Fire dispatch service to be focus of mutual aid meeting

Wednesday session in Tusket is chance to determine ‘next step,’ spokesman says

A meeting being organized by the Yarmouth County Mutual Aid Association – to be held Wednesday, Aug. 29, in Tusket – will be a chance to discuss the fire dispatch issue and what to do next, a spokesman for the association says.

“Essentially this meeting is to allow everybody who’s going to be affected by this to come together and to discuss what’s our next step forward, where are we going to go from here,” said Jason Saulnier, the mutual aid association’s acting president.

The session will take place in the Père Maurice LeBlanc theatre, part of the Par-en-Bas school community centre, and is scheduled for 7 p.m.

The Town of Yarmouth, which provides the dispatch service to local fire departments, has said it wants to hear from fire departments by Sept. 24 whether they intend to stay with Yarmouth dispatch or receive service elsewhere.

“It’s a very short window for departments to make a decision,” Saulnier said.

In April, the town issued layoff notices to its four dispatchers, saying it was going to look into outsourcing fire dispatch services. The town cited what it said was a broken funding model that results in the town and its taxpayers paying a disproportionate part of the service.

The town recently sent a letter to fire chiefs of the volunteer fire departments that use the service, outlining options to maintain the local dispatch service.

But what the town is proposing “is unrealistic for the departments ... too costly,” said Saulnier, adding some departments would pay about a third of their operating budgets for the dispatch service under what the town is proposing.

A group of CAOs from some tri-county municipal units came up with a proposal for the Town of Yarmouth in an effort to maintain the local dispatch service, but the town did not accept it, saying the town still would end up paying a disproportionate amount.

News that the town was look- ing to outsource the dispatch service prompted a strong reaction from fire departments and the general public. Mayor Pam Mood has said the town understands the value of the service and how strongly people feel about it. The issue, she said, is not with the service but rather with the funding model and what it’s costing the town.

As for the Aug. 29 meeting in Tusket, Saulnier said while the session is being put on by the Yarmouth County Mutual Aid Association, the dispatch issue touches fire departments from Meteghan to Shelburne.

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