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Hernando Today

County To Form Fire Committee

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By MICHAEL D. BATES

Published: January 15, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - BROOKSVILLE - A spirit of cooperation filled county commission chambers Tuesday as fire officials vowed to join forces and work together to implement some of the collaborative recommendations proposed by a fire consultant.
Any previous resistance toward the 574-page study that had been expressed at a recent Spring Hill Fire Rescue District meeting melted away when Spring Hill Fire Chief J.J. Morrison said he wanted to publicly state his support of many of the report's recommendations.
Even Spring Hill Union president Troy Hagar said he believes many issues are workable, especially the dropping of boundaries that would allow the closest responding vehicle to respond to emergencies.
After almost two hours of polite discussion, county commissioners directed staff to get together and come up with recommendations for a committee that will be charged with moving forward the implementation of some of the recommendations of the consultant's fire study and develop a time line to get those items accomplished.
Interim County Administrator Larry Jennings said he hopes to have those staff recommendations ready to present to the county board by its next regular business meeting Feb. 5.
"We're looking for a plan that's going to work for the whole county," County Commissioner Rose Rocco said.
The purpose, she said, is not to separate but to complement the various fire departments in Hernando County.
Spring Hill voters also got assurances from county commissioners that a November referendum will proceed and the status quo will be maintained at least until then.
That referendum will ask voters if they wish to turn their fire department into a completely independent fire department, no longer under the auspices of the county.
Morrison said he plans to work with County Fire Chief Michael Nickerson on implementing some of the study's ideas before the referendum.
Phillip Kouwe, project manager and senior vice president for Oregon-based Emergency Services Consulting Inc. (ESCI) made a trip to Brooksville Tuesday to formally present the findings of his master plan study.
His biggest recommendation is to create an independent special fire district that would encompass the city of Brooksville and be governed by an appointed board of fire commissioners with equal representation of all areas served.
Kouwe, whose consulting firm was paid $128,000 for the study, presented one option that proposed dissolving the Spring Hill and county fire departments and unifying them in a single district to be funded either through an ad valorem property tax, fire protection assessment fees of a combination of both.
That consolidation would save the county an estimated $500,000 annually through the elimination of redundancy in administration costs, support services, planning and other areas, Kouwe said.
The consultant's second recommendation is to consolidate Spring Hill and the Hernando County Fire Rescue districts but exclude the city of Brooksville.
A third option, deemed not feasible, is to consolidate only the county's fire department with the city of Brooksville.
Kouwe stressed that the county must use the "closest and most appropriate" philosophy, which means firefighting vehicles be dispatched to any incident, regardless of location and jurisdictional borders.
He also stressed that the key to implementing a unified fire department is getting buy-in from all stakeholders, including the voters.
And that, he said, may prove difficult given the territorial mentality of fire departments.
But, he said, he is well aware of the political and geographical differences present in the county.
In his study, Kouwe compared consolidation to a marriage.
"Marriage is when two people become as one," he wrote. "The trouble starts when they try to decide which one."
Consolidation, he wrote, often fails "because of organizational or personal ego issues."
If complete consolidation is not an option, at least an attempt should be made to come up with standard operating guidelines that lead to greater efficiency, he said.
He said the county should view his study as a "playbook" – implementing the parts that would benefit Hernando County and dropping the rest.

Reporter Michael D. Bates can be reached at 352-544-5290 or mbates@hernandotoday.com.

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