Post Road closed nights this week

WARWICK — A section of Post Road in Warwick will be closed five nights this week to allow overnight work near T.F. Green Airport.

The closing is necessary to allow construction crews to put up the new pedestrian skywalk for the Warwick Intermodal Station, the state Department of Transportation says. Post Road will be closed between Coronado Road and Montebello Road, near the Post Road exit from the airport parking lot, Sunday through Thursday from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. All access to the airport will be maintained. Traffic on Post Road will be detoured using Coronado Road, Imera Avenue and Montebello Road.

— Staff report

Little Compton fire chief resigns

LITTLE COMPTON — Fire Chief Robert Hay Wimer apparently resigned Thursday during an annual performance review by the Town Council after only one year on the job, according to Town Council President Robert L. Mushen.

Mushen said Wimer and the Town Council were in a closed meeting, at a routine performance review, when Wimer was asked a question. Instead of answering it, “He pushed his cell phone and radio across the table and said, ‘Here are these, and I will turn in my vehicle shortly,’ ” Mushen said. He would not say what the question was.

Wimer did not give a reason for leaving, Mushen said. He sent Wimer a letter delivered to his house by a police officer that said the council is taking his verbal actions as a resignation. The previous fire chief had been there nearly three years, Mushen said.

Wimer could not be reached for comment.

Little Compton Firefighter Fred Melnyk, the union president, said that Wimer had the full support of the union and the Fire Department and that his departure was a surprise to members of the department. “It was a complete shock to us. I believe even to the Town Council it was a shock. It seemed like a total blindside.”

Melnyk said that he knew of no problems that Wimer was having with the council or anyone.

Mushen said Wimer was a sergeant with the Air Force for 22 years, where his last position was operations chief for a shift of 102 firefighters manning seven stations at Eglin Air Force base in Florida. His father, Herbert “Pete” Wimer, had been a fire chief when Robert was a child, Mushen said.

In Little Compton, Wimer presided over a Fire Department with eight firefighters. He earned an annual salary of $50,000, according to Mushen.

— Tatiana Pina