Fire expansion plan fails 3-2

At Monday's Commissioners meeting Citizens for Better Government presented their proposal. This got the issue of friction between the VFDs and the city fire department out in the open for the first time.

Commissioner Al Riddle expressed his opposition to the proposed City - County fire service agreement and questioned why the city thinks it needs to build a third fire station.

Various people spoke in support of Chief McCrae especially Jerry Clark from the Sugar Hill VFD. He tried to claim that while the other VFDs might have more volunteers on their roster, a lot of them don't actually turn out for alarms.

Commissioner Jimmy Parker made a motion to support a proposal for the County to pay for the addition of two more firefighters each year for five years, a total increase of ten people by 2021, increasing the County's annual fire protection expenditure from $480,000 to over $1 million.

He did not get a second from any other Commissioner so Judge Brian Lee seconded it. It was defeated 3-2 with Commissioners Riddle, Mike Fields and Dana Applewhite voting against.

The subject was then tabled and will be put on the agenda for the Commissioners meeting on April 24. The Commissioners intend to seek more input from the VFDs in the next four weeks.