Firefighter walkout due to staffing dispute with city

Company 1's decision to separate from the Salisbury Fire Department adds fuel to existing political tension surrounding fire service.

An initiative to have volunteer firefighters man Salisbury fire stations overnight as a way to improve response time appears to be at the heart of the impending exit of members of the all-volunteer Company 1 from the fire department.

Wicomico County Executive Bob Culver said the volunteers at that station contacted him to intervene with Salisbury Mayor Jake Day after they said the city began ordering them to spend all night at the station twice a month.

“I didn’t agree with that because these people have families and have jobs,” Culver said. “I said, ‘Jake, I’m getting calls and they can’t do it.’ Let’s face it, most of these crews are young people.”

City officials agree that changes made by Chief Rick Hoppes are part of the reason the volunteers left, but Hoppes said the new rules are not mandatory. Volunteers are still allowed to respond from their homes, although new recruits will be required to man the stations, he said.

“This is a significant change to their way of life, and I understand that,” Hoppes said.

Company 1 President David Elliott Sr. and Vice President Charles Foskey, who announced plans to separate from Station 1 on Beaglin Park Drive, and other firefighters all declined to comment on the record when contacted by The Daily Times. A Company 1 press release from late Friday highlighted points the group says are inaccurate.

Response time

Hoppes said the decision to have volunteers help man the city’s three fire stations on nights and weekends was made by a task force of fire department members. The goal was to improve response time to fires and medical emergencies, he said.

Volunteers at Station 1 have failed to meet standards for response time during the past four years, Hoppes said. Career staff members are expected to have a 90-second turnout 90 percent of the time, while volunteers are asked to have a four-minute turnout 90 percent of the time.

Career staff members exceeded that goal with a 91.61 percent average response rate from 2013 through 2016, but the average response for Company 1 was 50.4 percent in the same period, he said.

The numbers for volunteers at Stations 2 and 16 are higher, but “not where we want them to be,” Hoppes said.

Improving response time is a goal of the fire department, which responds to fire and ambulance calls in an areas that extends outside city limits.

“Unless we have staff in the stations ready to respond, we can’t meet that goal,” Hoppes said.

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Déjà vu

Things came to a head the night of Feb. 22 when Elliott and Foskey issued a news release announcing that Company 1 had decided to separate from the Salisbury Fire Department effective July 1.

In a second news release issued late Friday, members said the city has locked them out of Station 1 and threatened them with criminal trespass charges.

The mayor tells a slightly different version. Seven members drove to Station 1 and began removing equipment and loading it into their personal vehicles, according to Day. City police officers arrived on the scene and told the firefighters to return the equipment to the building. They did so, and the city declined to press charges, he said.

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The city has since scheduled time for them to return and collect their personal belongings and anything owned by the fire company, such as files.

Day said 10 of the 30 members of Company 1 have resigned, while 10 more have expressed interest in transferring to another volunteer company in the fire department. The rest were still pending as of Friday, he said.

Company 1 officials have disputed those numbers, saying that only two members have said they intend to stay with the department. They also claim they have received nine applications for membership since they announced plans to separate.

The volunteers also said they have not resigned since their intention to separate from the department doesn’t start until July 1.

This split at Station 1 is the latest chapter in the history of the Salisbury Fire Department where there has been an ongoing tension between career and volunteer firefighters for decades.

Hoppes, who has been with the department for 32 years, said there was an incident in 1983 in which a volunteer got into a physical altercation with a paid paramedic. The volunteer was disciplined as a result, but that didn’t sit well with other volunteers, who took issue with the fire chief disciplining one of their own.

The volunteers went on strike, although it was “short-lived,” he said.

Then in 2002, Station 2 voted to leave the department, citing disagreements with then-chief Stephen Brezler, according to news reports.

Members said at the time they wanted to operate as their own unit because of what they viewed as autocratic moves made by Brezler.

In March 2003, Station 1 sent letters to the Salisbury City Council and then-mayor Barrie Parsons Tilghman, criticizing Brezler’s plan to have four career firefighters supervise city operations 24 hours a day.

“This structuring will be to the detriment of the Salisbury Volunteer Fire Department,” read the letter, from Feb. 20 of that year.

At that time, however, Station 1 said it was not looking to separate from the Salisbury Fire Department, and was concerned solely with the command changes. Station 1 firefighters said they felt as if Brezler was not listening to the volunteers as much as the paid firefighters.

Brezler resigned as a result of the pushback.

Branching out

Officers of Company 1 announced Wednesday night that they planned to separate from the fire department effective July 1 because the city had refused to participate in mediation.

Station 1 volunteers have said they want to establish a separate base of operation “out from under the umbrella of SFD.”

Culver said he has been in preliminary talks with its leadership about assuming responsibility for fire service at the Salisbury-Ocean City: Wicomico Regional Airport. This would create a new volunteer fire company in the county.

There’s a need. Piedmont Airlines, the airport’s lone commercial carrier, has notified the county that it is planning by November to stop staffing with its own employees the fire truck that responds to incidents at the facility. The service is required by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“I did offer that to the Station 1 volunteers,” Culver said Friday.

Culver "has given no assurances or promises to the company," a Friday press release from Company 1 stated. 

A Piedmont Airlines spokeswoman said the maintenance schedules are changing due to the transition from turboprop planes to jets that connect to airports in Philadelphia and Charlotte, North Carolina.

The arrangement at the Salisbury airport is “very rare” because it currently relies on a maintenance team to provide emergency response service in place of a fire department, the spokeswoman said.

Salisbury Mayor Jake Day said he was unaware of the issue at the airport until Friday morning, when Culver “let that out of the bag” during a meeting to discuss the fire service agreement between the city and county.

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Starting up a new fire company at the airport or anywhere else in the county would require a territory, a building, vehicles and equipment, and firefighters, Day said. It also would require the backing of the county and the Fire Chiefs Association.

Although the airport is closer to Parsonsburg, the small volunteer company there is not equipped to handle a major emergency, Day said.

The volunteers at Station 1 have sought independence from the fire department for a long time, but it isn’t going to happen in Salisbury, he said.

“This is a political ploy,” he said. “It’s not about public safety or the fire service.”

Public reaction

Observers say the issue points up the value of volunteers who risk their lives for no pay in a climate driven by time and money.

"If the city fire department wants to bring in more paid firemen, that's good, but I support the volunteers, too," said June Sargent, who lives in the vicinity of Station 1.

Volunteers often pivot between paid jobs and unpaid fire-and-rescue missions.

"I imagine they would relocate in the area, somewhere nearby. I wish them well," Sargent said.

News about the Station 1 separation generated buzz around the Princess Anne Volunteer Fire Company, although Chief Rondell Redding said losing a few firefighters should not threaten communities served.

He cited a mutual aid agreement between regional fire companies that assures backup firefighter assistance when needed by neighboring communities.

"Losing anybody is a factor, but you still have the next company over" to lend assistance, said Redding, who heads an all-volunteer group of firefighters. "They would bring in another three or four guys through the MAA. Shutting down a station — that would be different."

The separation will have no effect on services, Day said Thursday.

Fewer volunteers would mean more tax dollars needed to pay salary and benefits of career firefighters, said Mike Poremba of Eden. Volunteer firefighters are dedicated community servants, reporting to the job because they care, not because it pays the bills, he said.

"Taxpayers appreciate volunteers," said Poremba, whose hometown is served by a volunteer fire company in nearby Allen. "I'm comfortable and secure, and I don't have to lay out more money to pay firefighters. "Whenever you need them, they're there."