- April 25, 2024
-
-
Loading
Loading
The matter of the potential merger of the Flagler Beach Fire Department with Flagler County Fire Rescue has been put to rest — again.
Flagler Beach city commissioners submitted a list of questions about the potential merger to Flagler County staff, and, at a July 1 workshop of the Flagler County Board of County Commissioners, several options for a merger were discussed.
Afterward, Steve Settle, who chairs Flagler Beach’s commission, spoke during public comment.
“At our last budget meeting,” he said, “we decided we aren’t going forward with these questions.”
That meeting ended with county staff and commissioners pledging to work together with Flagler Beach whenever possible. But Flagler Beach City Commissioner Kim Carney, who was not at the county’s workshop, placed the item on the City Commission’s meeting agenda once more.
She said she didn’t remember reaching a decision as a commission to end the conversation. While the commission did discuss the county’s answers about the potential merger at the budget workshop Settle mentioned, Carney said her interpretation of that conversation was that the matter was tabled so that commissioners would have time to read the county’s answers in-depth. Mayor Linda Provencher, too, said she didn’t remember such a decision.
Commissioner Jane Mealy and Settle both said that they didn’t attend the meeting as a commission; they attended out of interested, and Settle spoke during public comment.
“Nobody had a meeting without your presence,” Mealy said.
The issue was dropped at that, and commissioners spoke more fully about the potential merger. Most felt that the time was not right to discontinue the city’s independent operation of its fire station, and that the potential savings were not worth the loss of control the city would incur if it merged.
County Administrator Craig Coffey gave four options, ranging in savings from $125,000 to about $600,000 annually for the city to merge with the county. The cost would depend on what level of service the city hoped to maintain. But those numbers were based on last year’s Fire Department budget, and this year, Robert Pace, acting fire chief, is making cuts of about $75,000 to his budget anyway, Commissioner Marshall Shupe said.
Rather than debating the merger, the commission spent much of the meeting speaking about how to improve the department.
“Mutual cooperation is going to be the new rule in Flagler Beach,” Settle said. “We’re going to try to do that; we’re going to utilize the economies of scale (available) by working with the county.”
Pace spoke at length about the direction he sees the agency going after longtime chief Martin Roberts was fired in February on allegations of consuming alcohol while on the job.
Pace said one of the biggest concerns merger advocates had about the Fire Department is its tower truck, which is more than 25 years old. National Fire Protection Association standards recommend that vehicles older than that be retired.
But those standards are just guidelines, Pace said. He estimated that statewide, there may be just one or two fire departments — in cities like Miami — where all standards were met. However, he said, the department is working to hit as many standards as possible and to improve its Insurance Service Office ratings.
He and others who work in the department said they trusted the ladder truck, and would not be using it at work and endangering themselves if they didn't.
Pace also said that even though Flagler Beach’s firefighters are 80% volunteers (another concern), they are all sufficiently trained. The commission asked to talk about tightening the requirements for volunteering in the department in the future.
Despite the plans for changes, Pace’s future at the department is unclear: The Flagler Beach Fire Department in April filed charges against Pace for tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony, and obstruction of justice, a misdemeanor, accusing him of cheating timesheets for a man doing community service as terms of his probation and destroying video surveillance from the department.
Nevertheless, commissioners said they’ve seen improvements in the department since Pace took over, and that they expect to continue to see things improve.
“Any of the negatives (about the department) come out of the previous leadership,” Mealy said. “Now that we have new leadership and a new group of people working there — and maybe a better group of people working there — we’ll see an improvement. We already have.”
