COVER FEATURE

FIRE END

A fi re truck in a small Portage County village broke down at a fi re last month - and it’s not the fi rst time as the department comes to an end

Last month, a fi re call summoned the fi re department in the little village of Park Ridge in Portage County. Th e department was called to the town of Stockton, part of a mutual aid call the small volunteer department was used to responding to.

Th eir fi re truck made it to the fi re on May 10 in the town of Stockton in Portage County. No one was hurt in the fi re. But Park Ridge’s fi re truck, built before Jimmy Carter was president, didn’t make.

“It’s the fi rst time we had to call a tow truck,” nowformer Park Ridge Fire Chief Brian Lepper tells me on a Th ursday afternoon at Emy J’s in Stevens Point. “It’s not the fi rst time we had a truck experience a mechanical failure on an emergency scene.”

Lepper is explaining to me why no one was particularly surprised at the breakdown. For one, it’s the department’s oldest truck, built in 1974. Lepper tells me when they needed parts for it, the parts dealers assumed that a truck that old must be used for ceremonies, parades and such. Th ey’re always shocked to learn it’s actually a service truck used in live fi re scenes.

It’s the oldest of the small village’s three trucks, but none are exactly new. Th ey also have a 1980 fi re vehicle and a 1993 one. In other words, the department’s newest vehicle is nearly 30 years old, and its oldest is getting close to 50. If they were cars, they’d all qualify for collector’s plates.

Th e breakdowns are an embarrassment to the village, and to the fi refi ghters who volunteer their time to the village’s department. It’s a symbol of a fi re department left in decline by its village for years. Lepper himself put in his four month notice in February, and now several of the department’s volunteer fi refi ghters are leaving.

It’s not likely the department will be able to recruit any new volunteer fi refi ghters. After all, they only started paying anything under Lepper’s insistence when he became chief — and that pay is much lower than other volunteer departments. Another advantage those departments, such as Plover’s, have is newer equipment that’s more exciting to young fi refi ghters.

It’s another story of neglect of a fi re service, something critical to public safety. Th is is what residents pay taxes for. City Pages reported recently on how the Wausau Fire Department hadn’t seen a staffi ng increase since the 1970s, despite call volumes doubling in the last two decades alone.

Th at seemed unbelievable to many who heard it. But for all those struggles, the struggles smaller departments face is worse — as materials and equipment costs, not to mention labor cost, continue to rise, more and more departments are merging.

So it’s interesting that a village of just a few more than 500 residents still has its own department. But probably not for long.

Years of neglect

Park Ridge is a small village completely surrounded by Stevens Point; many probably don’t know about its existence. Its population is a little more than 500 people. If you’ve visited Stevens Point, you’ve probably driven past it without knowing you’d done so.

City Pages recently met with Steve Menzel. Menzel was elected to the village of Park Ridge in a recall election that saw several Park Ridge elected offi cials ousted.

Th e fi re department was a pretty big source of that recall, he says. Residents didn’t feel listened to. When the village decided to build a new fi re station that year, many residents didn’t think it was the right move. It’s not that the fi re department didn’t need the building — plus new trucks and other equipment — but some felt the village should be taking a step back to decide whether it even should have a fi re department in the fi rst place.

As both Menzel and Lepper explain, the department itself has about eight fi re calls per year in the actual village. Most of the calls to which the department responds are aid calls outside the village — Stevens Point, Plover, Hull, etc. Unlike in Marathon County, in Portage County ambulance calls are handled by the county, contracting with various fi re departments.

Some residents, including Menzel, signed on to a lawsuit over alleged open meetings violations - a zoning change that would have allowed the fi re station was done without a public hearing, residents alleged. Th e frame of the building was on its way to the village when the injunction halted the project.

Park Ridge spends $47,000 per year on its fi re department. Th e total village budget is well under $1 million. So it’s easy to see how it might be challenging to maintain a fi re department and buy new fi re trucks and a new building. It means borrowing a lot of money, and while interest rates are still pretty good, that money needs to be paid back.

Both Menzel and Lepper agree that the village never properly planned for equipment replacement. Th at’s not a recipe for success. Th e department has had multiple vehicle failures in the past. Th e most recent incident, on May 10, saw the village’s 1974 truck towed from a fi re scene in Stockton.

Would it make more sense to contract with other municipalities? The village hired a consultant to assess just that. Menzel says by August the village should have a long-term plan for its fire department, whether that means keeping it or not.

But meanwhile, Menzel says they need to come up with a short-term solution. Chief Lepper will be gone by July after resigning, the assistant chief resigned earlier this month, and of those surveyed by Menzel about whether they would be staying, only three responded as of last week. Of those, only one is staying.

Lepper didn’t give a much more optimistic assessment of whether firefighters would be sticking around. “A handful of firefighters asked me how to handle their resignation,” Lepper told me. He said he didn’t think it was appropriate to advise them on the matter. A couple of firefighters turned in their resignation after Lepper did, he said in a late-May interview.

Consolidation of fire departments and municipal cooperation are becoming the new trend. Rothschild and Schofield merged to form Riverside Fire District in 2017. Weston and Rib Mountain merged their departments to form SAFER Fire District prior to that. It’s not just cost savings on equipment and other shared expenses, though that’s a big part of it; it’s easier to maintain staffing levels when two staffs are combined.

I thought this story about Park Ridge would be interesting because it possibly serves as an example of a little fire department that stuck around despite the trend; though it’s likely the end for the department. It’s hard to imagine the consultant hired to study the issue will suggest keeping the fire department, because of the enormous costs involved and the difficulties in recruiting at this point. (Though contracting could come with its own costs, such as the need to upgrade some roads for the larger trucks of other departments. Lepper says one of the village’s roads have been chip-sealed so much, that’s all that’s left.)

And in fact, with so few firefighters left anyway, keeping the fire department probably isn’t an option.

Menzel said that the village should have a long-term plan in place for the fire department by August. In the short term? That was in progress when City Pages interviewed Menzel.

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Moving forward

The village board had a special meeting one week ago, and authorized Menzel to take “all steps necessary” to secure an agreement with the city for fire protection service. The city of Stevens Point’s Police and Fire Commission took up the proposal in closed session Monday and agreed to draft an agreement to provide fire services for the village. That draft would still need approvals from both municipalities.

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