🚀 go-pugleaf

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I just pulled this out of a local newpaper, and thought you all might
find this interesting...  Any comments would be greatly appreciated..

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THE STONEWALL ARGUS & TEULON TIMES (Manitoba Canada)
Mon., May 27, 1996
                                                 COMMENT

FIGHTING FIRES WITH POLITICS

Some councillors in the RM of Woodlands may have been seen wearing red
suspenders and yellow reflective jackets lately. The lure or the shiny
red trucks and flashing lights may have been to tempting.
   The decision by some of the Woodlands councillors to construct two
new fire halls in the municipality is not based on professional
consultation.
   It's based on political parochialism.
   Two weeks before the Fire Commissioner Ray Pierson was to assess
the RM of Woodlands on which location(s) would be the most feasible
for future fire services, four councillors on the RM of Woodlands ---
Vernon Sund, Norman Baldock, David Oliver, and Lawrence Grandmont ---
decided they knew best where their fire reserve fund should be spent.
    Anywhere but Warren,  which has contributed 25 per cent to the
fire department's reserve fund for a new fire hall in the community
while the RM of Woodlands has chipped in 75 per cent.
    "They've (Warren) paid 25 per cent and we've paid 75. This way
Warren's had all the gravy all the time and I think it's high time we
start taking control," said Coun. Norm Baldock.
    Before baldock and his fellow councillors on the outskirts of
Warren build their firefighting icon they may want to to first
investigate the RM of Rockwood's attempts to construct a new fire hall
in Balmoral.
    The construction of a single-bay, single-pumper fire hall in the
small farming community made sense. There are a large number of grass
fires in the region every year and the Stonewall-Rockwood Fire
Department is based 10 miles or more away from many of the fires. The
Teulon-Rockwood Fire Department also covers an area north of Balmoral,
and when calls are made there it stretches the teulon resources
dangerously thin.
    The finances are available, the council was willing, and the
community was certainly agreeable to having a local fire department in
their own back yard.
    Except there was one problem---not enough volunteers. As Rockwood
councillor Garnet Thieven soon discovered, there were not enough men
or women in the community able to get to the fire hall at the drop of
a hat, and battle a fire. Many people in the community were farmers
and may be out in the field at the critical hour, miles away from a
phone or a vehicle.
    Although the spirit was willing, the building blocks of the
project, the volunteers, simply weren't there.
    The Woodlands councillors have pointed out some strong arguments
for Woodlands getting a three-bay fire hall. The community has a
seniors complex, trailer court, a summer vacation campground, and a
Salvation Army campground, all within a three-mile radius. But if
their argument is so strong, why not wait for the fire commissioner to
back up their case?
    A new garage filled with hoses and shiny trucks does not put out
fires. Volunteers put out fires, and the councillors of the RM of
Woodlands who want their fire hall outside of Warren better have the
"sufficient information" from their respective ward constituents that
there will be enough bodies at the bay when the fire call is sounded.
    If not, they had better get used to wearing those red suspenders
and yellow jackets.

(Written by: )
Kelly Langevin
Editor,
The stonewall Argus &
Teulon Times

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Stephen Arksey, FSI, EMT
Woodlands Municipal F.D.
P.O. Box 321, Warren,
Manitoba, Canada, ROC 3EO

Ph/Fax (204) 383-5118

E-mail sarksey@man.net