It is hard to argue with a fire department. You might as well call a spandex-clad superhero a sissy.
Firefighters, by dint of their profession, are heroic public figures hell-bent on saving lives rescuing people and generally spending long hours in the saddle in the name of community service.
They may ask for tax dollars and they may seem overly obsessed with safety, but they do what they do because they are devoted to the cause and it is hard to argue with that devotion.
Just by the nature of the beast they start any negotiation from a position of strength. As in, “You do want to protect the town, don’t you? Well that’s all we want. How can you question that?”
Just ask the Newcastle Board of Selectmen who raised some legitimate questions this spring when Newcastle’s Taniscot Engine Co. made its case for a full time fire chief.
While the board argued for more control over the process, the fire department went directly to the voters saying we need this money for this purpose and that was essentially that.
Case closed.
More recently, the Alna Board of Selectmen and the Alna Fire Dept. have been embroiled in an increasingly nasty squabble over who exactly owns the fire station, the town or the department.
Really it’s a moot point.
The bottom line is, regardless of whose name in on the deed, the property rightfully belongs to the residents of Alna. Unless the Alna fire department wants to go entirely private, and bill for services rendered as they go and raise all other funds privately, the Alna taxpayers have the last word.
Until further notice, it remains within the taxpayer’s purview to hold the department’s feet to the financial fire if they can muster the will power to do so.
This week we applaud both the selectmen and the fire department for at least making a good faith effort to come to some sort of agreement before asking the voters for a decision.
Both parties exist to serve the town, and nasty feelings between the bodies and nit picking back and forth is not in anyone’s best interest.
It may be that ultimately the selectmen and fire department will have to agree to disagree, and the voters will ultimately have to decide the issue one way or the other.
Until then however, if both parties are truly doing their dead level best to come to some rapport, that is true public service, and we commend them for it.
