Commissioners delay decision on fire revamp plan

Dec. 06--infobox:

WHAT'S YOUR VIEW

The county has posted several documents related to the Fire Commission's proposed reorganization of county fire services on its website for the public (https://bit.ly/2UjgYLi). In addition, there will be a specific public comments period on the agenda for the Jan. 7 Board of County Commissioners meeting for the public to weigh in.

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HENDERSON -- Saying they want to give the public and the county fire chief a chance to weigh in, Vance County Commissioners have postponed until January a decision on whether they'll go ahead with a proposed reorganization of the county fire service.

The move came at the urging of Commissioners Chairman Archie Taylor, who took the gavel Monday night in place of Commissioner Tommy Hester in a planned rotation of the chair's job.

"There is no need to rush to judgment here," Taylor said, adding that "the implementation of this is more than dollars and cents" given the changes proposed and their potential effects on public safety.

His view gained vocal support from Commissioners Leo Kelly and Yolanda Feimster, and the tacit support of Hester, who last week voiced skepticism about a reorganization plan that proposes the breakup of the Vance County Fire Department.

None of the four sits on the commissioners' public safety committee or the county's Fire Commission, the originator of the plan. Kelly said the commissioners likely need to hold a work session to "hammer it out," and Feimster said she has "a lot of questions" about the proposal.

"This isn't something simple like a zoning question," said Feimster, who was elected in 2016. "There's some of us that haven't been here 10 years."

The "10 years" comment was a none-too-subtle rebuke to two commissioners, Dan Brummitt and Carolyn Faines, who sit on the safety committee and supported the plan as it rose through the process.

Both were evidently irked when Taylor proposed the delay, Brummitt responding by saying officials from the county and the fire service "have been talking about this thing for 10 years."

The details of the proposed shuffle, however, first emerged in the October meeting of the public safety committee and members at the time conceded they hadn't been shared with County Manager Jordan McMillen. He and Fire Commission members then fleshed them out in time for a November meeting of the safety committee that saw the panel give the plan an endorsement.

In broad detail, the proposal is to break up the Vance County Fire Department and farm its 12 firefighters out to the Hicksboro and Bearpond volunteer fire departments. The Vance department, which now covers the Goldenbelt fire district on the edges of Henderson, would become a volunteer department like the others in the county, and likely be rolled into the Vance County Rescue Squad.

The county would continue subsidizing the volunteer departments, including by helping most with the cost of keeping two paid, part-time firefighters on duty during the daytime.

Supporters say the potential benefit is improved emergency response, as the addition of paid staff to volunteer fire departments will enable them to roll trucks more quickly after a 911 call. Long term, that should benefit rural residents in the form of lower home-insurance premiums.

But a breakup of the Vance County Fire Department means a rework of a 911 dispatching plan that now relies on that department and its staff to backstop all the others and the city of Henderson's fire department too.

The plan also posits a much bigger role for the rescue squad even though that volunteer organization has balance-sheet problems, financially. The most recent audit of it said the squad has more liabilities than assets and is paying 6 percent interest on the loan for one of its trucks.

The squad's chief, Doyle Carpunky, is one of the leading advocates of the proposed reorganization. He's also a member of the Fire Commission and head of the county volunteer firefighter's association.

Monday's commissioners debate saw Brummitt walk back two subsidiary elements of the proposal that had emerged from McMillen's talks with Fire Commission members.

One posits re-assigning Vance County Fire Chief Chris Wright to the fire marshal's office, as an assistant fire marshal under Fire Marshal Chief Keith Duncan.

But Brummitt said the public safety committee "has taken no positions on any personnel," as "that's not our job."

The Fire Commission proposal certainly does take a position, however, as it specifies that "all current paid staff from the Vance County Fire Department will remain at their present salary and benefits," albeit subject to reassignment to the volunteer departments.

McMillen, meanwhile, told The Daily Dispatch on Nov. 21 that the assistant fire marshal's job was intended to keep that promise as it applies to the chief. And on Nov. 26 he reiterated the point to the safety committee, telling Brummitt, Faines and Commissioner Gordon Wilder that the post "would be I believe the fire chief position coming into that."

He added on Nov. 26, before the committee endorsed the plan, that he'd talked to Wright and had "some concern, [as] with two departments heads you'd have to be careful about how you did that." He specifically said he wanted members to "be aware" of the point.

The other point concerns the payment of old debts for a fire substation at Kerr Lake and a tanker truck. The plan given commissioners calls for that money to come from surplus fire-district-tax proceeds, but Brummitt said the safety committee "did not designate the fire fund balance as the source of that payment."

Wright has been more or less on the sidelines of the debate since the spring, when he voiced worry that the changes would reduce the number of firefighters on the initial response to calls in the Goldenbelt district.

Taylor, however, said he wants to "know what the fire chief thinks" before the commissioners vote. He also said McMillen and his staff should post a copy of the plan on the county' website and make paper copies available so the public can take a look.

He, Feimster and Hester didn't line up behind Kelly's idea of a work session, but they didn't rule it out, either. Wilder, meanwhile, said he's "not in full support" of the reorganization proposal "at this moment" and has some questions of his own about it.

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