| Obion’s rural fire committee continues work on coverage plan |
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Posted: Monday, July 9, 2012 9:01 pm
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By KEVIN BOWDEN
Staff Reporter
A new rural fire coverage plan continues to be worked on by Obion city officials.
A week ago, Obion Fire Chief Jamie Evans submitted a 14-point plan to the Obion City Council. In that plan, Evans outlined his vision of how the Obion Volunteer Fire Department should handle rural fires within the Obion rural fire district.
The plan establishes a $125 annual fee for membership in the rural fire protection program. Members could then expect to be covered in the event of a fire and would not be charged for their first fire call and would be charged $500 for subsequent calls.
The Obion Volunteer Fire Department would still respond to fires for non-members, but the fee per call would be a minimum of $2,000.
Also, Evans’ proposal would end his fire department’s responding to vehicle and field fires in the city’s rural fire district.
“We went over his proposal,” councilman Bob Anderson told The Messenger today about a called rural fire committee meeting held Friday evening.
He said the half-hour meeting went smoothly as members of the rural fire committee reviewed Evans’ plan. The committee is made up of members of the fire department and members of the city council.
“I think it went fairly well,” Anderson said. “Our purpose was just to go over Jamie’s plan and discuss the direction we’re going.”
The city council will formally consider Evans’ rural fire protection plan at its next scheduled meeting, which will be held at 7 p.m. July 16 at Obion City Hall.
Council member Renee Webber has voiced concerns over the first item in Evans’ plan, which calls for the reinstatement “of the 2007 boundary of gridline 5280 on the Obion County 911 map.” Using that boundary, there will be certain areas in the southwest corner of the county that would not be covered by the Obion Volunteer Fire Department.
Evans has argued that the response time to areas in the Cat Corner community make it unreasonable for his firefighters to cover that area, while Mrs. Webber has stuck by her position that residents in the area deserve fire protection from the Obion Volunteer Fire Department.
Published in The Messenger 7.9.12 |
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