Charles City Council begins discussions on volunteer vs. professional fire department

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Members of the Charles City Council and other city officials have begun what everyone agrees will be a lengthy discussion about the direction and future of the Charles City Fire Department.

The discussion, started at the council workshop meeting Wednesday evening, has to deal with whether the department will retain full-time professional firefighters, and if so, how many, or whether it will go to some form of all or almost-all volunteer squad.

In 2010 the department had eight full-time firefighters. That number fell to six and then to four over the next couple of years as people retired and were not replaced. There had been four full-time firefighters splitting shifts so at least one person was always on duty at the fire station since 2013.

But that full-time firefighter number now stands at two, with the recent retirements of Darien Uetz and Marty Parcher, leaving only Chief Eric Whipple and Curt Teeter on duty full time.

City Administrator Steve Diers said Wednesday that the council needs to decide whether it wants to hire two more firefighters to replace the retirees, and if the city budget can afford that.

Diers had a long list of items that are affecting the amount of money the city has to spend, including a decrease in property valuations that reduced the amount of property taxes collected, the state reneging on a promise to cover the losses in tax collections caused by cutting business and industry property taxes, a shift in options allowed for the city’s share of Local Option Sales Taxes, the annual cost to subsidize ambulance service which started two years ago, and a council decision to significantly increase police officer compensation to deal with officer shortages and officers leaving for other departments.

“From a fiscal standpoint it’s something we need to take a close look at,” Diers said, regarding the number of professional firefighters.

Diers said he assumed Whipple and Teeter would keep their positions until they decided to leave or retire, and it’s possible the council would decide there should always be at least a paid fire chief to manage the department, but he pointed to several other communities the size of Charles City or larger that have all-volunteer fire departments.

Addressing the City Council Wednesday evening, Fire Chief Whipple said his preference would be to hire two more professional firefighters and keep the number at four.

With four persons there can always be someone at the fire station to respond to a call and quickly get a firetruck to the scene, Whipple said.

The majority of firefighting is done by the volunteer members of the force, who either drive their own vehicles directly to a call or meet at the fire station to drive additional equipment there, but having a firefighter available to respond immediately can save valuable minutes over having to wait for someone to first go to the firehouse, get a firetruck and then go to the scene, the fire chief said.

Mayor Dean Andrews asked if it would be possible to just hire drivers who wouldn’t cost as much as trained firefighters, but who could be at the station to get that first piece of equipment to a fire scene.

Whipple said it depends on what you want those drivers to do. They couldn’t do anything to fight a fire unless they were trained, he said.

If it’s a professional firefighter who is first responding, that person can evaluate the scene, and sometimes that one person is enough to deal with minor situations before others even arrive, he said.

Some council members questioned whether the issue of increasing costs for emergency medical service (EMS) should be part of the discussion, since in many communities the fire department also provides ambulance service.

Whipple said that’s not uncommon. He also noted that some communities are starting to hire professional firefighters, or increase the number of full-time firefighters. Sometimes that has to do with increasing population, but sometimes it’s because of the difficulty to find volunteers who are willing to put in the six months or so of weekly training required to achieve a firefighter I rating.

Diers said many of the communities that are able to increase expenditures for firefighting or EMS service or both have electric utilities that can help subsidize costs, or growing populations that are increasing the property tax base.

“We don’t have an electric utility, and our population is kind of contracting,” he said.

Council member Patrick Lumley said in his mind EMS and fire are intertwined, and when the city asked voters to renew the Local Option Sales Tax for another 10 years and allow up to 10% of the proceeds to be used for public safety, that included police, fire and EMS.

Council member Keith Starr said Saint Charles Township also needs to be part of the discussion, because the Fire Department covers the whole township, and the township helped purchase a percentage of the firefighting vehicles and helps pay for maintenance and repairs through part of the township property tax levy.

Starr also asked if there were other ways to raise money to support the department.

“We have talked about charging for calls, but that doesn’t seem to be a priority,” he said.

Whipple said the city could require the department to do fire safety checks for commercial buildings including residential rental properties, and charge a fee for that.

Mark Wicks, the Charles City development director, who was at the meeting for another agenda item, said the council needs to realize the value of having a professional fire department when it comes to recruiting new businesses or new residents for the community.

He said the city also has large manufacturers that use chemicals, and large woodworking companies, and one of the reasons they are in Charles City is because of its professional fire department.

“I understand the budget situation, but that’s definitely got to be a consideration,” Wicks said.

The council asked Diers and Whipple to put together more information on costs and options and bring that back to a future meeting.

Lumley said the public also needs to be heard in this discussion, and wondered when that would happen.

Mayor Andrews said maybe the council needs to hold a public meeting where these issues are the only topic.

Council member DeLaine Freeseman said everything the city spends money on has to be on the table as the council decides on priorities.

Also at the workshop meeting, the council:

• Discussed amending the current City Code regarding driveways, to increase the current 30-foot limit to 40 feet wide to accommodate three-stall garages where the lots are wide enough to allow that. Part of the ordinance would require that the driveway can’t take up more than 50% of the width of the lot.

Council members were generally in favor of starting the process to amend the city ordinance, but Council member Phillip Knighten said he was concerned about the impact that wider driveways would have on the availability of streetside parking.

• Looked at potential ways to redesign the traffic flow and intersections from North Main Street to Lane Street to North Grand Avenue when the city vacates the one-block length of North Main Street in front of the Pure Prairie Farms chicken processing plant.

The company wants to build a distribution and employee break area addition onto the front of the building out to where the sidewalk is, then use the closed street and part of the property across the street for truck loading and a parking area.