Fred, you have no idea what you are talking about. All 4 Districts that merged would have been charging taxes through the roof in order to survive as they were. If you were to calculate today's taxes at the rate the taxes were going up in the old Districts, Central Coventry would have been $2.30 to $2.40; Washington would have been $2.50 to $2.60; Harris would have been $3.00; and Tiogue would have been $2.80 to $2.90. Your tax rate for the last 2 years has been $1.82. If you would like to discuss the facts any further and how much more professional your fire department is, call me at Smithfield FD Headquarters, 949-1330. Further, there is much more that the fire department does for the community that creates cost, besides responding to alarms. Also, I brought in $1.8 million dollars in grant money to CCFD during my tenure and I brought in $250,000 of grant money to the Town of Coventry. Tell me what other Coventry public safety officials pulled off such grant monies for the town? I have always had an open door policy and always will as a public official. If you really care, investigate the facts instead of making wild accusations.

Thanks for clearing that up Chief. I agree the merger saved $$. We should merge the Town and maybe append WW.
My point was merely to highlight the cost.
However, I do think more could be done (and could have been done on your watch) to reign in salaries and benefits given the economy and what other communities have sacrified. I also believe that a lot of time is spent on non FD duty related activities by staff while on FD time with no disciplinary action by management. The lack of personnell management in that arena is concerning. I am certain personal, political, and business activities are conducted on a regular basis. (Car washing, Car Repair, Emails, Facebook, Scheduling estimates, billing, etc.).