FLFD chief’s resignation prompts walkout
The Fountain Lake Fire Protection District was left with a skeleton crew after its Board of Commissioners adjourned Monday night’s executive session.
Treasurer/Secretary John L. Brandt said Tuesday that Chief Steven Burroughs tendered his resignation at the meeting. Most of the volunteer department’s roughly two dozen firefighters followed his lead.
“After his resignation and he left the building, several of the firefighters turned in their gear,” he said. “We still have firefighters left. All of them did not resign. We’re still trying to find out the exact number. We don’t know if it’s six, seven or
“We still have firefighters left. All of them did not resign. We’re still trying to find out the exact number.”
— Fountain Lake Board of Commissioners Treasurer/Secretary John L. Brandt
eight who are still remaining.”
Executive sessions are exempted from the state’s open meetings law, so Brandt said he couldn’t share what was discussed at the closed-door meeting. He said Burroughs had been chief for about two years.
Brandt said the board planned to meet Tuesday night to discuss how the department will proceed with fewer personnel.
“We fully expect to still respond (to calls),” he said.
Garland County Department of Emergency Management Director Bo Robertson said Tuesday the county’s 911 Communications Center will still dispatch the department. The facility dispatches all of the volunteer departments in the county.
“We still tone out calls for service to the Fountain Lake Fire Department,” Robertson,
who is also the county’s fire services coordinator, said. “If no one answers, we tone them again. If nobody answers after the second tone, per our policy we move on to try to find someone who will respond to calls in their district.”
He said he’s confident neighboring departments will help fill any gaps in service.
“The good thing about our volunteer fire departments is that they have no problem helping out each other, especially when they get something big going on,” Robertson said. “They’re really good about that.”
But finding a mutual aid partner that can respond outside its coverage area takes time.
Robertson said the Crows Fire Protection Association, one of the closer departments to Fountain Lake, is in Saline County and can’t be dispatched by Garland County.
“The unfortunate part of that from a dispatching perspective, is it increases the time a dispatcher has to devote to getting that call for service out to first responders, and our dispatchers don’t have that much time to spare,” Robertson said.
The department petitioned the Garland County Quorum Court to confer fire protection district status in December 2019. The enabling ordinance the quorum court adopted transitioned the department from a nonprofit corporation to a quasi-governmental entity with the power to impose liens or file court claims for unpaid dues.
The deed memorializing the transition was recorded in May 2021.
Becoming a fire district put the department’s annual dues on real estate tax bills the county collector’s office mails in February. A 2019 law makes paying fire district dues a prerequisite for paying real estate taxes.
The collector’s office said Tuesday that it collected $135,010 on the department’s behalf in 2020, $112,100 in 2021 and $109,971 last year.