Hamilton steps closer to fire department consolidation

HAMILTON » The days of Hamilton Township having a bloated, big government fire service are coming to an end.

2018 annual fire elections take place Feb. 17, likely marking the final time when Hamilton voters shall decide whether nine autonomous fire districts get their budgets approved or rejected.

That is because Hamilton Council under the leadership of Democratic Council President Anthony Carabelli Jr. on Tuesday expressed its intent to soon consolidate Hamilton’s disjointed fire service into a municipal fire department that services the entire 40-square-mile township.

“I think the fire professionals want to see us make a decision,” Carabelli said in public comments. “I have thought this through for a while. I believe we have to get this right.”

Carabelli, who won election last November with a huge mandate of support, on Tuesday endorsed the research and recommendations of Hamilton Republicans who in December 2017 suggested the township should consolidate the antiquated fire service into a municipal department.

Hamilton’s fire service currently comprises nine autonomous districts each governed by five elected commissioners who all collect taxpayerfunded salaries. Prominent Hamilton Republicans such as former councilman Dennis Pone and current Business Administrator Dave Kenny have long criticized the status quo as being inefficient and said a municipal department would present the best way to control costs.

Hamilton’s two professional firefighter unions jumpstarted the consolidation process in October 2015 when career firefighters began collecting petitions, which was a procedural prerequisite to transforming the fire service into something more modern and streamlined.

With the petition-collection process already completed and certified, the next step for Hamilton’s fire service to be unified under one entity would require Hamilton Council to pass an ordinance on first read by a simple majority vote and then submit a proposed fire budget to the state’s Local Finance Board for review. Upon securing state approval, the council could proceed with passing a pro-consolidation ordinance on second read.

Hamilton FMBA Locals 84 and 284 from the beginning have said consolidation would improve public safety for firefighters and civilians and would promote efficiency. While Hamilton Council intends to consolidate the fire service into a municipal department, the governing body could have pursued consolidation into one district overseen by five commissioners elected by the public at large.

One of the biggest cheerleaders for the single-district model was Joseph T. Zalescik, the elected commissioner and chairman of Hamilton Fire District 3. He recommended Hamilton Council to support the dissolution of all fire districts save for District 3, saying District 3 could be left standing and be bolstered with expanded jurisdiction over the entire township “so that you are not starting from scratch with an unknown entity.”

Hamilton Council under Democratic leadership has summarily dismissed Zalescik’s idea, which was previously batted down by Republican leadership in 2017.

“I am fully behind the municipal department idea,” Carabelli said at Tuesday’s council meeting. “It is really a nonpartisan issue. … I stand firmly behind it.”

Bipartisan consensus

It was already known for

weeks that Republican Hamilton Council members Ralph Mastrangelo and Ileana Schirmer favored consolidation into a municipal fire department, but there was no guarantee that the newly elected Democratic leadership would embrace the Republican Party’s research and recommendations on consolidation.

In the end, all three Democrats on Hamilton Council confirmed they want the township’s 100-year-old-plus fire service to go municipal.

“I am for a municipal department,” Democratic Council Vice President Jeff Martin said at Tuesday’s Hamilton Council meeting. He said he would like to see “some type of volunteer involvement” of the forthcoming Hamilton Township municipal fire department, adding, “I think the municipal department brings the most tax efficiency.”

Democratic Councilman Richard “Rick” Tighe at Tuesday’s meeting said he also favors consolidating the fire service into a municipal department. He said the township should “do whatever we can to minimize disruption to first responders” as the township transitions away from the status quo and into a municipal department overseen by the mayor and Hamilton Council. Tighe also said it is “important” to include an advisory commission that would provide township officials with expert advice on fire service matters.

Pone, the former GOP councilman who lost re-election

to a fourth term last November, attended Tuesday’s Hamilton Council meeting and expressed appreciation and delight with the Democrat-led governing body endorsing the municipal department consolidation plan that was first advocated by the then-all-Republican Hamilton Council last December.

A municipal department brings the “biggest benefit” and “makes greater sense” than any other alternative to consolidation, Carabelli said on Tuesday. “It streamlines the process.”

One of the advantages of a municipal fire department is that it would operate under the township’s pre-existing governing structure. The municipal model will also allow Hamilton Council to pass bond ordinances to finance fire department capital improvements, whereas a district model would give voters the power to reject fire budgets and the power to vote down referendums calling for facility repairs.

Mayor Kelly Yaede to be involved with the subcommittee. Councilmen Martin and Mastrangelo, a retired Hamilton policeman, would both be members on the subcommittee, Carabelli said, adding Martin “has done a fantastic job researching this issue.”

Carabelli said he would love to see Fire Chief Kraemer as a member on the consolidation subcommittee, but he did not clarify whether he was referring to Chief Steven Kraemer of Fire District 3 or Chief Richard Kraemer of Fire District 6. Richard Kraemer is more experienced than his brother, although public records show Steven Kraemer gets paid more money.

Fire District 3 pays Chief Steven Kraemer $168,312 in annual salary compared with Fire District 6 that pays the more experienced Richard Kraemer $148,968 per year. This anecdote could perhaps explain why members of Hamilton Council did not want the fire service to be consolidated into Fire District

3, which public records show pays among the highest in wages and has one of the largest budgets and tax rates of the nine autonomous fire districts, hardly evidence of a cost-effective enterprise.

It appears that Hamilton Council wants to establish a township-wide municipal fire department and abolish Hamilton Township Fire Districts 2 through 9 and leave untouched Hamilton Fire District 1, which services the southernmost part of Hamilton as well as parts of Chesterfield Township in Burlington County.

Hamilton Council on Tuesday indicated it wants more information on how Hamilton residents of Fire District 1 might be impacted once consolidation takes effect, including whether they would face a double taxation prospect of paying property taxes that partly finance a municipal fire department and Fire District 1 at the same time.

Of the township’s nine autonomous fire districts, only

District 1 has jurisdictional authority that extends into another municipality. The District 1 Board of Fire Commissioners collects taxation from residents in Hamilton and Chesterfield, and the district straddles across both townships.

Questions still remain concerning District 1, but Hamilton Township is on track to have a municipal fire department up and running later this year under the timeline that Carabelli outlined, assuming the Gov. Phil Murphy administration quickly approves of the proposed municipal department without delay.

The Hamilton Township Professional Firefighters Facebook page posted the following comment Tuesday after Hamilton Council voted in favor of creating a municipal fire department: “The Hamilton Career Township Firefighters have tirelessly worked for many years for this day. We, as a collective, wanted to make for a safer Hamilton and today marks a historic day to achieving this goal. We will continue to work with all parties involved to make the fire department second to none and provide Hamilton Township the best service in the State.”