Village Board defends local service against outside criticism
By Dave Fidlin
Correspondent
While structural changes might be necessary in the road ahead, Rochester officials recently doubled down on their assertion the local fire company is adequately serving the community’s needs.
Rochester Fire Company Chief Jack Biermann, Village Administrator-Treasurer Betty Novy and the Village Board on Dec. 9 discussed recent reports in local media, social media and other avenues about the state of fire and EMS protection in Rochester and the village and town of Waterford.
A range of issues about relations between the Rochester and Tichigan fire companies and the Village of Waterford’s Fire Department have been ablaze in recent months as tensions between local governing bodies have been heating up.
Response times, interdepartmental relations and the potential formation of an intergovernmental fire district are among the issues that have reached a boiling point in the trio of municipalities.
At this week’s Village Board meeting, Rochester officials had their say in the matter, which comes on the heels of an Oct. 28 vote from the elected body, nixing a request from the Village of Waterford to contract with its municipal-run fire department for service.
“I think we’ve responded to this a couple of times,” Novy said as the state of the Rochester Fire Company was revisited this week. “We, as a community, have to decide if we have an issue — not have someone else tell us if we have an issue.”
The Village Board agreed with Novy’s statements and said they continue to have faith in Biermann and his leadership of the fire company.
As a full-fledged force, the Waterford Fire Department, under the leadership of Fire Chief Rick Mueller, reports directly to the Village Board. By contrast, the volunteer Rochester and Tichigan fire companies are run independently, though they receive funding from the respective municipalities they serve.
Novy, who said she has never fielded a resident complaint against the Rochester Fire Company, asked whether members of the Village Board have heard complaints.
“To the contrary,” Trustee Russ Kumbier said. “I’ve only heard good things.”
While the two Waterfords and Rochester are geographically close to one another, philosophical and political differences have been at the heart of the recent reports that have surfaced, several Rochester board members said during the discussion.
Rochester Trustee Chris Bennett reiterated some of the criticisms he aired in October with the Village of Waterford’s overtures for contracted fire and EMS service.
“It looks to me like a revenue grab. It looks like a power grab,” Bennett said. Speaking to providing funding for the fire company, short- and long-term, Bennett said, “We can figure out a way to deal with this in-house.”
Rochester officials this week continued to share a belief that a fire district eventually will need to be formed, though questions of which municipalities would be in the fold of such an entity remain at the forefront.
“You can’t create a fire district by dictating terms,” Kumbier said.
For his part, Village President Ed Chart said he remains hopeful relations will mend and said he was amenable to trying to be a part of the process.
“If I get slapped in the face, I don’t punch back,” Chart said. “That’s just not how I was raised.”
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