asked questions of those three, and we made a determination that we wanted to hire this one individual.”

Council members and Mayor Fred Levering spoke glowingly of Needle while offering almost no information.

Councilman Stephen Brunner said Needle stood out among the three finalists.

“He’s been a lifetime fire person,” he said. “I think he’s going to be an unbelievable asset.”

Gajewski said officials need to be respectful of the privacy of the applicants by not making their names publicly available before a finalist is selected.

Even after voting on the appointment, officials refused to provide a resume or even say where Needle is currently or most recently employed

“In terms of a resume or any documents you’ll need to submit a formal right-to-know request for us to release anything,” Bare told a Reading Eagle reporter who used the second comment period to request basic information beyond simply the name of the new hire— after the hiring was ratified.

Gajewski indicated more information would be forthcoming through the borough’s communications apparatus.

Needle’s LinkedIn profile shows he has been employed for 25 years with the Baltimore County Fire Department based in Towson, Md., holding the rank of captain.

He was a volunteer firefighter for two Maryland fire companies before starting with Baltimore County as a career firefighter.

Needle’s profile also state’s he is a owner of Hurricanes Girls Lacrosse Club in New Oxford, Adams County. New Oxford is about 10 miles east of Gettysburg and about 13 miles north of the Maryland line.

Officials indicated there is a reason Needle won’t be able to start full time until August but wouldn’t be specific. Well before he starts with the Wyomissing Fire Department, however, Needle will perform some duties as a part-time consultant, a role he will begin as early as Friday, officials said.

The contract specifies he will receive an hourly rate of $70.

Needle will eventually head a department that has seen a sea of change in recent years.

In 2024, Wyomissing Fire Department began staffing each platoon with four career firefighters, the first fire department outside of Reading’s in Berks County to achieve that level of staffing with paid personnel.

To accomplished this, the borough expanded its paid firefighters ranks to 12.

In part because of commercial development, the number of calls for service has more than quadrupled over the past two decades, officials said.

Needle is the second Maryland firefighter to take the helm a large fire department in Berks.

In March, Reading City Council approved Mayor Eddie Moran’s selection of Robert Leonard II as the new fire chief. Leonard recently retired as an officer with the Prince George’s County Fire /EMS Department.