The West Haven city charter currently precludes the districts from merging under the city counsel control; it wasn't clearly stated how this can be changed, but it sounds like we would need to have a motion to ammend the city charter.
There are some very interesting statistics in the article:
The taxpayers’ commentary initially got off to an emotionally rocky start because most can’t fathom why a city of 53,000 people needs to pay for three fire budgets, including triplicate administrative salaries, for a total of more than $20 million annually compared to other towns. New Haven, for example, has 125,000 inhabitants and a fire department that costs $20.5 million annually.Chairman of the group is Paul Frosolone (who also is the Republican Town Committee chairman), but the group is decidedly non partisan, also includes Democrats, A Better Future party (former Mayor Richard Borer ran as a member of this one), and includes city counselmen, too, including City Councilwoman Sharon Spaziani, D-3.
The crux of the problem is not having separate fire departments, but having three separate sets of administrators, and three separate budgets.
Refreshingly, this doesn't appear to be slam politics, but instead seems to be a fact-finding group; from the article:
Some taxpayers, like William Kane, noted that this group’s endeavor must also seek out the truth and not the too many "half-truths" that had already infiltrated the meeting because many taxpayers started singling out fire administrator salaries and other expenditures.Also at the meeting were members of Citizens For an Excellent Fire Service , who formed to oppose a proprosed city charter revision on Sept. 19, 2003 because some firefighters felt strong-armed. However, the group doesn't take an official stand on consolidation, and refreshingly, they just wanted to be included in the discussions.
"You have to be honest if you’re going to bring this out to the public," Kane said.
Mayor Picard and the districts fire administrators and boards were apparently not directly invited to this meeting; however, Paul Frosolone promised to invite them to answer questions from the public in future meetings. Mayor Picard continues to support Citizens For an Excellent Fire Service, and urged everyone to carefully study the current 3 district situation as well as the effects of consolidation.
The group’s next meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Sept. 18. in City Hall, 355 Main St.
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I think that's what the group intends to do - educate themselves on the impact of Fire District Consolidation. It is pretty amazing that sum total in West Haven (a city of a little over 10 square miles) that have more fire chiefs than Los Angeles.
You are very correct, however, that the increase in property taxes has nothing to do with the fire districting - that's a separate tax. Our single biggest problem is the debt service - and the improper ways that we've been bonding. However, that leaves us with a huge amount of money to find... and we're all thinking about ways that we can find it, whether it be through reducing our fire department costs, or through other means.
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