By Mary Spicer
The Meadville Tribune
MEADVILLE, Pa. — Meadville Volunteer Fire & Rescue Co. got something of a new lease on life Wednesday when Meadville City Council agreed to add $5,000 in monetary support for the company to the city’s 2010 budget.
However, the resolution adding the contribution also tasked the head of the city’s paid fire department with something Chief Larndo (Tunie) Hedrick said he absolutely cannot do: establish specific goals and objectives — and verify that they are being met — for a fire company over which he has no direct control.
“How can I set goals for people who will not work under me?,” Hedrick wanted to know immediately after Council member LeRoy Stearns introduced the resolution.
Leaders of the volunteer company had already made it plain that Meadville’s only non-paid fire department couldn’t survive without the city’s cash support — even if the city continued to provide insurance coverage, maintain the company’s building and vehicle, and cover expenses such as motor fuel, gas and electricity.
According to Hedrick’s estimate, total city support for the volunteer company is in the neighborhood of $20,000 per year, including the cash contribution. The volunteers estimate that they raise an additional $3,000 per year through various fundraising efforts.
In the end, councilmembers Jason Amory and LeRoy Stearns supported making the contribution. Cheryl Burkey and Christopher Soff disagreed, but Mayor Richard Friedberg cast the deciding vote and the $5,000 was restored.
Throughout the discussion leading up to the vote, council members made it very clear that if the volunteers received funding, the company had to show improvement in its fire-fighting capabilities in order for the support to continue. A central issue has been the number of “mask-qualified” volunteers — those authorized to enter burning buildings — in the company. Although current membership is somewhere in the vicinity of 15, the mask-qualified membership totals one.
“We have hundreds of hours of training every month,” said Don Shea, the retired firefighter who is in charge of training the volunteers. “We don’t have the most select people, either. ... We try to do the best with what we’ve got.”
“My instructor said four (volunteers) took the basic course,” Hedrick said. “Two completed it, but he would only trust one.”
During the discussion leading up to the vote, councilmember-elect Nancy Mangilo-Bittner, who will be taking her seat in January, spotted a failure to communicate between the paid and volunteer fire companies. “It was not clear what was expected,” she said, speaking of the seven-year-long effort to create a functional volunteer company. “Volunteers may be important if we have to lay off paid firefighters.”
As talk turned to how Hedrick could assist in training the volunteers to meet his own specifications, "(Shea) is a career firefighter in (Meadville Central Fire Department) for 31 years who raised to the level of battalion chief — and he can’t do it,” Hedrick said. “What do you want me to do?”
Without response, council voted 3-2 to restore the funding.
Copyright 2009