Huntsville Reinstates Fire Chief
BEN GARRETT -- Independent Herald Staff
HUNTSVILLE - For the first time in more than two weeks, the doors of the Huntsville Fire Hall were open Monday night as the town's firefighters - who showed up at the Board of Mayor and Aldermen's monthly meeting to rally around discharged fire chief Dean King - returned to their posts.
The board, meeting before a standing-room-only crowd that turned out in response to the controversy surrounding Mayor George Potter's October 3 decision to discharge the chief and return to an all-volunteer fire department, voted unanimously to reinstate King with pay for two months while a committee of the town's citizens and business owners meet to try and find a feasible way to keep a paid fire chief at the department without throwing the town's budget out-of-balance.
The decision came after more than an hour of fielding comments and suggestions from the audience, which included nearly every member of the fire department, three former mayors of Huntsville and several former aldermen.
Angela Morrow, whose husband, Jim, is a former town mayor, suggested the 10-person committee, which was scheduled to meet for its initial session on Tuesday evening.
The 10 committee members were selected by the board, two persons each by the mayor and each of the aldermen.
Mayor Potter appointed Angela Morrow and Donny Stansberry to the board. Alderman Kenneth Jeffers appointed Jean Jeffers and Chief King. Vice-Mayor Gary A. Sexton appointed Rob Smith and Rick Jones, while Alderman Tim Woodward appointed Dwayne Potter and Buster Sexton. The task facing the committee is to determine whether the town can afford a full-time fire chief and whether any other services should be cut back to allow for the paid position.
The proposal for the committee was met with open arms from both the mayor and the aldermen, who appeared willing to compromise and work together on the issue.
Several people commented during the meeting, including Elgin's Marc Lackey, who serves as a member of the South Scott County Volunteer Fire Department. Lackey told the board that Huntsville's situation causes problems for other fire departments in the area as well.
"As a member of a fire department in the area who uses Huntsville as mutual aid, we're all in a terrible, terrible situation when we have a department who has hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment and is not responding," Lackey said.
Lackey went on to call the situation a "tragedy."
"I know Dean on a personal level and a professional level and he's a fine fellow. They don't come much better than Dean King. You've got the smallest response time around. . . There's nobody in the county with a better I.S.O."
Lackey said the risk associated with lack of fire protection wasn't worth saving the funds used to pay the chief's salary.
"If you're cutting to save a few dollars and you lose a life at the nursing home or kids at the school . . . I just don't think it's going to work," he said. "(King) works well with other departments. This community is blessed to have him."
Mayor Potter stated that he felt like the town had one of the best fire chiefs in the country. But, he said, "it all comes down to we don't have $30,000 to pay a fire chief."
Jean Jeffers, one of those appointed to the committee, said the excuse of lack of money was unfounded.
"Your budget has been approved by the state," she said. "That means they have looked at how much money is going to come in to the town of Huntsville, how much is going to go out, and the state says, 'you've got plenty of money to run that little town.'
"You've got plenty of money to pay the fire chief. The excuse of not having enough money is a little bit of a lame excuse. You're a fine bunch of men. . . (B)ut your ideas are a little bit misguided."
Several of the town's former board members stressed that the current board needs to work together. Former mayor and alderman Donny Stansberry said that he was undecided on whether the town needed a paid fire chief but asked the board to work together.
"I think all of us need to find a way for the board and mayor to work together on some of these things," he said. "From what I've heard, I believe this community would probably find a way to reinstate the fire chief. Should we have a paid chief? I don't know. Frankly, I believe the best town government is free town government. I don't want to be governed by folks who can be bought for what we have to pay. . . I guess my main concern would be that we don't want those class ratings that we've achieved to go downhill. In the meantime, you all need to get along."
Former mayor Jim Morrow echoed Stansberry's sentiments.
"I'm proud of this little town," Morrow said. "I consider it home; I like living here. I challenge all of you to work together. . . I'll be honest with you, we're the laughingstock of the whole county right now. It's embarrassing. Work together let's put our differences aside and our political aspirations aside and let's work together."
Former alderman Sherra Crowley said that she was "proud to say I'm not sitting on this board right now," because of the way the mayor and aldermen were acting on television.
Huntsville businessman Rob Smith said that the disagreements between the mayor and aldermen benefit no one.
"Until you guys can learn to get along with one another, you aren't going to get anything accomplished out here," he said. "I have a great amount of appreciation for each and every one of you. But I know you've got to have cooperation to get anything done.
"I don't know what your answer is (on the fire chief) but I can tell you that you're going to have to get along," Smith added. "This is actually a comedy for people to sit and watch on TV."
Angela Morrow said that the problems stem from "a lack of creative problem solving."
"It's obvious we have a financial situation; it's obvious that everyone wants the fire chief reinstated," she said. "It seems to me like the board and its people need to come together, find what's good and find a way to do it. People have gotten angry to the point of not sitting down and finding solutions together. We have a community and you have abandoned the community."
Morrow said one solution might be to reinstate the chief and to utilize his abilities in other areas of the community.
As for the financial situation, she said, "let's get businesses back open. For the first time in my life, the hardware store's been shut down. That feels pretty bad for a lifelong resident. It's time that everybody put aside their individual bickerings and we work together to make this the kind of community it ought to be."
Mayor Potter said that new businesses are on the horizon, including a Dollar General Store and that Benson Trailer Company is about to move into the old Wabash building.
The mayor stressed that he didn't have a problem with the fire department, but didn't see how the town can afford a fire chief unless it does something different.
"Let me explain my position," he said. "My position is that we've got roads to pave, we've got right-of-ways to mow, we've got garbage to pick up, we've got light bills to pay. We'vegot all kinds of bills to be aid. That's where I come from. If we drop everything we've got to pay this (a fire chief), we've got nothing left."
Morrow responded by asking what is required to achieve an ISO rating of five, a goal set by the fire department. Alderman Woodward stated that "exactly what we've been doing," is the answer to achieving that rating.
"That should be a very high consideration," Morrow said. "It sounds like everyone wants Dean to be reinstated. My suggestion would be that the board reinstate him for a time period during which they try to resolve the financial situation."
Stansberry took firefighters to task for whta he called a refusal to respond to fire calls.
"I think it's shameful that the ifre department, regardless of how strongly they may feel about their chief - and loyalty's a great thing - it's shameful for their position to be that they're not going to respond."
Fire department member Wanda Pergram said that the fire department is willing, but is not being paged.
"We have not been paged out on anything, in the city or outside on mutual aid, since this began," she said. "There's none of us that has refused to go out on a call."
Alderman Woodward and Vice-Mayor Sexton each said that a sign has been placed at the jail informing dispatchers to not page Huntsville Fire Department on fire calls, but to instead page Mid-County Volunteer Fire Department or East 63 Volunteer Fire Department.
Mayor Potter said he would find out who placed the sign and inform the jail to begin dispatching the fire department immediately.
Dwayne Potter asked if King would be willing to volunteer as fire chief for 30 days while a solution is worked out.
"I've offered to volunteer," King said. "I've got a life and bills, too. I've played your 30 day game with your politics and it needs to be sorted out, one way or another."
Alderman Woodward said that he has talked to fire officials and that if the town goes another 30 days without the chief back in his position, "the ISO rating is gone."
Morrow suggested that the town put together a meeting, "where you've got individuals brainstorming and putting in ideas instead of bickering." The mayor stated that he was willing to give it a try, and the proposal of the 10-person committee was reached.
Most of the audience seemed relatively satisfied with the progress made at the meeting. Some called it an "important first step," and expressed their hope that the Board of Mayor and Aldermen would continue to work together to find a solution to the situation.
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