There is nothing more confusing than a lack of answers.

Except, perhaps, answers that point in all different directions.

Latrobe has opted for a grab bag filled with no information and contradictory finger-pointing in the case of one fire company.

Seven firefighters have been suspended by the city. They say they don’t know why.

Latrobe Fire Department’s Goodwill Hose Company No. 1 was suspended entirely at first, but that was lifted and the seven individuals were suspended instead, including Capt. Nico Giovannagelo.

“We were suspended without cause, without reason,” he said when he came to Monday’s council meeting. “We do not know why we were suspended, for how long, or whether it is an in-house suspension. No one has an answer for me.”

That’s not quite true. There are answers. They just don’t answer much.

One firefighter was told the decision “came from above” by a group including the mayor, the solicitor and the fire chief.

Mayor Rosie Wolford said during Monday’s meeting that she was given no notice and had no role. The solicitor didn’t comment. Fire Chief John Brasile didn’t either. There was an executive session for personnel, but no one is saying what happened there.

Wolford says public safety isn’t and wasn’t at risk by the move, but Giovannagelo says it leaves the city without a third of its “top responding mask men” — the guys who go into a burning building wearing oxygen tanks.

The problem is that obviously someone, or multiple someones, made a decision but none of the people involved are willing to suit up and face the firestorm.

But the residents deserve to know what is happening .

Public money means public transparency. It means answers even if the people who made the call are afraid of getting burned.

Wolford said last week that the situation is being reviewed. It should be. And an answer — a real one — should be loud and clear.

Clarification

The fire department is staffed on a volunteer basis. The original version inferred that firefighters are paid.

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