The Town of Huntsville and the Township of Lake of Bays are taking another step on the road to amalgamating both of their fire response services.
The municipalities currently operate two fire services under one administration, and the objective now is to move towards one blended fire service with one set of operating procedures and one operating budget across both municipalities, according to Huntsville Director of Operations and Protective Services Tarmo Uukkivi.
“This way both municipalities are going to get more equitable service distribution from fire services as well as the real operating cost efficiencies that we’ve been looking for in terms of this model. Right now we are realizing some net savings in that we only have one fire chief… one administration, but we’re not taking advantage of all of the cost-saving opportunities,” said Uukkivi at the July 11 meeting of Lake of Bays Council.
Uukkivi was referencing the implementation of recommendations from the Fire Services Master Plan compiled by a consultant and received as a reference by both councils as a way of finding cost-savings and efficiencies.
He provided terms of reference for a new governance and oversight committee, with representation from both municipalities, which would manage the needs and expectations of both municipalities in terms of fire services delivery.
Only council members from both municipalities would have voting rights on the committee. The committee will also include staff members from both municipalities who would only have an advisory role. “Once the committee has gained a little bit of experience with the work it is to be doing, then… municipal councils may elect to revisit the composition and structure of the committee itself,” said Uukkivi, adding that the committee could later include members of the public as well.
You can find the full report, HERE.
Huntsville/Lake of Bays Fire Chief Gary Monahan gave the plan his endorsement. “I think Director Uukkivi has put a great amount of effort into this and I think it’s a great move for the fire service and I fully support it. Hopefully, we can move forward with it.”
Lake of Bays Mayor Terry Glover said he’s in agreement with it but said he had some concerns. “I’m just more concerned with ratio and how you break up payment for this. I can only assume that this group would determine that or talk about that. I mean we’re nowhere near as big as Huntsville, we’d have nowhere near the fire calls like we have nowhere near the police calls. I don’t want to pay half…,” said Glover.
Uukkivi said the service agreement between the two municipalities would be the first order of business for the committee to work through. “There are a lot of different examples across the province of cost-sharing agreements that are based on volumes, population, population density—all of those factors can be taken into consideration to look at the equitable distribution of services.”
Council voted in favour of establishing the oversight committee as did Huntsville Council at a previous meeting.
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Common Sense shall prevail !