Unity
“Our intent is to ask you folks around us to provide coverage, not just mutual aid,” Selectboard Chairman Ed Gregory said at the start of a meeting on Monday night that was attended by fire officials from surrounding communities.
Meanwhile, town officials are close to appointing a new chief and hope to have the town fire department restaffed within 30 days, Gregory said.
In addition to appointing new chief, Gregory said, the town has received resumes from a handful of experienced applicants who are interested in becoming firefighters.
“It will be just a matter of getting in sync with the trucks and apparatus,” he said. “We want to get this thing up and running as soon as possible.”
The coverage agreement reached on Monday does not involve fires, which all towns would respond to as part of existing mutual aid agreements, but rather to the “still alarms,” such as an odor of gas in a house that may require a small response.
Southwestern New Hampshire District Mutual Aid Chief Phil Tirrell, who organized the meeting, said there are already established zones for mutual aid within Unity, and beginning this weekend, call response would be based on which department is assigned to the zone where the call originates.
Unity is bordered by Claremont and Newport to the north, Goshen to the east, Acworth and Lempster to the south and Charlestown to the west. Each department was represented at Monday’s meeting.
“What makes sense is to divide (coverage) up by zone,” Tirrell said.
With a total of 175 calls last year in Unity, Tirrell estimated there would be an emergency call every couple of days.
The group did not discuss whether there would be any charge to Unity, but it was suggested that the Selectboard contact counterparts in each town because additional costs ultimately will be borne by local taxpayers.
“The issue for me is my financial and ethical obligations,” Claremont Fire Chief Rick Bergeron said. “I respond back to the city manager and City Council so I can’t arbitrarily say we will respond to any calls automatically until I clear it with my boss.”
A call to Unity means calling in additional help to cover the station, and that can mean overtime, he said.
When a new chief is appointed, Gregory said, the first order of business would be to contact other departments to discuss coverage coordination and incident command.
“That should be discussed among area chiefs,” said Lempster Assistant Chief Brandon Langlois.
The eight members of the Unity department resigned in the wake of a vote at Town Meeting in March that gave the Selectboard the authority to appoint the town’s fire chief. The board also now has the final say on the appointment of firefighters based on recommendations from the chief. The changes are to take effect next March.
Currently, the chief is elected by a two-thirds majority of the department’s members, and firefighters also are appointed by the department membership.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
