Crime & Safety

Baldwin Residents Left Frustrated After Fire-Mergers Meeting

But most officials still hope to split the borough into northern and southern districts.

The axe didn't fall on Option Independent Fire Company on Wednesday night, as Baldwin Borough's council members have yet to make known their decision regarding the future of Baldwin's fire service.

Actually, no council members—nor the mayor—spoke at all during Wednesday night's public hearing despite multiple attempts by audience members to get answers to frequently asked questions.

Borough solicitor Stanley B. Lederman, however, opened the meeting at the Baldwin municipal auditorium by explaining that the borough's Emergency Management Committee has proposed to the council that Baldwin be split into two fire zones—northern and southern.

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With that would come the construction of a new fire station along Brownsville Road in south Baldwin and the expansion and renovation of north Baldwin's Independent Fire Company No. 1 station.

"The dividing line would pretty much cut the borough in half," Lederman said, with Baldwin Independent No. 1 volunteers serving the Northern District out of No. 1's Churchview Avenue fire station and Option Independent and South Baldwin Volunteer Fire Company volunteers serving the Southern District out of the new Brownsville fire station.

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That would make Option's headquarters along Streets Run Road and South Baldwin's headquarters along McAnulty Road no longer official borough fire buildings.

Also under the proposal, Lederman said, the borough would continue to have three fire chiefs ultimately reporting to Baldwin's emergency management coordinator—currently Kenneth Guerra. However, those chiefs, should the proposal be adopted, will consist of a Northern District chief, a Southern District chief and an overall chief to whom the district chiefs report.

Option Fire officials, who went public in June with some of the emergency management committee's proposal, continued on Wednesday night to object to a possible merger with South Baldwin Fire.

The Option officials, sitting in a cluster away from the borough's other emergency managers (seated in front of microphones at the front of the room), mostly waited until public-comments time to speak.

Before that, Guerra, Baldwin police Chief Michael Scott, borough Manager John Barrett and officials from the other two fire companies opined that the two-district system is in the best interests of the borough.

Cited most often as rationale for that opinion were cost-savings and improvements in formalized training. The cost-savings would stem from the reduction of equipment duplication and the ability to purchase some equipment in bulk, proponents of the two-district system said. And better training could lead to more uniformity and a better opportunity at receiving grant money.

Scott asserted that new, "state-of-the-art" fire stations would also help to attract more volunteers, thereby helping to reduce emergency response times.

And South Baldwin Chief Joe Cambest noted that a Brownsville station would be close to The Residences of South Hills apartments complex, where 80 percent of his department's calls come from.

But Option officials, along with a large percentage of Wednesday's audience, disagreed with a need for consolidation, arguing that Option is healthy enough—its headquarters is mortgage-free, and its volunteer numbers are climbing—to remain status quo.

"It's not broke, so don't fix it,” said Matt Colaizzi of Young Drive, currently in Option's service territory, during the public-comments period.

And Option Chief Jim Barbour said that moving fire stations farther from some residents could result in an increase in those residents' home insurance rates.

Another Baldwin resident (and the borough's tax collector), Gail Dobson Mikush, disagreed with Colaizzi and others repeating the "don't fix it" mantra despite the fact that her home would be farther away from her current fire station should the proposal be approved.

Mikush, who lives along Portia Drive in South Baldwin's territory and would be farther from a Brownsville station than the McAnulty one, believes that even she would be better served by consolidation.

"They're not getting to the fire calls as quickly as possibly needed," Mikush said, in general, of Baldwin's firefighters. "This merger would create, like Bethel Park and Whitehall, one fire department with several stations. That would end up having all those people come together as volunteers, and when the fire whistles go off ... that's gonna have more firefighters able to get to your home."

Mikush's opinion drew applause from some members of the crowd in support of consolidation, but equal applause came from differing opinions like Colaizzi's.

However, people from both sides of the debate seemed equally frustrated by a lack of answers from borough officials to questions like "Where would the money come from to build a new fire station?," "Where along Brownsville would the new station be built?," "When would all of this happen?" and others.

Lederman said that questions asked during the public hearing could go unanswered, and most of them did.

However, Barrett did say that the borough's $264,000 in annual tax-based fire allocation would not change (neither grow nor shrink) if consolidation took place, prompting many in the audience to ask how that would equate to a cost-savings.

Independent No. 1 Assistant Chief Kevin Kenny did respond to that, saying that the $264,000 would be put into more efficient use and that, eventually, the fire companies wouldn't need as much money.

Barrett said that he does not foresee a "fire tax" coming to the borough.

Pam Bandi of Streets Run in Option's territory, suggested that the consolidation proposal be put up for a vote across Baldwin rather than be decided by the council members.

Lederman said that the council will take Bandi's comments, like others heard on Wednesday, into advisement.

In an interview after the meeting, Councilman John Conley said that an official decision should not be expected anytime soon.

Lederman said during the meeting that, even if consolidation were to be approved, the plan would take years to implement. During the implementation phase, the borough's current three-station setup would continue as is.

Where do you stand on this issue? Leave your opinion in the comments section below.


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