By Joseph M. Morgan

joseph@southerntorch.com

RAINSVILLE—The Rainsville City Council met Monday night to continue a discussion from the previous meeting about scaling back fire department hours and personnel. Councilman Joey Graham’s proposal was met by strong enough opposition from the handful of fire department personnel in attendance at the July 20 meeting that the council decided to adjourn for further discussion before taking the matter to a vote.

RFD showed up at the council meeting in full force Monday night to voice their disapproval of Graham’s plan to reorganize the department to work shorter shifts, including reducing RFD Chief Thomas Ridgeway’s work hours from 43 to 40 per week. Graham also proposed using part-time firefighters and volunteers to shore up the gaps created by the reduction in the length of shifts. He said his purpose was to reduce the amount of overtime paid by the city to RFD personnel.

Rainsville Mayor Nick Jones strongly voiced his disagreement with the proposal to decrease the number of hours and personnel currently serving the city of Rainsville as full-time firefighters.

“If you’re talking about taking the chief and putting him in a 40-hr admin position, that only expands the payroll,” Rainsville Mayor Nick Jones said. “We’ve got a chief that does admin and field missions. So, we’re actually getting a two-for-one deal. If you take him out of a shift, and we maintain required staffing of two people, we still have to have an additional person. That silly idea of filling half the shift with part-time firefighters on a permanent basis, that’s ridiculous. You just heard him (RFD Chief Thomas Ridgeway) say that. It’s insane...If you truly want to eliminate overtime, you don’t need to cut hours. We need a swingman. You need to hire another fireman.”

Ridgeway and his fellow firefighters voiced fierce opposition to Graham’s proposal. Ridgeway explained that the increase in overtime was unavoidable. Due to unforeseen circumstances that caused staffing shortages, including one fireman being called to serve our military, the department had been short three full-time firefighters for several weeks and was required by federal and state law to cover the shifts even if that meant accruing some overtime hours. Ridgeway protested that he and his staff had worked diligently to cut overtime, saying without such efforts the amount of overtime would have been exponentially higher.

Capt. Jason Brannon said Graham’s proposal to cut Ridgeway’s hours would also cause more overtime problems.

“The chief works a weekend shift like everybody else,” Brannon said. “If you cut him to a 40-hour week, we’ll have to call someone in to cover his shift.”

Ridgeway repeated the mayor’s view that the only solution to the problem was hiring more personnel to prevent a skeleton crew of firefighters from having no choice but to work overtime to cover shifts to meet required standards. He said the extra firefighter would allow them to fill gaps in the schedule as needed without incurring overtime expense. Despite continued questions, criticisms and challenges from council members that went on for several minutes, at the end of the exchange the council voted to approve the hire an additional full-time firefighter.

In other business, the council approved the acceptance of a grant from the Appalachian Regional Council of Governments to help create a comprehensive plan for Rainsville’s future economic and industrial development. The grant would require a $12,000 match from the City of Rainsville. On what appeared to be a non-issue, the hostility returned when Graham voiced strong opposition to accepting the grant for which the council themselves agreed to apply for only a year earlier. Graham said he wanted more time to learn about the year-old grant and discuss whether or not it was in the best interest to accept it.

Jones pointed out that the discussion had taken place in full the previous year when the council not only agreed on the matter, but went as far as to put a line item in the budget for $12,000 to set aside the money in the event that the city was awarded the grant.

“It gives us a black eye when we are awarded a grant and don’t accept it,” Jones said. “There was a lengthy discussion on this before we ever applied for the grant.”

Graham stood alone in opposition and the measure passed 5-1.

The council also voted to approve the hire of a full-time police officer and to promote Kelly Frazier from interim city clerk to full-time city clerk. The council approved the hire of four reserve police officers.

The council also approved replacing a crosswalk for $3,500 and patching potholes on Boozer Road.